Why Home Economics Should Be A Required Class by Rowan

Why Home Economics Should Be A Required Class by Rowan - January 2023 Scholarship Essay

I believe that Home Economics (or Home Ec.) should be a course that is required for graduation. Over the last few decades, Home Ec. has died away as a valid course to take in high school (and middle school). It is seen as soft, feminine, and boring or unnecessary when compared to academic subjects such as math, science, and reading. This needs to change. The past two generations (Millenials and Gen Z) have both expressed on social media that they feel the detrimental effect of not having a class like Home Ec. in the regular school curriculum.

Home Ec. teaches things like cooking, sewing, home/money management, and other important life skills. It teaches the skills that enable young people to live independently and run their homes and lives efficiently. The lessons taught in Home Ec. are extremely valuable to young people because they improve their quality of life at home and financially, now and for the rest of their lives. If the goal of school is to prepare us to be adults, why are we not teaching kids the basic life skills like how to cook for themselves and manage their money?

Schools often claim they are preparing us for the future, but I’ve grown to learn that by this they mean they are preparing us for future academic and professional pursuits. This is a good thing, but the focus on academics leads to a deficiency in students' soft skills and basic life skills. They often provide tips on how to get high paying jobs, but they don’t teach you how to manage that money once you have it, or how to manage your small or insufficient budget until you get that job. These skills are so necessary for life in our modern world, so why did Home Ec. go away?

I believe that there is a serious aspect of sexism in the reasoning behind why Home Ec. is no longer a class that is offered in most schools. Whether that sexism is deliberate is not what I’m here to debate. The fact is that these homemaking skills, and homemaking in general is very often associated with the female gender. However, in the late 20th century as it became more acceptable and necessary for women to also work outside the home, the perceived necessity of these skills seemed to dwindle. Therefore, the popularity and supposed need for Home Ec. also dwindled. Women were no longer expected to be just housewives, so schools switched their focus to promoting originally “masculine” academic topics such as STEM for all students, and Home Ec. died away. At the time, this was progress towards a more equal society for both men and women. So how did this progress become hindrance?

What this progressive movement forgot was that just because most adults were working outside the home, that doesn’t mean the household needs/homemaking tasks went away. Nowadays, families are supposed to do the homemaking tasks in the little time that they are home from work. This is stressful, but is also made much harder by the fact that young adults (male and female) do not know how to do these tasks either because they weren’t taught.

I believe that part of the reason Home Ec. has not yet made a comeback is that it is still seen as something that’s just for housewives. Even now with both men and women working outside the home, men are still (usually) expected to be the “breadwinners”. This means that schools put a lot more focus on academic subjects rather than “soft” subjects such as Home Ec. or the arts. Also, since women now are expected to also be going into the workforce (but not usually with the expectation of being the “breadwinner” because of systemic sexism), they are taught the academically focused subjects as well.

What needs to happen is there needs to be a shift in perspective. Academic achievement, making more money, and having a “good job” are not the only things in life that should be prioritized. Home is where we rest and recuperate, where we spend time with friends and family, and where we are supposed to be able to find respite from the craziness of the outside world. However, if we don’t have the basic skills taught in Home Ec., home is more likely to be chaotic, stressful, and just another giant to-do list with no end in sight. We need to be able to see that as a society we are suffering because half of our life is being neglected due to the assumption that academic and professional success (traditionally male spheres) is the most important thing. We need to see the value of Home Ec. for everyone, of all genders, and bring back Home Ec. as a required class for graduation.