| If a hurricane swept your home away, would your | | | | the gardener was on holiday. So the boss and I dug a |
| family know how to survive? Would you be | | | | trench to uncover the pipe, replaced the broken |
| self-sufficient? Self-sufficiency comes from sharing | | | | section, and covered everything up again, even |
| many active family pursuits. | | | | shovelling snow back on top for extra insulation. |
| A research doctor asked me to prepare equipment | | | | Neither of the trade unions ever knew that we had |
| for him requiring needlework because "I always had | | | | avoided a two-week delay by doing their work |
| servants to do that for me, so I don't know how to | | | | ourselves. |
| thread a needle." | | | | Even your maths will improve. If the recipe serves |
| We were filling in a form when I was asked if I was | | | | eight, and there are three of you, how do you work |
| pregnant (I'm a man) and I replied that as I watched | | | | out how much to use where the recipe says two |
| people in the city there were more pregnant men than | | | | tablespoons? If you are papering a wall and need |
| women. They must have no activities. | | | | half-sheets in several places how do you work out the |
| Kid Pursuits | | | | total number of rolls that you will need? How do you |
| Man is better than the other animals because of his | | | | work out the number of seeds to plant in the garden, |
| brain. If we don't use our brains we lose our superiority. | | | | bearing in mind how many people will eat the produce |
| Healthy kids love a constant round of activities | | | | and how much they will eat, and the germination rate |
| because it stimulates that human brain. Each new | | | | of the seeds? |
| pursuit will build new skills and ways of thinking. | | | | Products of the kids construction will have to be |
| If you spend all your time in front of the TV the kids | | | | proudly displayed. They may not have craftsman finish |
| will have to find projects of their own. Many kids now | | | | and flair, but each project represents another ability |
| spend hours playing computer games each day. What | | | | that might be needed one day. It doesn't matter if |
| manual skills are they building? How to push some | | | | pottery is distorted if it carries water to avoid dieing of |
| buttons! | | | | thirst. |
| Systematic Kid Pursuits | | | | And yes(!) boys need to learn to cook and sew. If they |
| Plan long-term projects including preparing for a | | | | go to college and they can't cook their health will |
| vacation, so that the family can experience budgeting, | | | | probably deteriorate. If they allowed a friend to bleed |
| arts and crafts, gardening, cooking, keeping and | | | | to death out in the bush because they couldn't thread |
| butchering animals or just fishing and cleaning the fish. | | | | a needle to sew them up imagine how they would feel. |
| Don't let your family pursuits be so few and | | | | A young lady might just have to stand and look |
| uneducational that your children could end up dieing | | | | helpless to get the boys clustering round to fix her car, |
| within sight of food and water because they don't | | | | do the gardening, clean the gutters, kill the hens, fix the |
| know how to unzip a banana, or clarify a mud puddle. | | | | door lock etc. but if she doesn't know how to do it |
| How can your family become more versatile? Practice | | | | herself, will she have as many helpers when she is 50 |
| learning new things. The more you learn the faster you | | | | years old? |
| can learn, and the more options you will have in an | | | | Conclusion |
| emergency. | | | | Vegetating before a TV is OK until civilization changes, |
| Our research was brought to a standstill by a frozen | | | | perhaps tomorrow. If global warming floods coastal |
| water-pipe. The rules said that the gardener had to dig | | | | cities what would your family do? |
| up the pipe then the plumber had to fix the pipe. But | | | | |