I Must Be Domestic

I just received a compliment from one of our secretaries for my suggestion to sew a little spot on the neckline of one of her dresses so it wouldn't gap and she wouldn't have to worry about pinning it. She said she was going to give it to Goodwill because it didn't fit right. I think this is common sense; she thought it was "such a novel idea."

I was complimented likewise in college by my RA. I had gotten bleach spots on one of my hand knits from working on it after washing my face with a wash containing benzoyl peroxide. It wasn't wool, so I fixed it by just soaking the whole thing in some diluted bleach water to get a pink top. It wasn't the purple I had meant for it to be, but it was wearable. She said she would have never thought of it and would have thrown it out.

Both of these ladies completed their compliment by saying it was good to see girls that could still be domestic. I guess, maybe, but I just come from a family that when the Osh Kosh overalls got too short for the youngest on the hand-me-down list, they were cut off to be shorts or made into a skirt with the aid of one of my papaw's bandanas for the oldest that still could fit them in the waist . Our favorite toys were sewing cards, especially those that became dresses for our paper dolls, and paper bags that were fashioned into robot and princess costumes for our latest theatrical production.

I understand that "these kids today" (why yes, sometimes I do sound like a grandma) play with high tech gadgety things and would be bored stiff in two minutes with the toys that entertained me for hours and taught me how to do basic hand-sewing repairs and the like, but I cannot understand how people who supposedly grew up with the same circumstances as me have this attitude of "everything is disposable so why should I know how to fix it?" Any thoughts?