Needle time

The intern stood up from his desk and the button popped off his trousers. He walked over to me and asked what he should do. I suggested he stitch it back on. He said he didn’t know how, so I offered to do it for him – but he declined. Instead, he spent the whole day walking round the office with a paperclip holding his trousers up. The next day he came in and told us he had bought a new pair.

Had nobody taught this young man to sew on a button? It’s the sort of simple task that everyone should know how to do. It takes 20 minutes to learn, yet it is knowledge that will last a lifetime. So why not arm young people with as much information like this as possible? How to cook lunch. How to wash clothes. How to iron. These were once seen as feminine activities.