Written By Scott Braden
In the early part of the 20th century, it was not unusual for boys and young men to build the items found in The Boy Mechanic, a book compiled by the editors of Popular Mechanics Magazine. Within the “how-to” publication were 200 projects ranging from a quick-working carpenter’s vise or a fanciful Ferris wheel to an imaginative “bewitched-cube” puzzle, among others. Although the book is still in print, in today’s disposable culture it just seems antique and charming.
If 70 years ago was an era of curiosity and ingenuity when people were competent enough to build useful things with a few basic tools, then when did we as a society become “unhandy?” Are the baby boomers – people born from 1946 to 1960 – the beginning of the unhandy generation? Or is there more to that?
“The unhandy generation started with the baby boomers, but it’s cross-generational,” said Brian Wigutow, the owner of a home service franchise in Eldersburg called Handyman Matters. The 49-year-old baby boomer believes that society has become too preoccupied with other things – concerns that do not include home improvement and household upkeep. “People are just too busy,” he said. “People won’t mow their own lawns right now, let alone work around the house. “
“Some of our dads just didn’t do this type of stuff,” said Wigutow, “and that’s where the kids [would have] learned it. Today, they just don’t have the time to do the small jobs around the house. That’s when people like Handyman Matters are called in.”
“It’s hard to put the blame on any one generation,” said Beth Dellow, 57, a contractor and owner of Beth’s D.I.Y. Workshop in Baltimore, which offers classes in do-it-youself skills. Dellow taught herself to be handy despite having a father who was not.
“My father,” she said, “lived through the Depression and World War II. But he lived in the city – in Detroit, in apartments – so there were few manual responsibilities.”
“I’m in the baby boom,” said Dellow, who also believes that being unhandy is cross-generational. “So, I’m not sure if there is one generation that you could call unhandy.
“It really depends on where you live, too. Every generation of farmers is handy until it decides its children don’t want to be farmers anymore. Then they go and get a different kind of education and do something else.
“Women, in general, aren’t handy in home improvement areas, but at the same time, they are handy in many other things. If you ask me to sew something, I would sew something, but it probably wouldn’t look like anything I was trying to make. Although there is a great parallel between woodworking and sewing, it doesn’t translate completely, and I really would need a lot of supervision.
“I think handiness is a mindset. It’s a Ôcan-do’ kind of spirit. I get lots of people in my classes who have never picked up a tool. A comment I get from a lot of people in their late 30s and early 40s was that they were too busy playing Atari and didn’t want to be with their dads working in the garage. But now they find themselves owning homes.”
In that case, is it Generation X – people born from 1961 to 1981 – that constitute the real unhandy generation?
“From a home improvement standpoint,” said Dellow, ”I don’t think they have as much knowledge, but they are not unhandy. When they decide to they can pick up the skills. Whenever they stopped teaching this stuff in school, whenever they stopped giving kids a hammer and nails, that’s when it all stopped. I have yet to find a group of people incapable of learning home improvement skills.”
Starting in the 1997-1998 school year, schools started a movement to replace traditional woodshop classes with “technology education,” which, according to writer Andy Opsahl in his March 30, 2006, article, “Replacing Woodshop,” for govtech.com, “introduces students to the scope, rigor, and discipline of engineering and engineering technology.”
In 2006, 1,300 schools in 45 states and the District of Columbia replaced their industrial arts programs with engineering education curricula. Carroll County Public Schools currently subscribes to the program.
Although the technology education program is designed to slow the growing worldwide deficit of technology workers, Dellow sees the loss of traditional industrial arts as a detriment to society. For example, if using tools is no longer taught at home or at Carroll County Public Schools, where will our kids learn the skills? And doesn’t that add to generational unhandiness?
“Everything they take out [of school] takes away from our society,” said Dellow. “Art, music, physical education, woodshop, home economics: everything they subtract diminishes our society as a whole. Somehow, growing up, we got English, math, science, art and woodshop, and we were able to squeeze it all into one day.
“From my understanding, it’s proven that music helps [achievement in] math and science. I think art and learning how to use your hands enhances the other parts of the brain. You start with an idea, and then you put that idea on paper, and then you make something physical. I know that prep schools like Gilman teach woodworking from junior high up. There must be a reason for that.”
In addition to the fact that traditional woodshop is no longer considered important in schools, it is generally understood that our society places little or no value on mechanical ability and instead has been shifting to an information-based economy.
“Well, that definitely has a lot to do with it – and it’s a shame,” said Dellow. “Do-it-yourselfers tend to want to learn how to manipulate an iPhone rather than do home improvement stuff. Yes, I think this society devalues mechanical ability; taking things apart and putting them together again. We are not training many people to do it anymore. Vo-Tech schools are thought less of than academic ones. And society pays for it; people no longer know how to do this stuff.
“Plumbers are paid very well. So are electricians. And there won’t be a time when we won’t need plumbers and electricians. We encourage our children not to go [to Vo-Tech], unless they are not very good academically.
“But it takes an enormous amount of intelligence and ability to analyze things and think them through from beginning to end. Tradesmen who own businesses – whether they are carpenters, electricians or others – are very intelligent, and their jobs get more and more sophisticated.”
So, who is around today to fill in the gap?
“Somebody always fills the gap,” said Dellow, “I learned on the job. I was just out of college and I overheard a conversation; someone was looking for a helper. I remember thinking that I like to work hard and don’t mind getting dirty, so I asked and he hired me.
“I told him I don’t know anything, but I’ll learn. So, he said, ÔOkay, show up.’ That’s what I did: I showed up. And I use the skills that I learned from that job every single day.”
