(800) 853-2651
SHOP NOW

We're in trouble

M

massey harris steve

Member
We're in trouble when the younger generations have NO survival skills. A 20 year old at work had no clue that you can grow your own vegetables and can them. He has no idea what a cucumber is or what to do with it. Best of all he stated that he liked cole slaw and would like to grow his own. He needed to know where he could buy a cole slaw bush. If we ever have another depresion, we're in BIG trouble. The younger generations will make the one from the 20's look like a cake walk
 
Honest to God, Had one Last week while loading some plywood he said Oh! we get wood from trees, it used to floor me now i just shake my head, hopefully i go in my sleep and won't need to rely on next generation.
 
There are plenty of areas where those youth have a full understanding and we are nearly clueless.
Can we blame the kids for nor knowing the basics because we didn't teach them?
How many children are raised by single Mom's without a Father or with a step Father? In an urban or suburban setting were everything is delivered in a finished ready to use package.
They are not taken out fishing, hunting, to the shed to assist with equipment repairs, livestock care and no garden to work.
I have seen plenty of rural hicks with "no clue" as well when taken from their native environment.
 
Our local Troy Bilt dealer quit selling tillers since the next generation don't have gardens. They still have parts. I thought something had changed since I had fixed and sold 30 of those tillers and now you seldom get a call. My nephew
still cans everything and has written a book on how to can. He learned that from my late mom when she was living. None of my neighbors have gardens. My neighbor asked how I grew potatoes
and after I explained it to her then she was telling some of her relatives how it was done. I said Judy you explained that very well for never growing potatoes. Hal

2nrlnuw.jpg


2vjsk07.jpg
 
That young feller needs to see a show that I saw yesterday on Harvesting.
This show explained from the beginning of wheat harvesting, it showed the Cyrus Mccormick thresher, up to the modern large machines of today. All stuff was show harvested with mechinization, Tomatos, walnuts, Wheat, corn, Very informative, I never saw how nuts were vibrated off of the branches before.
 
if it happens again, it'll just be me and some rusty old tractors out here. I'll be set!!

I only did 6 tomatoes this year, about 25 pepper plants, 300 sets of onions, and some sweet corn. plus a couple rows of carrots, and two of lettuce. And theres 40 some chickens out there, and only about 2-3 acers of corn. Its small, but alot more then other people can say.......
 
I think you'd be hard pressed to support that statement that the youth are more knowlegable in some areas. Best you might come up with is a cell phone, video games and the latest gadgets. Unfortunately, they don't know how they work. For example, ask them how a cell phone gets its name and how they make a call. They're clueless. You might come up with computers...nope, they don't know what a Hdd is nor Ram. They just operated some basic programs.
I submit that the older guys know far more than the youth today.
Kid I know heard a rattle under his car and had it towed to the dealership so they could fix the heat shield on the catalytic. My wife ask him why he just didn't jerk it off...he had no clue about getting under the car.
Another kid...male...we were talking about changing a flat and he said he didn't know how. I asked him what happens if he gets a flat...he said, I call AAA and they come out.
Nope...it's the age of specialization and the rip offs are coming or are here.
I had a brake line to the rear brake rust out. Took it to a dealer and told him exactly what it was and what I wanted done. He quoted me $1600+tax. For a $10 brake line and an hours worth of labor at best. How many are suckered into that because they don't know nor want to learn?
 
I was talking to a friends little girl one time, not used to being around a farm, at this time she was 11 years old. Here is the conversation we had while discussing different foods.

Her,- I don't like chicken it's too dry . [every time she did she would have to dip good fried moist chicken in a salad dressing like buttermilk or garlic.]

ME,- I noticed you like bacon. [Had a whole plate full at the time]
She,- Yum ! I shore do.

Me,- You mean to tell me you would rather eat dead pig rather than dead chicken?

She,- If this came off some kind of animal I'm not going to eat it.

Me,- Where do you think it comes from?

She, - The store?

this little girl is 18 now and thinks everything still comes from the store.

Good cookin comes from the microwave.
cookbooks are from the old days.

I never ask her where chocolate milk comes from,
I'm afraid to ask . bet she would say brown cows.
 
So i guess im the last of the "useful kids"??

A place where i worked had me nailing plywood to a rotted out trailer floor. The man told me that the last kid he hired couldnt drive a nail. He just lightly tapped at it with the hammer. When i first started working there, his wife was supprised to find out that i knew how to drive a tractor. Even more supprised i had a general idea of how one worked......
 
I bet he did know that cutting down those trees results in a warmed globe. Even city people know that :)
 
I read the comments on this subject and sat and wondered where are we headed?Sometimes i think i really wasent as smart as i thought i was at these kids ages, but then i think no i wasent as green as they are. I ofen wonder who was their teacher.Its no wonder we cant compete with china in the industrial world.what a mess we are leaving our grandchildren.
 
Look what happens after natural disasters, like Katrina and the floods in IA. The city people sit around and wait for help, help that may not come. The country folks get right to it, helping each other and moving on.

If the worst ever happens, and some terrorists/Iranians/Chinese light off a nuke in the atmosphere over the U.S. sending out an electromagnetic pulse that will shut down all the grids and electrical equipment, the cities and people in them will be doomed.
 
Don't give up on all of them. I just took my son to his granny's to learn how to make sweet pickles. I have to admit some of his motivation is from seeing a quart jar of them that we donated for our western riding clubs fund raiser auction sell for $10. He went and pick 10 pints of blackberries to take with him. She'll probably show him how too make a small batch of jam.

He turned 11 in May.
He wanted to plant a garden this year so I took the 8n and broke up some ground for the veggies and another spot behind the horse barn for watermelons, cantelope and pumkins. He has had good luck with everything except his squash. The bugs took out 5 of his six plants.
I'll go pick him up in a few days and he'll be gone in a week or so to 4H camp to learn a few more outdoor skills.
He killed his 1st deer last year and loves to fish.
So don't give up on the whole generation. Take time and explain how its done or better yet take a kid fishing or hunting.
100_0762.jpg
 
Sad, ain't it?

OTOH, I've got a bus full of summer camp kids coming to my little hobby farm this coming Tuesday for a tour. This'll be the third year, and I always make a point of explaining that the chickens and sheep are not pets, they're food. Some of the older ones "get it", some of the younger ones don't right away.

Always kind of tickles me to see the light come on when I take 'em in the henhouse, reach under a bird and haul out an egg...
 
You're right. Not all the younger generation is that way.My sons & daughters and grand kids deer hunt and fish with me, they plant gardens and can also as do my nieces & nephews. I quess what I was tring to say was that soo many of the youngers have no survival skills.
 
So did you'll set these kids strait or just come on this board making fun of them?
Y'all have kids and grandkids, where do they fit in this scenario?
 
I would be tempted to consider this to be a joke if I had not also met people who are almost as out of touch with reality.

I can't effect other people's kids, but my own not only know where food comes from, but they are already doing the hard work of growing it. No matter what they choose to do with their lives, I know for a fact that they will understand how to work.

Christopher
 
Don't group the Iowans with Katina.

No body waited for anyone they are already rebuilding on there own.

Some have the house already to rebuild and they aren't cause they were told they may have to relocate.

Everyone is taking care of everyone here in Iowa.

The city of Cedar Rapids never lost water because city workers put out word that they needed help at 10:00 at nite to save the last well. Within 15 minutes over 250 people showed up to sandbag and saved it in a thunderstorm.

Businesses are reopening and so are house less than 30 days later.

Gary
 
There's a summer camp near me that the ymca runs for kids.The other day i was there when a bus load of city kids got off the school bus.About 1/2 of them had a can of beer in their hands and several were smoking.The people who were there to greet the kids did or said nothing.
 
Should"ve recorded her and her friends answering the questions of that kind and wrote a book, "The blanding of america". Ya, and specialization will eventually kill us by dulling our survival instincts.
 
Well, there were a few folks who had few survival skills back when, just not near as many. It has to do with connection to the land. My son is forced to live in the big city, but could thrive in a survival situation.

In Chuck Yeagers autobiography, he mentions that during the time he lived in the wild after being shot down in WWII, he actually came back months later, and had gained weight! He really grew up in a hardscrabble enviornment prior to going into the service.

I know that a lot of folks do not like Rush Limbaugh, but he does make some good points. He said once that 10-15% of the population are the leaders, the people who create jobs and make things go.

I would hope in a disaster type situation those 10-15% would be joined by others who do have skills and help the ones that never had the chance to learn.

Aren't we lucky to have had those chances to learn skills to make us self sufficient?

Gene
 
I concur that some of the basic skills we took for granted are unknown to the vast majority of the youth today. But I think if they were forced into a situation of survival they would pick up some skills real fast. The way everyone is coddled these days and everyone is a victim is a serious problem. "Tough love" is more than a catchy phrase. It is something that needs to be done if we are to remain strong.

I could go on and on about the decline of our youth due to the "everyone is a winner" mentality but I shall not.
 
Really threw me for a loop the other day when a young person asked about an egg factory and wanted to see how those thinge were made.

scott#2
 
I had a sophomore college student explain to me that he recently learned a ratchet wrench would work in both directions.
 
A friend of mine, who's a civil engineer, told a story about a Nebraska Cornhusker football player who got a summer job on construction.

They were framing a building, and the first thing someone had to do was teach him how to drive a nail with a hammer. Then when he sort of got the hang of driving nails, someone had to tell him where to drive each one. He lasted about two days. Guess they could have just had him carry lumber around, but they probably would have taken a day explaining what a 2X4 was.

This isn't new, however. When I was about ten years old on the farm, a neighbor had relatives visit from New Jersey. The relatives included a 12 year old girl. The neighbors had no livestock, and when the relatives visited our place we were milking cows. The gal very haughtily said she wouldn't think of drinking cows milk, she drank only milkman's milk.

I, too, noticed the contrast between the people in eastern Iowa who simply dug in and did what they needed to do to survive, and the people in "Nawlins" who sat on their butts whining because the government wasn't doing enough for them.

There was one fellow in New Orleans who, when interviewed on camera by a TV reporter who asked what he intended to do next, pointed with his arm and said, "See that road? I'm going to start walking down it and see where I wind up."

Him I liked. At least he intended to do something on his own.
 
We're going to can tomatoes when they're ready. Been slow to ripen even with hot days and warm nights. That's just 1/2 the garden. My wife and I have an assembly line set up when canning tomatoes. We wash them and once the water bath is hot enough I scald them and my wife packs them in jars. She has the jars in the dishwasher usually the night before and starts it during breakfast. Once we have 7 quarts packed in jars she puts them in the canner and once the canner water starts to boil she times them for 15 minutes and removes them from the canner. We usally do 28 to 35 quarts. My late mom canned in 2 quart mason jars. Hal
 
The press covered your area and showed everyone
working filling those sand bags and stacking them along the banks. Hal
 
Even worse, kids are discouraged from learning 'dirty work'. 4 years ago our illustrious abundant school board discontinued all shop classes and sold off the tools and equipment. Wood shop, metal shop, auto shop, vocational ag and mechanical drafting. Home economics was converted to Family and consumer science (FACS) with is in essencse what to do once you are pregnant and scared.
That same year the board approved a 20 million dollar renovation to the high school which included a 3 million dollar PIAA approved sports complex and football field. Couldn't afford the shop classes but the football field sure is pretty everytime the old style ag schools like ours was spanks us good.
I don't feel too bad though, These sages of higher education know where to find me everytime there need 'dirty work' done...for 50 bucks an hour.
 
LOL...we had a college sophomore intern (mechanical engineering at that!) a couple years back that handed a ratchet to a technician and said he needed one that went the other direction!
 
Sounds like that old episode of Gomer Pyle USMC when they went out on a survival mission. Sargeant Carter went with him to look after him so he didn't die. Old Gomer,bein from the hills had tham eating like kings and even had hand rolled cigars after they ate. They both gained a LOT of weight when they got picked up. Let's hope there's still a few Gomers out there.
 
It's not really the kids falt --- it's their Dumb Parents who are about as Dumb as they are -- when it comes to educating them --- think about it !!!!!
 
I work with teenagers, and even though some of them don't have a clue, a lot of them have a good head on their shoulders. I usually take a survey at the beginning of a semester to see how many have raised a garden, killed hogs, killed chickens, hunt, fish, etc... and I have found it to always be more than I thought. I even had some students wanting to come and help kill chickens a while back. Some of my best help on the farm has been my students.
 
You aint seen nothing yet. Wait till these kids that are preteens get out in the world in a few years. Growing up with no influence other than video games, microwave meals, fast food, and internet and all the vile things it contains. Living the American Dream these days has no comparison to what the American Dreams were 30-40-50-60 years ago. Today they are shown that the American dream is having everything, working for nothing, and living for the next best thing, rather than working for a better life and relishing that they have what they need. Everybody wants their kid to be a spoiled little rich kid, even if they can't afford it. Years ago parents chased away the rotten guys from their daughters and encouraged their little girls to find a nice, hard working man that'll treat them like a lady. These days it's "find a rich guy and do whatever you need to to hang on to them so you can live like Paris Hilton, and we can leech of the guy too". The babies popping out this decade will be the ones that may turn it around if the parents wake up and get off the " I got to have it now" mentality, that and get some faith in the Lord back in their lives.
 
I live in a pretty rural area, the only kids who know anything about raising thier own food are in 4H.
 
I'm sixteen, and I can drive a nail, drive a tractor, I can weld, I have a garden with 2 rows of tomatoes, 6 rows of peas(purple hull peas), 1 row of butterbeans, and 4 rows of sweet corn. I can say With great pride that my Great Grandfather taught me to work it all and to do it right the first time. I worked for three years around his house doing odd jobs and selling peas and corn to buy his 4020 JD. I believe I could make it a while too.
 
Here's the sour cherries my wife canned. She did 24 pints and froze 16 pints. I did the picking. Hal
rs63p2.jpg
 
We had an elrctrical engineer that didn't know you could charge the battery in the vehicle. He was a whiz kid on electronics though. Had a heart attack in his late 20's in graduate school
and had to drop out and go back later. He died in his mid 50's before he could retire. Hal
 
I apologize, i worded that poorly. I didn't mean to group them together, rather, to show the differences. I know Cedar Rapids is a good sized city, but I still think of it as more of a rural area. And I meant how well they performed after the flood, versus how poorly the people in New Orleans reacted.

Sorry for the confusion.

B
 
Don't give up on these kids- they might surprise you. My son, for instance, is a part of this new generation that doesn't want to turn a wrench- but that diesn't mean he couldn't if he had to. These young men and women have a lot of heart- Zac just finished hiking South America and is riding a bike across country from Portland Or to get home. I think the majority of these kids will rise to the occassion- but they will work to live rather than live to work like many of us have.

I think there have always been city kids and country kids- street smarts and farm smarts. Those kids that don't know where an egg comes from could probably program a computer. As adults, we need to try to expose EVERY kid to EVERYTHING they will need to be a success as an adult. We have inner city kids out to the farm for a day every second month as part of a church program-the only reason these kids seem to be in the dark is because adults have kept them there.
r3957.jpg
 
I don't think this post is meant as a put down, and agree with his assessment. As a society the changes from agrarian/rural to urban/city have depleted alot of useful common knowledge education from the younger generations. I fear for them more than anything, and hope that any of us out there would share our knowledge to anyone looking for it.
 
They figure it out once they get to Iraq.Support the 4H for farming skills to be taught.I think we are about having the next depression now anyhow.
 
Its not been too long in the past that there werent any tractors.Really less than 100 years.Im 53 and barely remember my Grandpa farming with horses still in the 50s.Ill bet that some kids from big cities in the 50s had no idea other than the store where food comes from.Lots of people before tractors came from a farm and moved to a city,and back to farms to work.Tractors put a lot of these farm hands out of a job.You would think with television that we have nowdays that somebody would use it to teach stuff like that.There should be a few classes in High School about it.Like Ancient History class,all kids should have Agriculture Survival class so maybe it would stop a lot of ignorance about what it takes to feed everybody.Some of them hardly ever see their parents,and if they do,they dont have time to teach them much,and maybe dont know themselves.Kids arent any different much than they ever were,its just a dumber,meaner,more urban,ignorant world they have to grow up in now.Seems like its more important to teach people how to get along in this crazy world that what was really important was forgotten.Some of them probably would want to go hunting and fishing if they knew what it was,and the old ways of butchering and canning,raising a garden,planting crops.The paper pushers running things have just about thrown everything away to support life,and dont even know it.
 
My brother in law designs and builds electronic equipment "from scratch" (converters from analog to digital- Sony and a bunch of other movie makers use his products)- but he asked me to wire the dryer outlet in his new house, because he wasn't sure about the black wires and the white wires- and what's up with that red one?
 
I am in the 20-30 age group and take offence to this post. I raise my own garden, built my own house, barn, and cleared my lot. I have restored a few tractors and a car. I learned many things from my grandad before he passed, but was young at the time. My parents taught me well also. The things that I did not learn from them I learned by asking questions, research(on the computers we know nothing about), and trial and error. There are many adults that can't tell you much about any of the above topics, the generation that knows and lived it has sadly, for the most part, passed on. Don't judge, teach.
Ben
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

D
JD 2350 air in fuel line
2
Replies
30
Views
820
danc1948
D
C
SOS Massey Ferguson HELP
Replies
6
Views
493
Catalpa Cat
C
J
Farm pics, 20 years old already
Replies
17
Views
2K
SVcummins
S
olgentdc
B-i-L Joel passed away His Eulogy 10-22--56/// 11-8--
Replies
9
Views
1K
olgentdc
olgentdc
hdokes
'60 D6b steering issues
Replies
8
Views
582
hdokes
hdokes
Tractor Parts Tractor Manuals

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Copyright © 1997-2024 Yesterday's Tractor Co.

All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any part of this website, including design and content, without written permission is strictly prohibited. Trade Marks and Trade Names contained and used in this Website are those of others, and are used in this Website in a descriptive sense to refer to the products of others. Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy TRADEMARK DISCLAIMER: Tradenames and Trademarks referred to within Yesterday's Tractor Co. products and within the Yesterday's Tractor Co. websites are the property of their respective trademark holders. None of these trademark holders are affiliated with Yesterday's Tractor Co., our products, or our website nor are we sponsored by them. John Deere and its logos are the registered trademarks of the John Deere Corporation. Agco, Agco Allis, White, Massey Ferguson and their logos are the registered trademarks of AGCO Corporation. Case, Case-IH, Farmall, International Harvester, New Holland and their logos are registered trademarks of CNH Global N.V.

Yesterday's Tractors - Antique Tractor Headquarters
Website Accessibility Policy

Back
Top