7 Skills We No Longer Teach but Should

When did it become so hard to count change or jump-start a battery?

Ann Brenoff,

AARP

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Published August 03, 2023

two women and a man change a tire on a road side in a black and white photo

Clarisse D'Arcimoles/Gallery Stock

There are some things that aren’t being taught any longer, despite our need to know them. Here are just seven of them. Please add your own in the comments below.

How to make change

Cashiers today rely on the cash register to tell them how much change the cash-paying customer should receive. Without that, many of them wouldn’t have a clue. Now, I realize that we are drifting toward being a cashless society that uses a plastic card or swipe of our phone to pay for things as small as a cup of coffee. But that’s not universal, at least not yet. As far as I can tell, someone whose sole job is to handle money has but one skill to master: learn how to make change.

How to drive a stick shift

I learned to drive on a car with a stick shift, otherwise known as a manual transmission. My second and third cars were also stick shifts because, back then, they were cheaper to buy than their automatic transmission cousins. I also favored low and fast sports cars, the kind that roared around curves and hugged the road as only a stick shift could.

After I moved to Los Angeles and had kids to chauffeur around, I switched to an automatic Mommy Van so my left foot wouldn’t be glued to the clutch in traffic while I broke up food fights in the back seat.

But just like riding a bike, driving a stick shift is a skill that once you learn it, you never forget it. When we travel overseas, most of the rental cars are sticks. And when I slip behind the wheel, I feel like I’m 40 years younger and ready to rumble. Commandeering a stick shift is possibly the world’s long-sought elixir of youth. If you don’t know how to drive one, you are missing out.

How to sew on a button

When I was in eighth grade, all the girls went to home economics class and the boys to shop class. The girls learned how to cook, sew, make a bed “properly” and iron men’s shirts. The boys got to play with power tools and made wooden jewelry boxes for their mothers. While I’m glad we buried that era for many reasons, would it really be so awful if our sons and daughters knew how to make simple repairs such as sewing on a button or fixing a falling hem? Instead, we outsource these tasks and pay a lot of money to have someone else do them for us.

Change a flat tire and jump-start a dead battery

Bankrate says Americans have 220 million flat tires every year, or roughly one every seven seconds. Sure, you can wait for a road assistance service to come to your rescue. Or you can just do it yourself — if you know how. And therein lies the problem: There’s a good chance nobody has taught you these skills.

How to manage money

When I was about 8 or 9, my mother marched me to the local bank branch to open a savings account in my name. I faithfully — and proudly — deposited as much as I could for the next decade or so. I began by collecting empty milk bottles from the neighbors and taking them to the redemption center, depositing every penny they earned me. When I got older, I worked an after-school job at the corner drugstore and put my minimum-wage earnings straight into the bank. Same for the jobs I held during the summers, and cash gifts relatives gave me.

I learned to be a saver, not a spender. I figured out how to budget and knew what things cost. I learned the power that money yields and the difference between my wants and my needs. That bank account, supplemented by scholarships and a work-study plan, allowed me to go to college. I graduated without debt. I have excellent credit because I’ve always paid my bills on time. I am in control of my relationship with money for one simple reason: My parents did not serve as a personal ATM for my every desire. They didn’t have the money to give, so they taught me how to earn and manage money on my own. And it all began on the day my mother took me to the bank to open a savings account.

How to function as adults

By the time my kids were 18, they knew how to make their own doctors’ appointments, how to dispute a charge on a restaurant bill and how to book an airplane flight. They registered for their college classes without Mom standing watch.

How did they know how to do all those things? Easy: Their dad and I taught them how to talk to adults. We taught them how to advocate for themselves without our help. We let them negotiate with the unfair soccer coach and the no-nonsense unforgiving teacher. We listened, we comforted and we advised them when asked, but mostly we supported them, loved them and gave them room to make the mistakes from which they learned.

Truth: My kids have never brought me their dirty laundry and expected me to wash it.

Good manners

There is a reason we shouldn’t drive down the street with our car radio blasting so loud that it rattles windows. There is also a reason why we should send thank-you notes, not chew with our mouths open or talk on our phone at the movies.

Laws may be the foundation of a civilized society, but manners — the small courtesies we show one another by holding a door open, giving up a seat on the train, asking someone if they need help — allow us to all live in our shared space with relative peace and harmony.

How hard is it, really, to learn how to behave around others?

The Emily Post Institute — which has been promoting etiquette since Emily Post wrote her first book on the subject, Etiquette, in 1922 — has a pretty simple formula for the core and essence of good manners: Base how you treat others on consideration, respect and honesty. Now, wouldn’t that be something?

Share Your Experience: What lost skill do you think young people today ought to know?

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Ann Brenoff is a prize-winning writer and journalist who spent most of her career at the Los Angeles Times before joining HuffPost as a senior writer/editor and staff columnist. She now writes for AARP and other national publications and is the author of the newly published book CAREGIVERS ARE MAD AS HELL!: Rants From the Wife of the Very Sick Man in Room 5029.