Pass along your passion

[Grey_Machine7.3]

On this. My kids are often outside while I'm working in my (numerous) cars. My wife jokes about my daughter (who's about to be 4) "what are you gonna do when she wants to help you work on cars wearing a pink tootoo?" I told her "well, that's easy, I'm going to hand her whatever tool she needs to get the job done. Same way I'd handle anything else she wanted to do." My son (who's about to be 2) really just likes picking heavy stuff up and banging that stuff around into other stuff.
I can only hope that they both will end up with extremely valuable mechanical skills from helping me while in wrenching on whatever it is I'm trying to fix, or break
Once they are old enough, I hope that when they have friends over, they will be eager to learn too. (Take this with a grain of salt because I turn 25 on Sunday) So many of my friends and younger people I know are riddled with couch syndrome. They never want to take on the hard tasks, and always looking for the easy Street in whatever they are doing. I had this a little too. I used to go on HVAC side jobs with my dad as a kid and I completely hates it. I 100% took it for granted, as a kid not realizing that what he was doing is an extremely valuable skill and could have laid foundations for me maybe getting rich, or very comfortable in the least. Thankfully I think I've grown out of that mostly. My dad (who's 63) is one of the hardest working men I've ever known. I like to think he passed at least a little bit of that on to me over the years. You can't put a price on the ability to work with your hands, and figure out mechanical problems.
That is a very cool thing you're doing, and it inspires me to do the same.

 

[AndyG]

Speaking for the generation of which your parents are part of. Ours was a generation of drastic change for certain. We were in our teens when the computer age started booming. Fast forward a few years to the 90's, cars were definitely becoming more technically advanced, with fuel injection, anti lock brakes, and the like, but not so much that I didn't have my son out in the garage with me while I was working on my car or the lawn mower, etc. Technology wasn't so far advanced that regular maintenance was beyond the average ability of the DIYer.

My take on the problem is this.... Society in general started to shift from "The Family Unit" where Mom's and Dad's were the ones responsible for teaching their children all things not the 3 Rs, to Moms and Dads working more hours, spending less at home and kids being left to fend for themselves more and more often.

Now this is just my opinion but it seems the more tech we introduce the easier it becomes to disconnect from the basic...

This is all so true, very factual. I recently read about absentee fathers and it hit a nerve. I work way too much. Good post.

 

[AndyG]

This is all so true, very factual. I recently read about absentee fathers and it hit a nerve. I work way too much. Good post.

Also, ask your wife what’s wrong with wrenching in a pink tootoo....we aren’t strange , we all do normal stuff like wear our wives clothes when they are out of town.