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Kids today can do all sorts of fancy things with their phones and other technological gadgets but those skills come with a sacrifice. A lot of the skills that many of us have, are things that younger people will probably never learn. There isn’t much you can do about it, but you can remind yourself that you know so many things that are truly rare skills in this day and age. Iron clothes, properly. |
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It's amazing how something as simple as ironing is so foreign to people these days. Long before the days of polyester and other such fabrics, just about everything under the sun had to be ironed. Today? Today my kids put their shirts under the bed and sleep on them… Going out well dressed, no matter where. |
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More and more people are going shopping in their "comfy" clothes, which can mean anything from sweatpants and an undershirt, to far worse things. It wasn’t so long ago that going out in public meant putting on your best cloths. Even a simple bus ride or airplane flight was a special – and even exciting – occasion. Making meals "from scratch". |
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When you learn to cook from a young age like we did, nothing looks impossible in the kitchen. With so many frozen meals or half-made foods available, young people just lost the need to know how to properly cook. This is a real shame if you ask me, since we all know there is no replacement for a home cooked meal. Use a real-live map. |
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Even before the time of the GPS and smart navigation apps people still had to travel to places they didn’t know. Reading a classic map is no easy feat, and refolding one is arguably even harder! The worst thing that ever happen to us was that we got a bit lost, but we always made it back on course. Host dinner parties. |
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Invite some family and friends over, clean the house, make a three course meal and have fun. Simple right? Well good luck finding yourself in one of those dinner parties today. Most of the time everyone will end up in front of the TV or stuck inside their phone. Canning food for the winter. |
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Pickles, jams, meats, pastry, you name it. There was so much joy in making all that food and canning what you didn’t eat right away. On cold winter days you could open those jars and enjoy amazing food in an instant. While it's true that a major reason for canning food was the struggling economy, and we don’t have so much need for it today, it's still a skill I would hate to see disappear from the world. Connecting with friends face to face. |
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The internet is a wonderful place but it made simply starting a talk with someone on the street, seem like such a suspicious thing. People don’t need dating sites and text massages to connect, and it's a real shame that people don’t meet and spend time together like they used to. Write in gorgeous cursive handwriting. |
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Most of us were forced to learn cursive, and while it was far from fun, the results were amazing. The English language can be beautiful when spoken and when written, it’s thanks to these skills that we were able to write such fabulous letters!
Composing beautiful, coherent letters. |
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Before the luxury of email and millions of fonts, we used to write these wonderful letters (with our wonderful handwriting) to our friends all over the world. There was no luxury of sharing photos on Facebook, so a good letter often included a poem-worthy description of your latest crush or your new puppy. Dancing. |
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Salon dancing, disco, the Fox Trot, the Twist and so many others… Dancing was once a thing of beauty and we were the master of that art! Storytelling. |
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This is a truly underrated skill if you ask me. Good storytelling is perhaps the best way to learn from the past and from the people who have seen and done some incredible things. While it's true that technology has helped us a lot when it comes to new and more entertaining ways of storytelling, it's just not the same as what we all know and love. Saying "Thank you". |
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A little courtesy can go a long way and nothing is as simple as saying those two magical words. People used to say thank you all the time, after a good party or even after a business meeting. If there is one "skill" from this list that I would really want to see back it would be this one. Memorizing important numbers. |
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Before mobile phones it was essential to know your family and friends' numbers by heart. And for the less important ones, we had our big address books which were like an invitation for a walk down memory lane. It's amazing how fast we have lost the skill to memorize a stream of seven simple digits. Sewing, crocheting, quilting and darning. |
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If my son has a hole in his underpants he will do one of 2 things: Throw it away, or give it to me so I can fix it for him. Most of us still keep our old sewing kit around the house and it is as useful today as it always has been. |
