UAE: How Gen-Z can learn life skills not taught in schools

Khaleej Times

2 days ago

Not everyone knows how to do laundry.
This is not a strange thought to me. For a whole host of reasons ranging from socioeconomic background to physical and mental ability, many people do not know how to do laundry or do it well. Separate the whites, cold wash colours and so on – but I know because my parents taught me those things.
In schools, the focus is almost entirely academic; there is a wall between education around the personal or domestic, and the academic contest that is education. Especially for those of us who pursue higher and post-graduate education, as is the norm for the majority of Gen-Z seeking professional success, where in the schooling process would I have learned to boil a pot of water or know to put the milk back in the fridge, so it doesn't spoil.
That last one shocked me, but more than once, I would meet someone from a middle class or higher economic bracket who was in clubs all day and with both parents working, relying on a housekeeper for all of their eating and cleaning needs. This extends to always calling some other person for basic repairs around the house, from lightbulbs and fuses to changing the gas tank or AC filter.
I learned all these little things because of a background which put me in a position to learn these things. It's cheaper to know how to replace a button over buying a new shirt or having a drill on hand to put up some shelves rather than calling up some sort of neighbourhood or building repairman or even using an app for a gig-worker of some kind. At the very least at this stage of my life, I know people who can do all the things that I do not know how to do, from plumbing and AC installation to carpentry and even emergency first aid.
At the very least you should be able to cook for yourself, but with fast food, food delivery service, and food preparation service use at all-time highs,
people are continuing to pass off basic skills needed to live to someone on
an e-scooter or living in the basement of your building.
By allowing these smaller industries to fill in the gaps, you create a breeding ground for more inequality. If you aren't cleaning your place, you're hiring someone to do it for you for as cheap as you can. If you aren't cooking, it's someone who has to be delivering your food, and in doing so you put barriers between yourself and those essential human interactions like going out to a restaurant or getting down on your hands and knees to scrub a stain on the floor.
More and more people work from home, which is great for work-life balance, but then why are you not spending a day in your kitchen emptying the fridge, then a day regretting the meal, then another day cleaning the kitchen to draw a sense of satisfaction from your labour? Because who knows if your manager or boss appreciates you, so you might as well do it for yourself.
This extends to gender and misogyny, which will be a topic in the future. Just to say that still there is an assumption that a woman in a relationship will be doing the cooking and cleaning, somehow still in this modern era where a woman is no longer marooned in the kitchen but working in an environment more likely to be faster-paced and more professionally effective than their partners and male counterparts.