Moving On

This evening, like almost every Friday evening, my husband and I had a long discussion about the week and many interesting things...but we almost always end up talking about work - either his or mine.  Today's closer discussion ended up being about how skills evolve and replace (or eliminate) other skills that we once valued. 

Take working on the car.  My husband and our fathers grew up working on cars; it was how you took care of an expensive machine to extend its life span, but it was also about the art of tinkering, a hobby and a passion for those who like to know "how things work".  Matt's early interest in working on cars evolved to building and working on computers.  Like so many others who took programming classes in high school and college - he developed a fundamental understanding for how the computer works. 

Tonight, though, our conversation culminated for me in the growing awareness that these skills are changing - and that in fact, our children have no interest in working on the car, or the computer, or even taking something apart.  They have become, however, excellent users of the technology to an extent that neither Matt nor I will ever match.  They are the digital generation.  So, at what point will we lose the skill of working on cars or working on computers? 

Matt points out that we (he means me, of course) don't even need to know how to cook today - perhaps it is a dying, or even obsolete skill.  I can put absolutely healthy meals on the table without much of Julia Child's kind of cooking.  In fact, when was the last time you skinned an animal for dinner? 

So, while I was feeling nostalgic about my kids not being interested in working on a car...the reality is that they are developing new skills the like of which I cannot even imagine, rendering the old skills obsolete.  Time to move on.