How in the USA they earn money on those who cannot wash, cook and clean
'28.12.2018'
Source: Lenta.ru
American youth do not know how to wash, cook and clean. Who makes money on it?
In the USA, “maturity courses” are on the rise for the millennials. Those who have just started an independent life are taught basic skills: how to cook, plan a family budget and take care of health. "Lenta.ru" I tried to figure out who needed such trainings and why they appeared at all.
Adult children
Millennials - people whose youth came in the 2000-s. Researchers define the age limit differently: for example, Pew Research believes this generation includes all people born from 1981 to 1996 a year. In the press, it is customary to blame the millennials for literally everything: they kill traditional industries (the production of bar soap, beer and even cars), live with their parents for a long time and are not in a hurry to get married, and most importantly, they don’t want to grow up.
Especially for such "children" who begin life only in 30 years, and have developed "courses of maturation". They are taught domestic skills (cooking, ironing, cleaning), learn to manage time and finances (remember to pay bills on time and save money for a rainy day) and tell you how to build relationships with the opposite sex.
29-year-old Elena Tumaras from New York is happy to attend courses, although she admits that she would like to learn all this in childhood: “I don’t even know how it happened. I got so used to it that mom always cooks while she lives with her. And now with difficulty I make myself the most simple dishes. ” “Every day I come across things that I know for sure my parents, my grandparents can do, and I don’t even know how to approach them,” Sarah Daigle echoes.
“It always surprises me that people do not know what I have always considered the basics. For example, they don’t own a knife or don’t know how spices are combined, ”admitted Kim Kalichio, the author of culinary courses. Most of her students are millenials.
School of Life
The most famous such courses opened at the beginning of 2017 in the city of Portland, Maine. Three women founded the “maturing school”: psychotherapist Rachel Weinstein, stand-up comedian Rachel Flechinger and teacher Katie Brunel. However, the latter soon left the business. The creators of the “School of maturation” claim that there are so many customers that they had to organize video courses with access for 20 dollars per month.
Women teach young people to manage finances, look after their health, build a career, build relationships with people and staff, repair things and even do them with their own hands. Among video tutorials, for example, there is a movie called “Sew a button as a cool guy.”
Rachel Weinstein started taking courses for adults when she saw how many of her young clients suffer from a constant feeling of shame that they do not know how to do basic household things that no one has taught them. “They would like to hide from the rest their inability to manage money or to dismantle the pantry, but they are always uncomfortable in front of them, and this makes them under constant stress,” she said. The motto of the “School of Growing” is “Come to us instead of calling your parents,” because it is often embarrassing for young people to bother their parents because of such nonsense as clogging in pipes or the need to change the oil in the car.
Weinstein believes that the millennials feel helpless due to the fact that in their life there is practically no problem of choice and oppression of traditional values. They can not worry about buying an apartment and just rent a house, work remotely and not marry until they themselves want it. The economic crisis and technological breakthrough came in their youth.
“They were not used to waiting: now you can watch your favorite series anytime on Netflix, order goods with delivery on the same day to Amazon, and find a partner for the night on Tinder. But job satisfaction and strong relationships cannot be obtained here and now, it is necessary to work on them slowly and painstakingly, and sometimes it can even be unpleasant. ”
How did that happen
In 2017, 35 percent of Americans aged from 18 to 34 preferred to live with their parents. For comparison: in 2005, this figure was only 26. “Now young people live with their parents more often than with friends, and much more often than with spouses,” explained demographer Jonathan Vespa. This, in his opinion, explains the inability of the millennials to do what their parents seem elementary.
Etiquette expert Mika Meyer blames the abrupt development of technology for the lack of communication skills among millennials: “They grew up with telephones in their hands, so face-to-face talk, eye contact, and body language are bad for them.”
Weinstein said that most of her students were required to study well in order to enter a good college: “If children are constantly burdened with preparation for exams and studies, they will understandably spend less time with their families. Yes, and parents will not distract them to teach how to clean the kitchen sink or show how to hang a picture. ” Home economics lessons have been removed from the program in most schools in order to put more scientific disciplines in their place. Some students constantly do not have enough money at all because of the uncontrolled spending on toast with avocados and computer games: many graduates have to pay loans taken for education for several years after receiving a diploma.
“In an ideal world, we would all be accompanied by some kind of hybrid of our grandmother and wizard Merlin and would lovingly teach you how to do everything in the world. But since we do not have such an assistant, support will not hurt, ”explained Kelly Williams Brown.
Brown is the author of the 2013 bestselling book Growing Up: Growing Up in 535 Easy Steps and a blog full of everyday life hacks for those just starting out on their own.
Millennials do not buy houses, do not hurry to marry and have children. And although they are usually blamed for infantilism, most often their behavior is caused by financial reasons. Since 2000, real estate prices have increased by a quarter, and the real income of young professionals is only one percent. Do not forget about the constantly growing prices for products and services that force young couples to postpone the birth of children.
Nothing is new
However, this phenomenon can not be called new. In 2007, professor anthropologist Holly Swiers drew attention to how much students are worried about their future. They behaved confidently in public, and in personal conversations they admitted that they felt completely defenseless in the adult world. During the five years of work on her still unpublished book, Swiers discovered that the phenomenon of the fear of growing up and the inability to do “adult” things are not new - the millennials are only different in that they can complain about it on social networks.
In 1932, historian Horace Cullen published the pamphlet “College Extends Childhood,” in which he complained: “I am taught a variety of subjects, but do not tell how to apply knowledge in practice so that I can succeed in the fight for life and life.” In 1972, physics professor Robert Havigurst noted: "In early youth, the most things to learn, and the least people who teach it." Hevigherst singled out eight things that no one teaches, but it would be necessary: how to choose a life partner, how to live in marriage, how to start a family, how to raise children, how to run a household, how to start a career, how to be a worthy citizen, how to find a suitable environment.
The creators of modern courses for growing up do not consider them a novelty either: “Previously, if a person did not know how to cook, he went to cooking courses. If he didn’t know how to manage finances, he read the necessary literature. Now all this is simply collected in one heap and called the "school of growing up."
Swayers believes that a long working week and the almost universal employment of women have contributed to the absence of basic economic skills in children. Parents spend most of their time at work, and they don’t want to spend time with children on demonstrating boring household chores.
The older generation learned through trial and error. If they had to wash - they washed and sometimes spoiled things. If it was necessary to learn how to cook, they asked a girlfriend or mother to show how it was done, or they were looking for a recipe in a cookbook. They did not have the opportunity to see hundreds of recipes on YouTube, but there was no reason for the complexes, that it’s impossible to wield a knife as cleverly as a cook in a video.
