No home economics in my private school in the early 80s. My grandparents were my home economics teachers. Every summer me and my brother had to help shuck corn, shell butter beans, snap green beans, shell peas, peel tomatoes & dig potatoes. Digging potatoes was the only thing we wanted to do. Wash was hung out to dry even though we had a dryer. I know how to process tomatoes for canning and was with my grandma every step somehow I didn’t learn how to can. Gotta figure that out! I learned to chrochet at 8 and around that age or after learned cross stitch and macrame. My mom & grandma made Christmas ornaments to sale and my brother and I were always helping out. I had to cut grass with a push mower. At 15 I asked could I go on a date. My my dad said if I picked up pinecones and cut the grass. I should have stayed home and not cut the grass🤣 lesson’s learned. I don’t remember how old I was when I started cooking. I was always in my grandma’s kitchen helping so probably a very young age. I believe I was cooking the basics on my own by 13. By the time I was 12 every Saturday I had to clean the entire house by myself, change the sheets on all beds & washed all the laundry. That was assigned by my dad. My mom never cleaned the house. Before ne my grandma did it on Saturday and my dad worked at least 60 hours was a high functioning drunk, never missed work and would clean the house or at least do certain things. The summer around 7th grade my mom was in Germany on vacation dad was at work my brother got stung by a wasp and hand was swollen really bad. I called the hospital and asked for my best friend’s mom who was a nurse. She told me to make a paste with baking soda, salt & water. Put on his hand. I can’t say why I wanted to learn and be independent. Maybe because I had strong roll models all around me on both sides of the family.

I do believe home economics, woodworking, brick laying, automotive, gardening, etc should be taught in school. In my area most people go either straight to work or into a life of crime. The four high schools in my county have many of these classes. In the junior & senior year you have the opportunity to go to the community college during school for what you want to be doing after graduation. My daughter took nursing classes and those credits applied to her two year degree as an RN. Yes, our school system has many faults but some have good things going on. Sadly most kids won’t participate if they aren’t encouraged at home and have a good home setting. Unless the kids in my daughters generation learned basic skills they don’t know them. My daughter wasn’t forced to do a lot but by the time she was 15 she was cooking entire meals by herself and did her own laundry. Now she’s doing some things I grew up learning. Has a garden, did some canning, bakes sour dough bread and does many crafts. Our kids are the future. My husband has a blue collar job making good money for middle class and he has always had co workers that has a four year degree. Those college graduates realize they can make more money doing a blue collar job than working in their college degree jobs.

States like Texas, Oklahoma and perhaps others in area have classes in archery, bull riding and horse riding (sorry don’t remember the terms it’s a competition like bull riding).