Apropos of nothing (ahem cannabeansdad) you really can’t teach self-reliance by starting with self-reliance. It’s not an origin point, it’s an end goal, and a distant one at that.

I’ve noted it before but my father tried repeatedly to “teach” me things in a way that amounted to, GO INTO THE BARN AND GET ME ONE EAGLECLAW HAMMER, A 3/32 PENTAGON WRENCH, AND A MURPHY BOLT and I’d be like “but what are those and where are they” and I’d have to figure it out?

And I never figured it out? I’d return with an entire toolbox’s worth of tools and somehow none of them would be right and he’d just get extra pissed.

Of course the reality was that he should’ve both had better organization of these important tools and should’ve also taught me what they were, how you used them, WHY you used them, why they mattered but aahahaha yeah oops guess not.

One time he was so irritated he just gave me a bunch of wood and nails and had me hammer nails into wood for hours. One time I had to dig a ditch and then fill it back in repeatedly. No instruction, just that I should know how to do these things in life, so HAVE AT IT BOY.

It suuuuuucked and I didn’t learn shit and to this day am a home repair GOON. Attempting to jump-start self-reliance absolutely made me reliant on others for this stuff. Opposite effect achieved.

(That said I also think there’s this masculine tough guy thing that was also fed by the Depression that taught men they must DO EVERYTHING THEMSELVES. Which explains why you open the walls of a new house and find lamp cord in there because I AIN’T HIRING NO ELECTRICIAN.)

(Toxic masculinity feeds the death of expertise because MAN CANNOT BE WRONG EVEN IN FACE OF EVIDENCE.)

Ironically, my father taught me about guns and shooting and hunting with far greater care and caution — which tells me his own father maybe taught him the home repair stuff in a shitty bully way too. That stuff trickles down.

Anyway. On Friday my 9-yr-old wanted to help me prep dinner. I didn’t push or coerce; he wanted to help. I didn’t just hand him a knife under the auspices of, WELL IT’S A KNIFE IT’S OBVIOUS because nothing is obvious to a nine year old.

I stood behind him and had my hand guiding his hand to show him how to slice mushrooms, just to get him in the groove of it (and to not lose a finger). Eventually he settled into it himself and did it all and he was proud of himself.

You know how my dad tried teaching me to swim? If you said, THREW ME IN A POND, you won the kewpie doll. Was it a compassionate technique? No? But did I learn to swim? Also no! You don’t start with self-reliance. ANYWAY BYE. Here are dogs.