The urge to fix-it-yourself isn't necessarily passed on from parent to child. I do remember helping my father bleed the brakes on his Porsche when I was 12, but he never lifted a finger around the house OR the yard, and my mother didn't really, either. But he loved to work on cars, and my mother made stained-glass windows.
I like to fix things, myself, have no idea where it came from. Maybe it was because I was very poor, and couldn't afford to pay anyone to fix things for me. And I drove Volkswagens, and there was an excellent series of books, the first "Idiot" books, for repairing Volkswagens, that got me started fixing cars. Much of the time I have no idea what I am doing, either, but that doesn't stop me. I had a nice toolbox before I got married, and used to nag Chris about not taking care of his tools. Finally, he got a toolbox of his own, and nice tools, and he fixes most of the things that need fixing, but I am always available to help him in a jam. Nicholas likes to fix things, and Ben doesn't. Nick reads Popular Science, and Popular Mechanics, and loves to make things. I call him "Homo Faber." But Ben took Industrial Arts in Middle School, and made a wonderful clock and a toy race car that works. I think the "making" urge and the "fixing" urge are different aspects of the same ability. |
