Millennial dads have pathetic DIY skills compared to baby boomers:
Are dads’ essential DIY skills in decline? According to new research, millennial dads are less capable than their own dads when it comes to everyday DIY fixes, preferring to rely on professional help instead.
A new poll of 1,000 millennial dads and 1,000 baby boomer dads found that when a DIY task needs to be done at home, more than half of millennials prefer to call a professional.
Tools owned:
- Cordless drill (although I don’t have enough batteries).
- Stepladder (One and a convertible step ladder).
- Set of screwdrivers (a bunch of screwdrivers, not a matched set).
- Hammer (More than one).
Tasks:
- Change a car tire on the side of the road (last performed last winter, in the dark, on ice).
- Unblock a toilet or sink (well, I can do it sometimes; I had trouble with my mother-in-law’s toilet this spring).
- Reset a tripped circuit breaker (well, it took me a long time to reset the GFCI in my garage because the outlet was behind a pile of things on the built-in shelves, and it took me years to find it.
- Open a stuck pickle jar with their hands (Come on, I lift weights for a reason).
- Repair a flat tire on your child’s bike (to be fair, my beautiful wife certainly could as she is a serious cyclist).
- Restart a stopped furnace (I probably ought to learn it).
I tend to run self-analysis on this front as my father was very toxicly masculine and was steeped in the knowledge of the outdoors (a former Boy Scout and lifelong hunter), car repair (when we lived in the projects, he had a second 1967 Chevy Impala that he kept for parts), and household repair (in Noggle and Son Remodeling, he was the third generation).
I’m not as bad as a millenial dad who answers polls on the Internet, but I’m not near my father or even my brother (or, perhaps, my sainted mother) in basic competence. But I’m getting better about it.
(He said as he was taking bids to replace his gutters).
The actual Alarm blog post presents this in a light more flattering to millenial dads, who are replacing DIY skills with knowing to buy quality tech products like whatever Alarm.com offers. Hey, I can’t knock the blog post too badly. I’m contracted to write blog posts like it from time to time.
