My kid is 3. Try installing flooring or doing any type of home repair with a 3 year old running around. Good luck. Sure, it's good to have hobbies. I like to f

My kid is 3. Try installing flooring or doing any type of home repair with a 3 year old running around. Good luck. Sure, it's good to have hobbies. I like to forage mushrooms, cook, hike, photograph, etc., and I agree they are stimulating, creative, whatever. Who's arguing otherwise? I don't follow. My dad's only real hobby was working on the house and yard. One could argue that's less stimulating than having hobbies spanning a more diverse set of skills. Also, maybe parents should occasionally consider what hobbies their children want to do. I have installed flooring a few times in my life. I have never consciously used that experience in other facets of life. All it taught me is that I would rather spend my time doing something else. I don't find it particularly satisfying or enjoyable. Let's say I have 5 more instances of wanting new flooring in my life. What I'm saying is I'd prefer to have 25 days where I can choose how I want to spend time rather than spend those 25 days installing flooring to save $4000. I think most of my peer group thinks similarly, whereas I think many middle class people would have made the opposite decision a generation ago. My point was not that you should only be coding or sitting in an office or something. I don't know where you got that idea. My point was that I don't inherently value self-sufficiency when it comes to home/yard/car maintenance – at least not to the same degree that previous generations did. And obviously all of this is on a spectrum, right? I think it's important to know how to change a tire or jump a battery, if you drive often. I know how to change my own oil but rarely choose to. I don't know how to, say, change my brake pads. It's probably easy, but it's not something that comes up often enough that I care about learning – and not an area I want to test my amateur abilities. EDIT: Anyway, I'm not trying to argue, though I acknowledge I am bristly in the text above. I actually agree with most of what you said. You're totally right that as my daughter gets older, there's more opportunity for the family to do projects together, and if she enjoys learning how to install a new light fixture or whatever, that can be a hobby for us to do together. Though I still wouldn't view it as inherently much more valuable than other hobbies, like camping or painting, and that's where I think my viewpoint differs from my parents' or grandparents'.