Very true, technology has changed everything. However, in our household (with 4 kids) sewing by hand is being taught, as well as baking from scratch and playing outside. I will do everything I can to keep my kids from being part of “obese” America. Our elementary school still teaches cursive starting in 3rd grade, although I don’t know how often they use it. And as for driving a stick shift, we have one and any luxury-type fast car should be a stick shift in my opinion. My first car was stick and I wish they made a stick shift minivan, seriously!

Something I will miss: Planning a trip while looking at my dad’s giant road atlas.

Something I do not miss: (So not going there, lest we start a prayer in school debate in your comment thread)

Weoll you taught me something today- that Triceratops i snot really Triceratops, LOL!

As for scratch, my daughter and I are learning to bake and cook more and more from scratch- and it’s deeply satisfying and so much tastier. Perhaps her skills will make her a commodity one day~ Even my sons get in on the action.

My son is in 4th grade and every assignment has to be in cursive! We bake from scratch at home and we play outside.

*You forgot the dial phone, that actually dials the numbers… where they have to wait for it to go all the way around before they can dial the next number.
*And what about the corded phone, with the long coil cord that can reach from one of the kitchen to the other.
*Or an answering machine? Almost all phone companies offer voicemail so the answering machine is no longer needed.
*Who needs a dictionary, when you’ve got dictionary.com? My son had to do an assignment where he had to find three words within his reading material that he didn’t know the meaning. He had to guess what he thought it meant, then look it up in the dictionary. Well, his student dictionary (we were at the dentist while he did this so we didn’t have our standard dictionary with us) didn’t have any of the three words so we were forced to look them up on dictionary.com!
*Mowing the lawn (summer) or raking the leaves (fall) for profit at neighbors houses…. everyone has lawn services nowadays that kids can’t try to earn an honest living while helping out the neighbors!
*a TV without a remote control! Heaven forbid they get off the couch to change the channel! Lest we forget having only a handful of channels to choose from– cartoons were on when the were scheduled, there wasn’t a set of channels strictly devoted to cartoons or kids shows!

My family has a game that we call the Encyclopediagame. All that we need is paper for everybody, a pencil and one volume of an encyclopedia per person. And then we search the books for things we do not know or words that sound funny. Once the first person found a word he/she announces it and everybody writes a encyclopediastyle definition. Then all definitons are gathered by the founder of the word and then he/she reads all definitions aloud. Then every player decides what he/she thinks is the right answer. (The founder wrote the right answer on his paper.) The founder of the word gets a point for all false identification and the invernter gets a point for his definition if it is chosen too.
This is really fun and you can play it with grandmas and schoolchildren too! And it not only shows kids what na encyclopedia is, but you also need your cursive writing too!

Sorry you didn’t enjoy it, Suzie!

So, are dogs eating our wireless routers now instead of our homework?

LOL scionkirk- good one!

don’t usually take the time to comment, but just feel like a few of these need to be addressed regarding my daughter –
**cursive? I’m one of those teachers that thinks it builds important fine motor and hand-eye coordination stuff – she’ll learn it, even if it’s just to make cards pretty, yes that would be hand-written thank yous that she’ll learn as well.
**maps? they are still way cool (to me!) my daughter already has one up in her bathroom as a shower curtain (6 months old is not to young to wonder at the pretty shapes and colors)
**driving a stick? I do it everyday, it’s important to know in my book, I can borrow or rent any car, and I get better gas mileage – though they are getting harder to find new.
**meding/sewing? Those are fun and necessary skills! Why should I throw away favorites when I can fix them – course all of her clothes are 2nd hand anyway, so it’s also necessary.
**baking from scratch? Cake mixes have been around for over half a century and they haven’t killed nestle chocolate chip cookies yet, or my mom’s devil’s food cake, you can’t beat ‘em.

Just because stuff is dated doesn’t mean the alternatives are better – and yes, mint balances my checkbook for me, but I still have to figure out where all the money has to go myself.

What?! They downgraded Triceratops? I just heard they renamed Brontosaurus (or was it Brachiosaurus?) and apparently there’s no pterodactyl anymore either. This makes me feel like my elementary education is worthless.

;)

Interesting. Hopefully my kids will see about half of these. I actually drive a stick shift (and I’ve only been driving for 8 years) and all three of my brothers know how to drive one too. The car I went to college with was the stick shift my parents taught my older two brothers to drive with. My oldest taught me when I got into town. My youngest brother and I both decided we wanted our first cars to be a stick shift :) I love it and am hoping it makes it to my daughter’s first driving lesson!
I think I will also teach my kids cursive. My mom taught me otherwise I wouldn’t know it. My teachers in grade school actually required us to write in print which was tortuous for me because I never learned print as well as cursive.
I <3 maps too. Something else they will learn. My parents had me navigate on cross country trips.
As for cooking and sewing… even my husband knows how to do that. You bet the kids will too.

Some of these make sense…but some don’t. Cursive handwriting? Baking from scratch? If people care, then those things will always be around. I personally hate getting a note from a full grown woman that looks like a 7 year old chicken scratch and if something is made from scratch it means more time and effort went into it. It’s okay to use technology to cut corners sometimes, but the basics (like playing outside and reading a map when your GPS battery runs down) shouldn’t be pushed aside.

I think this list is great. It makes me nostalgic for things like the library card catalog and gym class. Although many things change over the years (my childhood was much different from my mother’s, and so on) I think the basic skills remain important. Cooking and baking, playing outdoors, and learning to repair things that break (clothing, household, toys) is just something that has become more a parent’s responsibility to teach. Readers of this site know this, but unfortunately there will be masses of people who won’t learn these skills because of this, and that is too bad. I cook from scratch, sew, get my 3 year old son outdoors every day, and repair things that break around my house; but I know these days this is my responsibility to teach. No four years of home ec for him like I had the luxury of (for which I am so grateful today).

Mommyof4, I am 27 years old and I was paddled in school as a kindergartener and a first grader and we prayed every day before walking to the lunchroom to eat.

I was NEVER told to pray in school, ever. And there’s NO reason why a kid can’t follow a map. They still sell them (and we still buy them, what if you’re in the middle of a trip and the GPS goes kaput?). In fact, we have a poster sized US map hanging in the playroom.

I remember we had three television channels. If we visited our relatives in Oklahoma, they had two. And sometimes both stations showed the same programs. I was a five year old with a lit stick and a coffee can of fire crackers. We went outdoors and only came in when it was time to eat or it got too dark to see. Some stuff I did, I would not let my kids do ever, like shooting arrows in the air, straight up, and stand there waiting to see where they would land. I had an arrow land right next to my foot. Right next to it. It didn’t occur to me to be afraid. The only place my mother told me never to play was the railroad tracks. Guess where I played?

I homeschool, and my children have or are learning every single one of these “lost arts”. I see a big gap in public schooled children – although maybe they are more advanced in their use and understanding of technology. While my eight year old is learning cursive, she is a slow hunt-and-peck typist and will need remediation later on in middle school to catch up on computers, typing and touch screens.

Wow, this was a very, very bad article. 99% of these are things that my kids are going to learn and do and I have no idea how they couldn’t. Writing in cursive? Of course they will, how else are they going to know how to sign their names? The great outdoors, wtf I don’t see how that counts at all! Reading a map? They still sell atlases you know and map reading is very enjoyable. Sewing? Really? I mean REALLY!??!? How can you possibly be remotely serious about that? Sewing is a MAJOR hobby and lifestyle and means to a living and the sewing community is growing. I sew and crochet. Baking from scratch? W.T.F. Ok, maybe YOU eat fast food all the time but some of us don’t. Triceratops as not a dinosaur? You are aware that scientists change their minds about dinosaurs every other week right? Stick shift? Maybe you’re rich enough to afford a brand new 50,000 dollar car but for the rest of the world we’re still driving cars from the 80s. Also I see no reason why encyclopedias would be gone.

One thing I must add to the balancing the checkbook is actually writing the check and a deposit slip. Right now, I am furthering my education with going to school to become a Medical Assistant. We have an Office Procedures class and our instructor REALLY had to take 3 hours to teach a class of 15 students to write ONE check and ONE deposit slip. There is no reason that kids graduating today cannot do these things. I’m not that much older (I just turned 30), but in High School, we learned that in sophomore year. Ugh.

What about 8 track?
Roller Skates with keys, and four metal wheels?
Rabbit Ears for your TV?
My grandmother’s generation would have said the outhouse, progress can be a good thing.

I too have to wonder what lifestyle you have and where you get this info. My daughter is in the third grade and since Christmas break has had to write everything in cursive. They play dodge ball, do push-ups, chin-ups, curls, etc. in gym class. There are still teachers that pray before snack or lunch, or may have ie.”a moment of silence”. Their school has a ” See you at the Pole” where they meet early at the flagpole in front of school to pray together. And there is still corporal punishment in many school districts, (which is used very rarely}. but there is also a paper a parent can sign so your child is not punished this way. Oh, and they do still have card catalogs in the school and public library. As for sewing and baking we still do that too! We also use a dictionary, have a stick-shift, read maps(they also teach that in school),play outside, build forts, swim in creeks make mud pies and salad out of berries and grass, catch fireflies, go camping, (sometimes even in the backyard). We only have TV from the antenna, we go to church, my girls play sports, belong to 4H (yes, they are still around with wonderful programs, classes and clubs), ride bikes, etc. Yes, they do like the computer, but it’s monitored. As for Pluto..it’s sad, a dinosaur is a dinosaur, I despised encyclopedias and Please teach them to balance a checkbook. THE POINT IS: Your Children Will Know What YOU Take The Time To Teach Them, along with Values, Morals and Faith.. These are life’s riches and treasures, they make your kids who they are and who they’ll become. They merely exist without them. You get what you give. Think about it!

I remember when I was a kid, taking walks in the woods with my friends, going miles and miles,just walking and discovering things, as long as we were home before dark. My mom would look at us like we were crazy if it was nice out and we were in the house, she would promptly tell us to get out! Nowadays with kids being snatched straight from our front yard, the days of those long walks unsupervised are over!!

One of my fond childhood memories is riding in the rumble seat. Growing up in the ’40s, all we could afford was a ’32 Ford. It was equipped with a rumble seat, and my brother and I loved riding in it in good weather. It’s a wonder we survived riding around unprotected like that — and without seat belts, no less! ;-))

Brontosaurus is also not a dinosaur, jsyk.

PJ, I am 27 and in Kindergarten through grade four I went to school in school systems in Alabama. We prayed in school every day before lunch and I was paddled several times. Not everyone had the same experience as you. I know that may be hard for you to understand. Also, many schools are doing away with recess. So, that is my motive for including outdoors.
Have a nice day.

stick shift; at 16 I had to learn to drive my Dad’s stick truck before I could even touch Mom’s automatic car
sewing, baking, cooking, encyclopedias, maps; my children learned all those things from me. So did my grand-children and now my great grandchildren are learning, both from me AND their parents
as for outside playing; TURN OFF THE TV AND COMPUTER

I can see the author’s point on many of these, whether or not I agree… 1st corporal punishment/prayer in schools; as someone from the west coast (California) I honestly had no idea ANY schools did that after the 50′s… my parents never had it, and as a 32 yr old, I’ve never witnessed it, so it is understandable why there is confusion -by many about this subject. Certain skills, like map-reading, cursive, and checkbook balancing are necessary and probably won’t disappear soon and many people have made valid points why. As far as sewing/baking/yardwork, etc, I measure my time in money, basically. If it’s much cheaper/less time consuming to just buy something so that I have more time to spend with family and friends (walking down a path in nature), I’ll do that. If it’s just a button I need, or a customized costume for Halloween or parties, I’ll bust out the sewing box. Much of the changes in life are a balance between what’s necessary and what’s not…

Out of this whole list the one that makes me the saddest is the film cameras. I kept mine from when I took photography in college. I have another that I still use. I’m a graphic designer and just switched to a SLR at Christmas. I will keep them to pass on, they might be worth money some day.

I’m 29 and encountered prayer and paddling in school. I do believe that parents can be to blame for lack of activity outdoors,