How Home Ec Made Me A Better Executive

Cooking class. Source
Cooking class. Source

Back when I was in Junior High School, the boys took Shop and the girls took Home Economics. It was assumed at the time that most of us would eventually be homemakers. There was no opting out or choice offered. I was fine with it, as I wanted to learn to cook and sew. One friend of mine lobbied the school administration to be allowed to take wood shop, which was dismissed outright and caused her to be called some ugly names by some of the boys. She went on to become a successful architect as an adult, but at the time decided to make the best of Home Ec by performing merciless impressions of the teacher, a mild-mannered woman who occasionally lost it when a roomful of 12-13 year-olds wouldn’t stop talking and listen to directions.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but aside from learning to make hamburger casseroles and English muffin pizzas, I was introduced to concepts that would serve me well in an administrative career.

Time Management. One of the lessons drilled into us was how plan out meal preparation so that all of the dishes were ready at once. It was a new concept for me, and made a big impression. Think about it…you don’t wait until the roast is cooked to start peeling the potatoes. I learned to prioritize tasks so that I could set one thing in motion while I worked on another. While that quarterly report is processing, answer some emails. I’ve always been very good at time management, which has served me well in all areas of my life, and is a skill I’ve come to realize not everyone has.

Organization. This goes hand-in-hand with time management, but I remember our teacher showing us how to write up our grocery list by market section, to avoid the wasted time and effort of dashing back and forth. Gather your resources and know what steps are required before starting a project.

Flexibility. No tarragon in the spice rack? What else might work? Don’t be afraid to try workarounds and be adaptable.

I can’t think of any other course I took, up to and including college classes that helped develop these skills as effectively. Having now been in the workplace for a few decades and having encountered a lot of people who haven’t learned how to manage their time effectively or prioritize or organize, I have to wonder if Home Ec shouldn’t be required curriculum for everyone. I also reflect on how our culture still tends to devalue what are regarded as “feminine” spheres, when actually probably a lot of the skills that make one a good homemaker are the same skills that are highly prized in successful managers and executives.

Was there a class or area of study that developed skills that have helped you be successful in unrelated areas of your life?

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40 Comments

  1. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I missed taking home ec. I learned the most from journalism and speech. Both taught me perseverance, courage, curiosity, boldness, and the importance of deadlines. They have served me well and fueled my passions my entire life.

  2. My mother was a home ec teacher, and this is how we lived at home. Both my sister and I internalized all these concepts, and more, including “mix and match” wardrobes, as well as terrific sewing skills.

  3. Susan, I am older than you are and we were not required to take Home Economics–and this was Texas! Maybe my state was more progressive back then than it sometimes appears to be now!

    One class I did take (all through high school) that has had a lasting value is Debate. In addition to taking the class, I went to tournaments at other high schools in other cities (all larger than the town I grew up in). Debate class stood me in good stead when I went to college when it came to analyzing and organizing what I learned in various classes. My debate experience also made it fairly easy to respond on essay exams that had questions like: Do you agree with this statement—why or why not–and support your answer with examples. Later, I was a history teacher in public school and my debate experience made it easy to stand up in front of a class and speak. Teachers have to do that and I’m sure this was challenging for some young teachers who had not had public speaking experience.

  4. Geometry, of all things. I’m an avid gardener and find I use geometric principles to figure out how many plants I need for a given area, or how much mulch to buy if I’m going to spread it 2 inches thick, etc.

  5. I didn’t take Home Ec and I’m glad. Due to my family’s circumstances at the time, I had more than enough “home ec” practice after school and on weekends, which were spent taking care of my younger siblings and doing household chores. I might have been interested in cooking and sewing classes if they had been offered separately from the “family management” aspects of the home ec courses. I have always been interested in the creative aspects of those fields, and in fact I do sew for fun.

    I think the high-school class that has influenced me the most was my French class. Our teacher was really good about incorporating lessons about fine arts, history, and culture in conjunction with learning the language. While I don’t believe in idealizing the French (or any) culture, they do stand out as a nation that values the role of art and aesthetics in everyday life. Thanks to my French class (and a couple of school trips to France during those years), I learned that it is o.k. to make room in life for beautiful things, good food, and fashion. This attitude has served me well in all aspects of my life. Even when times were tough, I made room for art and beauty.

  6. Your experience sounds very familiar. At the time I saw very little value in making white sauce from flour and water or blanc mange. In fact, I’ve never made either but I do agree that society does undervalue the “homemaker skills” of orderliness, organization and flexibility.Presenting in front of a class as a girl was a terrifying experience but as an educator of adults and children, it has been a skill that I have used throughout my career.

  7. I also took Home Ec — and learned the value of planning (meal planning for a week), clothing construction (helpful when shopping among every-increasing shoddy goods), basic repairs (clothing, etc.) and perseverance (if the first batch of muffins doesn’t work, tinker with the recipe and try again). I too studied journalism in college and developed the following skills: the ability to talk to anyone about anything; ability to ask questions (probing and otherwise); the understanding to seek out all points of view on a question and withhold judgment until all the facts are available; the capacity to research ideas, issues, and events; and the ability to talk or write about complex issues and idea coherently.

  8. Like you, I was required to take Home Ec and, like your friend, not allowed to take Shop though I wanted to do so. As it turned out my Dad was the best (shop) teacher ever as he showed me how to mix cement, lay a brick wall, put up drywall, paint, lay carpeting, wire electrical items like lamps and light fixtures and so on. It wasn’t his profession either, he was just incredibly handy like many of his generation. Needless to say, I have applied those skills over the decades everywhere I have lived (as well as in my adult children’s homes). All these skills require planning, estimating of materials required, estimating of energy and flexibility to tackle them–something that is waning these days, but great skills for all professions. Though I would have loved to build my own post and beam home, instead I use these skills to oversee grants and programs. However, I greatly appreciate the fact that I can do almost any household project by myself. Thanks, Dad.

  9. I’d been helping out enough at home by the Grade 8 Home Ec class that, quite honestly, much of it seemed a bit precious to me. But I was pleased to watch my son move through a course (required for all, at about Grade 8 or 9) that taught basic Cooking, Sewing (they made an apron) and other Home Management skills. My daughters had taken a similar course, but to me, with experience like yours with a ’60s curriculum, the gratification came from seeing the guys routinely included in this exposure to basic life skills.
    As for myself, I’d say my French classes probably continue to have the biggest impact in my daily life, but it would be my piano lessons that taught me the value of disciplined practice, one of the most transferable lessons ever! I think of it when I see a young teen spending hours trying to master a move on her/his skateboard. . . .

  10. In my farm state college town girls had a rotation in ood shop during Home Ec.
    I made a very lopsided Chinese checkers board. I wish we’d also had a rotation in auto shop because this was in the days when cars weren’t as reliable as they are now. The boys took Home Ec and when we returned to our home class the teacher told some funny stories about the boys making biscuits.

    I have read comments on the Pioneer Woman blog from women who praise her photo/instruction heavy cooking posts — while they picked up some cooking they never had formal cooking training and her posts are helpful to them.

    To this day if I get a baked good with tunnels I tsk-tsk-tsk the baker who didn’t mix the ingredients up enough.

  11. When I was in junior high school I had home-ec which offered sewing and cooking, but I was lucky to be able to take a quarter long shop class too. I think there was only one other girl in there with me and I still remember the delicious scent of the cut wood and fresh resin. I’ve loved a good workshop ever since. I think it also taught me in my young teen years that it was okay to love those things even though it was not the norm. It also made me curious about our junkie garage at home and since we didn’t have a man around it was up to me to keep it tidy out there. It became the best way I knew to get myself off restrictions! Thanks for the flasback. Ha!

  12. Sounds like you all had better home ec than I did. My first teacher recommended that we purchase new food items like aerosol cheese spread. Second year was sewing–most of the other girls knew how to sew, so I was way behind on my skirt—-when the home ec wing burned down. I still remember the teacher picking a girl to teach us how to do measurements. Of course, she picked a chubby girl, whose cheeks burned in shame as her measurements were proclaimed aloud by the teacher (as sadistic as gym teachers). Last memory: in 8th grade, the teacher had us put our heads on the desks and then raise our hands if we had gotten our periods. At the end she said “Just as I thought…”

    Oh well. I’ve learned to budget and cook on my own. Sewing has always eluded me, but that’s probably because I have poor fine motor skills. Not good at time management either. Thank heavens I am a good reader! At least I can do something.

  13. In junior high school the girls had to take Home Ec, but it was either Cooking or Sewing—no Home Ec skills per se. I wanted Cooking, but got stuck with Sewing. I was terrible at sewing! I spent most of the time ripping out seams on the awful little corduroy A-line skirt I had to make! (Oh, and the apron was a disaster too!) To this day, I can barely sew—just enough to do a quick mend, usually until I can get to a tailor! (Thank goodness I live in NYC.)

  14. We could choose between Home Ec and other things, so I never had it as a class. I did cook and clean our home as part of my chores for allowance. Cooking for 4 or 5 people most weekdays at least once took care of the meal planning for me. I learned planning and organization from both journalism classes and music, and had great teachers for both. They taught me the value of time management. The discipline it takes to prepare for performances or finish an article or layout pages for the yearbook are invaluable.

  15. I love that you took time to point this out. Many of us prepared for high-powered careers at the urging of our teachers and parents, but did not realize the value/necessity of preparing to manage everyday life. Your post connects the two needs nicely.

  16. I think back and the 50s and 60s when many of us grew up, we were doing homemaking jobs all the time at home. I learned how to iron from my mother–also how to fold clothes, hem skirts, repair garments, wash dishes (by hand), cook, vacuum, dust, clean bathtubs, etc. etc. etc. I didn’t really enjoy cooking until I had my own apartment and then I taught myself a lot of things about cooking and found it to be great recreation!

  17. I attended a private high school and we didn’t have home ec. Also, girls were not given phys ed. classes. This killed me when I got to college and had no idea how to handle myself in a gym class. The one good thing I experienced was 4 years of Latin. As odd as that may seem, it made me a better writer with well-honed grammar skills and a good vocabulary. Latin words helped me through the English portion of the SAT’s where I could figure out a word from its Latin base. And in order to learn Latin grammar, you had to know English grammar rules. All served me well to be a better communicator (in writing, that is.)

  18. Years ago I met a man who had attended a Chicago public school in the 50’s – he said that everyone, boys and girls, took a class in basic home ec and a shop class.

  19. I loved my Home Ec classes, both sewing and cooking, although the classes built on skills my mother taught me. My sister and I were cooking dinner for the family by the time we were 12 or 13.
    The class that most changed my thinking was History 12. All of a sudden I could see how the past influences the present and the future and it was a revelation. The progression of time and evolution of the way humans think about life is always changing and is always influenced by both our personal and collective past. I think about this when I make major decisions, and smaller ones – what effect will this choice have on my life and on the lives of those I love.

  20. My mother was a Home Ec. teacher, and taught us to sew. She has dementia now, but when I was making a cape for my son, I went to Mom’s house to use her machine, and she still knew the best way to lay out the pattern on the fabric. I treasure that afternoon with my the Mom I once knew.

    When she was at university, they had a practice house where the Home Ec. students lived, complete with an actual baby. (I guess they were a series of foster children.) Carol Shields wrote a novel, “Larry’s Party” about one of the grown-up practice house babies.

    1. It’s funny the things that people with dementia can do. My Dad could tie his shoe, if he didn’t think about it. If he hesitated then he forgot and got the laces all mixed up. Your Mom must have laid out so many patterns it was second nature, so her muscle memory just took over.

  21. I somehow didn’t take Home Ec or Shop, but I sure wish I had taken Shop. But what I wanted to say mostly, Susan, is that I so enjoy your outlook on life that I enjoy your “opinion” pieces, such as this, even more than the fashion, although the Franco-fashion theme is what drew me here. I think if we met in person we’d be BFFs.

      1. I echo the point made in the above two comments…I particularly enjoy your thought/opinion posts.

  22. Our school also barred girls from shop class and boys from home economics. Title IX was passed my junior year so on my senior year I joyfully took a drafting class. I found that the lack of electronics courses really put me behind the learning curve when I went into electronics engineering. The boys had already seen all of this before so the girls were being lectured for not picking it up as fast as the boys – and blamed for being “less smart”. You gotta love those micro-inequities!
    My parents force me to take typing and I found that to be a great class for later in life – especially when I went into software design.
    These days I’d strongly be in favor of a co-ed life-skills class where they teach kids how to cook, manage a budget, etc.

  23. In high school I had a class with a fun young Englishman, Mr. Mustard, who taught a breezy course in current events. We dissected each issue of “Time” magazine as it came out. It sharpened my so-called analytical skills, and built on the foundation laid by my Dad– he and I were greatly interested in politics and bonded over our wide ranging discussions of same…

    The single Time magazine cover story we covered in class that stayed in my mind for decades was a profile of William F. Buckley. I adored him, and Mr. Mustard had us debating the content of the article, and also noticing the biases (if any) of the Time researchers and writers. Even then it was possible to detect that, although the reporters seemed to be struggling to be “fair”, they were somehow at odds with Bill Buckley’s world view. I learned in that class to deconstruct journalism, never to take it at face value. A handy little skill to take into adulthood…

  24. Yes, they should call the class “life skills”, which is gender neutral, and teach basic cooking from scratch, minor repairs, and budgeting, how to clean efficiently, shopping, dissecting advertising nonsense, and other useful skills for everyday life.

    I hated home ec, although I already knew how to cook. I wish I’d studied sewing a little more seriously. I hated it for the ideology the course was promoting; the idea that we’d all be wives and mothers above all else. And I do remember one particularly sadistic home ec teacher.

    What did I love? Language and literature (French and English), History, Art. Study in other languages later on; Italian, which I already spoke, Spanish, German. My German is still a bit iffy, as I don’t have as much opportunity to speak it.

    I didn’t learn to type in secondary school, but I did take typing lessons a few years later, and am so happy that I can touch-type at a decent speed.

  25. I am still struggling with meals being ready at the same time 😉 Probably because we didn’t have Home EC at German schools. For the girls it was needlework opposed to handicrafts and woodwork for the boys!

    Annette | Lady of Style

  26. Your post brought back memories! And I love that photo! The most meaningful school-related experience I had was doing a year abroad in college. I learn so much about the world and myself from traveling.

  27. My father was a feminist! Unusual, especially in those days, I know, but he was. Dead against me learning traditional women’s things at school – he wanted me to attend university and have a career. As it was an academic, intellectually rather elitist school, not much was offered along those lines anyway. But when in my first year there was a choice between sewing and art, he urged me to take art. Also in first year once a fortnight on Friday afternoons we all had to go to a nearby school for a cooking class. I only remember making things that were simple and not exactly healthy, like rock cakes and scones. We never did learn to cook useful healthy food or meals or any of the skills others have mentioned, except for how to set up a table prettily, with flowers, table napkins etc.

    But the subjects that have remained with me and inspired me most were French and art. Our French teacher had lived and studied in France and was a committed, passionate Francophile who instilled in us a great interest in almost everything French – the culture, lifestyle: art, architecture, history, fashion, food etc, and described her favourite regions in France. I couldn’t wait to visit – and have been going back ever since. I only realised much later that the first places we visited, like Provence and Paris and the Loire valley were HER favourites. I remember her telling us how she walked through the perfume fields near Grasse and how the clothes she was wearing were impregnated with natural flower and herb scents that lasted for days. I couldn’t wait to do the same.

    I also loved the art classes too. I turned out to have no talent as an artist, except for a good sense of colour, but I learned a thorough and whole hearted aesthetic appreciation of art and architecture. Has come in handy as my husband is a seriously good hobby painter. We just love travelling and visiting art galleries and artists’ studios. Cheers, Pamela

  28. THANK YOU!!! I am a high school Family and Consumer Sciences (aka Home Economics…) in suburban St. Louis – we have 4 large high schools and 6 middle schools in our district – all with very strong enrollment of both boys and girls at all levels. I believe that thinking what we teach in our classes is irrelevant is in a reverse trend! I return to school in just 2 short weeks and cannot wait to see my students. Lots of fun ahead – and, a Fashion Construction 3 class!!! Love your blog – I hope to be a better blogger when school starts up.

  29. In junior high, both boys & girls did a year of art, home ec, and shop, in equal parts. I made a butter knife and a metal napkin holder, which my parents used for years. I don’t remember what we did in home ec, although I do recall my brother baking something called “goody bars” when he had the class.

    Possibly the most useful class I took was marching band, in college! I think it was kind of like being in the army; there were forced marches and hazing and other unpleasant stuff (no offense to the army), but I learned some serious discipline that I didn’t realize I was capable of. The joy of a great performance, and the teamwork, were other benefits. That, and that I lost ten pounds during band camp without trying!

  30. Your school sounds like mine. Yes, I took home ec and cooking. I’m wishing now that I had continued sewing but at the time I would have loved woodworking.

    The other class that has rewarded me time and time again is typing, yes, on the carriage return beasts. How I loved that machine and I bought a few vintage ones through the years. I made money typing papers for other people when I was at uni and use my keyboarding skills more now than ever. I always thought typing was a wussy class at the time, way too girly, but how I liked the clatter of those keys…

  31. Not wussy if you think of hardboiled journalists and novelists with a glass of whisky and a smelly ashtray beside their carriage return beasts. I know that is not the most healthy image, but it can be an antidote to prim secretaries.

    A lot of those old-timers were two-fingered typists, but there is a much better flow of ideas if one can touch-type without looking at the keys.

  32. Thank you for your post about the value of home ec for a lifetime. I just read the National Geographic article about hunger in America and thought of my best friend in Wisconsin, who grows her own fruit and vegetables, freezing or canning most of it for the cold weather. That, and the venison they hunt and use, allows them to live on very little during the year while yet giving so much away to neighbors. The families featured in the magazine article need coaches who will teach them, in their own kitchens, how to cook fast at home and be able to plan meals with nutritious food and not just pasta and cheese and cool whip. It broke my heart. I’m feeling pretty guilty that I didn’t plant at least some tomatoes and beans in my flower gardens this year…..thx for reading. Karen

    1. Karen, I read the article too, and even the family mentioned in the article that’s growing their own food (and foraging) is struggling with having enough to eat. Some of the other families profiled either don’t have access to a garden (think one of the women was living in a homeless shelter) and another is working too many (low-paying) hours to be able to shop and cook. It’s great that your friends are able to be so self-sufficient, but this isn’t an answer for everyone. Still, I agree that some basic cooking skills should be taught to all.

      1. I volunteer at a food bank and the stories represented in the article are all too true. We try to provide easy recipes for the types of food we might be distributing that day. In the summer a local farmer has set aside hundreds of acres to grow produce that he donates to local food pantries so that fresh vegetables are available for our clients–something they simply cannot afford to buy. The working poor, the disabled, the elderly, the unemployed (or underemployed), the recently divorced single parents, families overwhelmed by medical bills all number among our clients. The face of hunger would surprise you. Sometimes, it is your next door neighbor. One day, through circumstances beyond your control, it might be you.

  33. I truly cannot imagine how people survive without Home Ec which is now non existent in schools. My mom and grandma taught me a lot of those skills but Home Ec refined them and gave me so many other skills as well.

  34. Growing up in Europe, specifically Denmark, our Home Ec classes were arranged a bit differently. I did learn a few basics but I have to say my mother has been my greatest teacher in that arena. What I did learn that helped me tremendously later was Latin. We took Latin for 2 years in the 70’es when it was starting to disappear from many schools around the world. It helped me linguistically and my spelling has always been pretty strong ever since. Also, I imagine that I have a better understanding of grammar which has been useful when learning French at University and even just for studying in general.

    I do believe that a few good home ec courses should be mandatory for everyone. It would make sense if everyone knew how to budget, make healthy foods from scratch and take care of their own clothing, especially with mending and very basic alterations.

    Everyone seems to be on a health kick and a recycling kick, and I am all for that. But at the same time people buy so much ready-made, and waste so much money on groceries that go bad in their fridges and by buying an infinite amount of inferior clothing and discarding it when a small mending job might save it for much more use.

    How many adults can whip up a bechamel sauce, make a quick souffle, gut and clean a fish, iron a shirt properly, hem a pair of pants, repair a button hole, press a woolen suit, make a family budget, etc. I know many can but I also know that at least as many cannot. Those are life skills I think we all need. Some pick them up later. I suppose that is why all the Cooking shows and Do-it-Yourself shows on TV and YouTube thrive. Oh, I sound so old-fashioned.

    I recently heard that North Americans use a garment an average of 6 times, and that we throw out more than 50% of the contents of our fridges before we get around to cooking it. And this is at a time when everyone talks about being environmentally responsible.

    And although high school courses don’t teach a very high level of proficiency in either cooking or needle crafts, it gives everyone an introduction to some time honoured skills that they may choose to dive into on their own afterwards.

    I realize I was all over the place in this post but I think I really needed to vent some of my pet peeves.