I do this thing on Thursday nights where I get together with two (used to be three, but one moved) women from our church and I teach them sewing basics. Word got out last night at church that I teach sewing, and some Boyce students came over and asked when I do it because they'd like to learn. Well, I happen to be of the opinion that sewing is something best learned in very small groups because it is of necessity a very hands-on operation, so I'm not sure that adding five new people to the current group would work so well. And we'd have to move somewhere other than someone's home, seeing as no seminary student I know has a dining room table big enough to host upwards of 10 sewing machines (and we'd be breaking circuits left and right). But I like the in-home, cozy, just-sewing-along-with-my-friends kind of atmosphere. So all that to say that if they really want to learn, I need to start Sewing Night (or Day) #2. Which got me to thinking that if I could find a way to do it with a small child, I'd love to teach lots of women how to sew. And cook, for that matter. Which got me to thinking about the sad state of our generation who grew up to a large extent (I'm really generalizing here - my mother taught me homemaking skills from the time I was small) with mothers who either didn't see the need to pass on these kinds of things to their daughters, or didn't have the skills to pass on in the first place. My guess is that the idea of the everday, normal woman being able to sew her own clothes (curtains, throw pillows, slipcovers, children's clothes, etc.) and make a good, not-out-of-a-can/freezer dinner for her family each night lost all appeal in the feminism of the 60s and 70s (and 80s and 90s). Hence the demand for ready-made everything (even if she wanted to, the full-time working woman, especially one with kids, doesn't have time to be a gourmet chef and expert seamstress on any regular basis). And ready-made everything made self-made anything look like a waste of time and energy (though usually not a waste of money, but then the working woman doesn't always need to worry about the money, since she has a paying job). So no one learned how to sew, and cooking was limited to the basics (incase you ever just wanted to brown some ground beef by yourself - although you can buy already browned beef in a package too these days - yuk!). And then these women start having kids, and even if they wanted to, they can't teach their daughters the arts of homemaking because they themselves don't know how. So their kids NEED ready-made everything. Return to vicious cycle. Generations from now you can't even buy a sewing machine or scratch ingredients (it's already a little difficult to find internet cake recipes that don't call for a box mix). And yet at the same time, you have lots of women who really want to learn the lost art of homemaking (as the interest in my sewing evening would attest), but they don't know who to ask.
Enter Must-Save-The-World Sarah! I start a Home Ec class for adults and women learn how to cook and sew and then they teach their kids who pass the info on to their friends, and the cycle starts to reverse... I think I've discovered my calling!
Okay, we're using some hyberbole here. I don't really think that the situation is as dire as I have made it out to be here, nor do I have any realistic aspirations of changing anything on even a city-of-Louisville scale. And I know that there are a number of working women (particularly those who are single or married without kids) who do take time to cook and/or sew on occasion. But I do think that this kind of teaching is something I would like to do - I'd probably enjoy teaching Home Ec to kids at some later empty-nest stage of life. So I've been thinking about it today. Hence the blog entry. Thoughts on married women, particularly those with kids, working full-time outside the home I shall reserve for a blog entry on another day when my daughter is not clinging to my leg begging for food.
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