In modern America it seems to be less common to have a significant amount of hands-on/”maker”/craft skills. Taking into account that their technology was different, do you think that older generations had a higher average level of skills and abilities when it came to making/building/fixing things?
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My grandfather could have rebuilt a carb as well, and I’d be absolutely hopeless at it. I believe that if you took my grandpa and dropped him at my desk and told him to run a software company he’d be equally lost.
What you’re describing is common – looking back and thinking that was a better time, with better people. In truth, things just change, “useful” skills come and go, and society moves in different directions and values different skills.
Yes and no.
Things like appliances were a lot more expensive so it made more sense to repair them rather than replace them.
There was definitely that mentality during the Great Depression when money was short to come by. An entire generation grew up with a DIY mentality.
Nowadays, many consumer electronics, cheap furniture, cheap clothing is generally easier to just replace than take the time to repair/mend.
However, with platforms like YouTube, it’s never been easier to DIY fixes from mending clothing to building a deck/shed.
In many ways DIY is becoming more appealing again as specialists, construction workers and laborers become more expensive with less availability.
Like even replacing a window can take months.
My family has always been handymen and handywomen with exception of my British grandma. But even my 91 yo grandpa is still doing handyman stuff. I taught my foreign fiancé to be able to work on things to a minimum too and she’s very grateful of that.
I think now people are able to do more, but don’t have the common knowledge (probably also due to the advancements in technology) to do it until they look it up. Like idk how a car engine completely works, but I can google it and fix it cuz I have the tools.
No, I don’t. I’ve seen too many “homeowner specials” to say otherwise. The shit some of these people got up to and said “eh, good enough” is mindblowing. Seriously, if you ever end up having to go through the house maintenance of an older relative who did DIY you’ll see what I mean.
From what I’ve seen, the main differentiator is just that older generations were able to hit milestones like home ownership earlier. From what I see, millennials and zoomers do just fine once we’re in the situation where it’s necessary. And because we’re so used to having the internet at our fingertips to find the right way to do things, I find we more often do them right.
I think people used to have more of these skills, because:
1) Things were simpler. While cars today, for example, are extremely complex and inaccessible, they were easier to work on years ago.
2) Just 90 years ago was the depression. Nobody had any money. They had to be able to repair things or make things themselves.
3) Not many years before that, most people weren’t blessed with the goods and services of the world at their fingertips. Plus, with no radio, TV, or internet, they needed something to do with their hands in the evenings—especially in winter. Folks knitted, sewed clothes, made wooden toys—whatever.
In my experience, my grandparents are more specialized while my skills are a little more scattershot.
Both my grandmas can sew amazing clothes, and all of my grandparents can garden. One set of grandparents grows a lot of their own food, and the other has a rose bush they’ve moved between 5+ houses and into their current condo. One grandma can knit, both love to read, but sewing is the thing I hear about the most.
I can sew, embroider, knit, crochet, make chainmail, spin yarn, do basic woodworking projects, play the ukulele, and have a bunch of other hobbies and projects going at any point. I’m nowhere near as skilled as my grandparents at any one thing, but I’m entirely self taught and always learning more (next weekend’s project is to learn to fix my sink).
Thanks to the Internet, it’s a lot easier to learn things than it was in the past, and young folks have had less time to specialize.
It’s one of those “r/terriblefacebookmemes”, but there’s a little truth to it…
“Vehicle owners manuals used to tell you how to adjust the valves. Now, they tell you not to drink the battery acid.”
I am restoring a 1949 Ford sedan, and I have purchased an original 1949 Ford owner’s manual, and, indeed, it does have a maintenance section where it explains to the OWNER how to change oil, replace weatherstripping, adjust carburetor jets, set the timing…..
Things only a small percentage of today’s society are capable of.
However, you have to realize that this has always been the case. Skillsets don’t disappear through time. They *change*. People aren’t dumber, or less capable. The technology has shifted.
50 years from now, computers and robots will likely be building and programming computers and robots, and people will ask, “Is it true? Did actual *people* used to write their own code?!?!?”
As if people are getting less skilled.
No. Their skills are *shifting*, not decreasing.
I am 40. My mom is in her late 60s.
Her mom sewed her clothes when she was in high school. Since my grandma was sick, it was a way for her to pass the time, basically making my mom an outfit a day.
My mom can hem pants and fix buttons.
I try on dozens of pairs of pants until I find one that mostly fits and then wear heels. If a button pops off, I bring it to my mom.
But I do the electronics setups for my parents. Like the Amazon fire stick, anything on my mom’s phone, etc. It evens out.
Yes, because products were less sophisticated and possible to maintain using tools available in an average home. For example, even a window fan today uses at least one microprocessor and is typically made to be assembled very quickly and efficiently with the fewest number of components possible. That’s great to reduce the initial cost but makes maintenance problematic.
Larger and more expensive products also have legal, intellectual property, and other constraints that make home repair more difficult which has led to the “right to repair” laws which have been only fractionally successful.
Old person… And I don’t think so. The skills are different for sure but with the YouTube tutorial just a click away you can find instructions for any kind of DIY job. And honestly… Being a “maker/mechanic/tinkerer/etc” seems to be pretty popular.
Yes. My dad, who’d be almost 100 today, could fix anything.
After inheriting my grandfathers car (born early 1930s), and multiple times throughout my youth having to deal with helping him repair his house, I think mostly old people were cheap and thought they could Jerry rig everything.
I would say from the perspective of a career in the skilled trades, there is a huge need for young blood, but no one seems to want to do that work anymore.
As far as crafty creative stuff, no. I’m constantly amazed by the stuff people do from there homes with no training or experience.
It’s more a matter of desire than ability. Humans are capable of learning and doing so many things, but people don’t seem to be interested in learning handyman/plumber/contractor/electrician type skills. At least not to make a living.
Yes and no. I’m middle aged—late Gen Xer—and can cook or bake almost anything, grow enough vegetables in summer to feed a household (and preserve the excess), and knit a sweater. My husband has all sorts of handy tech (e.g., computer repair) and home renovation skills, e.g., he and another GenX friend gutted and remodeled our kitchen and sided our house. I know plenty of Millennials who’ve repaired and rebuilt cars, remodeled their own homes, etc.
I have several friends who are a generation older and seem almost proud that they don’t and can’t cook, and my in-laws hire everything done. Other Boomers and older generations take pride in their creative skills. I think it’s less generational and more about personal priorities and necessity.
If anything, I agree with someone else in the comments who noted that it’s easier than ever to use the internet to learn how to do things, and the interest and curiosity in learning is not generational. My father is in his mid-70s and learned how to fix minor plumbing problems via YouTube just a couple of years ago. He’s also taught himself a lot of cooking skills from watching YouTube and Food Network videos.
Absolutely, if you grew up in the great depression like my parent’s generation you knew a lot more about a great many things and were much more handy.
Kinda a high price to pay though.
Not even close.
There were certainly more handtools and more of a willingness to take the time to do things well. Look at any engineering drawing from 75 years ago and you’ll see a care not exercised on today’s CAD drawings despite being hand drawn and more time consuming.
My grandfather was a finish carpenter who worked on the trimwork of many high end buildings like the local Masonic lodge that have elaborate wood moldings. They did it all before fancy miter saws and the like and when you see them in person they’re still close to perfect. I didn’t get a lot of time with him but even in his 60’s there was an economy he had in movements while executing cuts with handtools that would be a struggle to match. The countless hours perfecting a craft like that isn’t seen as much due to the time investment. I’m not unskilled with tools but I’d bet he could have doubled my speed with better quality using hand tools.
Yes and no. I think there are a lot of things that contribute to the feeling that people were more handy back then.
1. The need to be handy. Sometimes you had to repair your own stuff because there was nobody around to do it for you, depending on where you lived. Or you didn’t have the money to get something repaired.
2. It was easier. Things were simpler back then. It’s a lot easier to rebuild a carburetor than it is to diagnose what’s wrong with a computer-controlled fuel delivery system.
3. Things were meant to last. More and more products are become easily replaceable and cheap to build/buy. There’s less of a need to repair something over just replacing it.
With that said, I’m a DIY that does most of my own repairs on my house and cars. This weekend I finished building a pergola, changed my car’s oil, and replaced the battery in my other car. I know plenty of people my age (40) who don’t even know how to replace a light switch. With that said, I remember going with my dad to replace ceiling fans in his boomer friends’ houses because they couldn’t do it. My FIL also won’t do anything himself. So despite the common perception, I don’t think it’s as widespread as it seems.
I’m seeing a lot of justification here from younger people as to why they aren’t as handy, and I’m not buying it. They say cars are more technology based, which is true, but we also have more technology available to help us. When my vehicles throw an engine code I plug in a bluetooth OBII scanner connected to my phone, go to Youtube and diagnose what’s wrong and how to fix it. When my appliances stope working, I again go to youtube and then order the parts I need. Stuff is still easy to fix IF you aren’t afraid to try. But I also grew up in the 80’s watching my Boomer dad to the same stuff (and the 90’s with him teaching me), but with him it was go to the library and get a book and read up on how to fix something. The information was still available, it just took a little longer to access.
I see a lot of comments that older generations are less tech savvy, but those are also the generations that developed a LOT of the current tech so I don’t believe that. Dad bought a book and taught himself how to program when he couldn’t find a programmer to do what he wanted. My 78 year old Silent Generation FIL does everything through his phone, all his bill-pay, banking, etc.
I think a lot of the skillsets are location based though. I live in the country, and myself and a lot of my friends my age work on our own cars, build our own decks, renovate our own homes, we know how to tune a carb (that seems to be popular comment today lol). But a lot of my suburban or urban co-workers just say “we pay someone to do that” and it doesn’t matter if they’re millennils, gen x, or boomers.
My parents bought a VCR in the 1980s, the cheap model was $1,200 which is like $3k today. If my $20 Blu ray player dies, I buy a new one. Harder when basic consumer electronics were in the thousands. People would pay $100 to fix their very expensive piece of equipment.
Yes, and the repair men were better too.
The big difference, I think, is ownership. If you’re renting a home or leasing a car then you have less incentive to learn how to fix things.
As soon as I bought my own care and now that I own a home, I’m way handier than I was three years ago.
Yeah. My father was handier than I was, his father was handier than that and my great-grandfather *built* the house my dad grew up in.
Likewise, making clothes at home used to be a fairly normal activity. Now, it impresses my wife that I *iron*.
Of course. And they used to adept at working on cars… every man had a toolbox and a workbench… there was no triple A to call… no cell phones… you better be handy or you were just fucked.
It’s honestly sad how fucked we would be in this day and age if we simply lost electricity
This is a trick question because things used to be more “fixable.” They had actual mechanical parts that a person could remove and repair or replace. Now there are more computers and parts that a normal person with his own tools is not capable of diagnosing, repairing or replacing.
The 2008/9 financial crisis really hurt the skilled trades industry because so many old timers retired, retired early or changed occupation so they haven’t been around the past 10-15 years to pass on their knowledge. Yes there is training programs and union apprenticeships which teach the basics by the book and by code. They can do adequate work, but there’s no old guys around to teach actual craftsmanship and tips and tricks.
Fwiw I remember my dad dropping me and my brothers off in Michigan one summer with my mom’s dad and his wife. Apparently they were appalled by how little we came with. That evening my step grandmother did some quick measurements on us. Next day she completely busted out pajamas and simple nightgowns during the time it took for grandpa to take us out in his boat on the lake to catch flounder for dinner.
I think she did it from polyester she had on the bolt for who knows what, but it was a Hawaiian print and we all looked like the Von Trapp children lol
It’s almost impossible to find people outside of major cities who do things like tune pianos or fix grandfather clocks
Maybe a bit. Plenty of people still have skills. I think the difference is that it was normal to do things that now are more hobbies or skills people have to teach themselves. My parents made and fixed things themselves. A lot of peopie did. My siblings and I learned a lot of practical things like sewing, cooking, home repair, car repair, gardening. These were not considered special skills really.
However, people now have access to lots of resources to learn things. If you want to repair an appliance for example there is probably a free youtube video to guide you. If you want to learn a musical instrument or a language there is an app. People can learn to cook foods from other cultures instead of just what their family always made.
Corporations have made it difficult to be DIY with repairing most newer electronics because they put planned obsolescence and an engineered dependency into their profit models. They make more money if we simply buy new when something breaks or have to send it in to them to fix. Products are designed now so as to be inaccessible to people who want to fix them. This is why things like “right to repair” are so important.
I think in general from the country’s founding to now the shift from being a “maker, DIY artisanal society” towards a “consumer society” is absolutely immense. And it happened both slowly and quickly. But of course, like anything, you can find shades in between. There are a lot of DIY people in the country. But the general “mass” culture is consumer.
Yes. I’m considered very good at repairing and making things. I’m a machinist by trade. My grandfather literally built things to be used in the nasa space program in the 60s in his basement. My grandfather could work circles around me any day. I have noticed being in my early 40s that older generations are way more intelligent then the newer ones. I actually think that in America we are becoming less intelligent with every generation.
People were in general more skilled at making basic repairs — but holy crap, the technology we have available today just blows previous generations out of the water. 3D printers, laser cutters, and so on — it’s a lot easier to do things now than even ten or twenty years ago.
Plus, now we have YouTube University — you can go online and teach yourself pretty much any skill.
One factor here is that people used to do more things themselves and now they hire cheap labor to do it. That can make sense when a job is below your pay grade, although I think this attitude is often unfair to the people hired to do the job.
Yes. My great grandfather had a woodshop, and his sons too. I have an older neighbor who is quite handy. Most older men I know have that inclination. Things used to be easier to fix though. Support right to repair legislation!
In some ways yes, in other ways no.
I’d say specialization is the biggest difference.
Used to be that a lot more people had a broad range of very basic skills, so a lot more people could do a lot of simple constructions or repairs on their own. A large part of this is because high schools used to actually teach these (home ec class, shop class, etc.), but such classes have fallen out of favor; and, with hands-on jobs going increasingly overseas, less Americans either work in such professions or know someone who does. Americans today have a lot less ‘basic’ skills in compared to previous generations.
On the flip side, in my experience a lot *more* Americans have a higher proficiency in just one or a few skills, even when those skills are not part of their profession. Between a high proliferation of crafts and supply stores, and online resources like YouTube, it’s much easier to just pick up and start learning something new, and keep going beyond the basics.
I just think they had different abilities. Like nobody over the age of 55 can set a clock on any electronics device, for instance. (obviously this is hyperbole, you old cranks, stay mad about it).
But at making things? Oh sure. Fixing them. Yeah. However, I’ll say that my dad will buy something used that needs ‘fixing up’ and he’ll spend hours and hours and never get it working quite right. And I’ll say to him “Hey Dad, you spent hours on that thing to save $50. Do you think that time was worth it? You could have been working on something else.” And he’ll go “You know, I think you’re right, I probably should have just bought a new one.” But this keeps happening over and over again.
My Grandfather could craft remake anything he needed. I really don’t recall him ever buying anything “new”
If my late inlaws were any indication, they definitely were. Between the 2 of them, there was very little they couldn’t fix, cook, organize, build, plant, or drive.
When they were in school, all boys took shop classes & all girls home ec. While it’s good we quit forcing gender roles on everyone, it means fewer practical skills overall.
I’ve thought for years that shop & home ec should be combined (with some financial training thrown in), rebranded as “personal economics”, and made mandatory for all students.