Update: Middle-class parenting neglects life skills that are essential for students | Letters

The Guardian — Opinion has covered a development concerning “Update: Middle-class parenting neglects life skills that are essential for students | Letters,” with the available account limited to the facts included in the supplied text.

The available account reports that we owe it to our young people to teach them how to do laundry and prepare food, writes Melissa Scallan , while Pippa Keech recalls her son’s university halls baptism of fire Zoe Williams’ university-bound son won’t be the only one among his peers not to know how, or indeed why, bed sheets are laundered ( I went to Ikea with my son – and was confronted with my parenting failures, 8 September ). The report also notes that Modern day, middle-class parenting tends to direct kids away from domestic pursuits, focusing instead on academic achievements and sporting prowess or music grades, scouting activities and Duke of Edinburgh awards. With their waking hours consumed by so many outside interests, there’s little time for learning life skills such as cooking, cleaning and laundering.

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