Comment on So this is how my neighbor fixes his fence.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 4 months ago
While I really dislike painting with a broad brush about any sort of “good ol’ days”…
I think there’s been a huge loss of generalist knowledge since Gen X. Gen X got to grow up with adults familiar with the pre-tech world and where a lot of things could be and needed to be fixed by yourself, and they grew up with the advent of household technology. From mending fences to replacing a capacitor in a electric motor to fixing your own car. Some of that got passed on to the kids by the boomers. I’m not trying to say this kind of knowledge was common, it was just more common.
I looked at the fence and couldn’t understand why someone wouldn’t take the ten minutes to trim the bottom off and buy a small box of the correct nails, but then someone could be in the position of never having been taught to think of those things. Maybe it was just laziness.
So, I appeal to my Gen X brethren - peel yourself and your kids away from the screens and find a way to get your collective hands dirty. Change some brake pads. Fix a fence right. Change the spark plug or oil in a mower. Build a raised-bed garden, even a small one, from scratch. Make the kids do the work they can. Trll them why you chose to do what you did, how you chose the parts, what you need to look out for, etc.
It’s better for problem solving skills, planning, and just understanding how things work. Spare everyone the embarrassment of a shitty fence repair job.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Bro, you can grab any old saw and cut off an end it -takes practically zero knowledge.
Stop bitching about “kids these days”.
More likely, the person either didn’t have a saw or was just lazy. This isn’t a generational issue. Don’t be ageist.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 4 months ago
This isn’t a “kids these days” at all. No need for you to be offended.
It was a request to pass on generalist knowledge from generations that had a lot more exposure to it.
I left plenty of room in my statement with conditional language to allow those with knowledge like this to exist regardless of age, but you went and made it all about you.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 4 months ago
You literally start off with
Your comment is inherently ageist. Full stop. And by the way, there’s plenty of boomers who never knew how to fix shit.
You didn’t have to, but you made it about entire swaths of generations.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 4 months ago
And I’m not wrong in those two paragraphs.
Again, you’re making this all about you. Jist because you might possess a little knowledge you make it a case to exclude anyone offering any to others, and patently this image shows there are some in meed.
Well done.