What Being a Handyman Has Taught Me About Male Insecurity

I was taught by my dad. He was taught by his dad. I learned to rebuild an engine at around 11 and I helped build two houses by the time I was 16. I have rebuilt two cars and fixed (and broken!) countless others. I have done general construction and carpentry.

I'm happy to share my knowledge. But I've found that the people who could learn the most are the most resistant to learning. They get offended when I ask if they did something. Asking questions is how you avoid mistakes. They feel like it's an affront to their manhood when I offer to help. That they should be able to do it on their own.

I don't understand it. I know I don't know everything and am happy to learn from those who know more than I do.

PS, don't forget to use a hammer drill with that masonry bit or you'll be there a long, long time. And to put some plumber's putty behind that faucet flange (but leave a gap at the bottom for water to run out). Your studs are 16" on center unless they're 20" or 24". Tap tap tap. Unless you are working with plaster & lathe. My area has a hazardous waste facility that's open to anyone living within the county. Antifreeze, solvents, paints, etc are all welcome.

I was lucky enough to have a step-father who was fairly handy...

Whether you meant to or not, you've answered your own question. Suppose you lived in the alternate universe where you didn't have a stepfather and learned everything from your birth father. Who would you have learned the skills from then? The problem with relying on passing handiness down from generation to generation is that once it fails to propagate for a generation, it's very hard to get back.

It's hard to find a teacher for adults for handy skills, and a lot of being handy comes from having long term exposure to handiness anyway. Taking a weekend class (if one exists) or reading a book from the library on how to hang cabinets (for example) isn't going to cover all of the possible gotchas that could come up. Some of those gotchas are probably best solved by people with a lot of experience hanging cabinets, but there are probably others that you could probably solve if you've lived a generally handy life.

If this sounds like institutional knowledge, that's probably a fair comparison. It's just that the family is a very small institution that doesn't necessarily have a lot of redundancy in who has the institutional knowledge. Once you lose it, it's pretty much lost, and that's the reason to have a shop class in school. It provides a mechanism to add that knowledge to families that don't have it from a (hopefully) experienced person who has enough time in contact with his or her students to impart more knowledge directly and pass on general handiness as a mindset rather that a specific skill.

Our roles in the professional landscape have become highly specialized, and gender plays an ever-decreasing part in them. And yet, in our responsibilities at home, we often cling to the traditional notions of gender segregation and territoriality. As we make progress toward equity in the workplace and fair division of unpaid family labor, we would do well to distance ourselves from the gender expectations at home that developed centuries ago, before contractors, caterers, and housekeepers made them virtually obsolete.