As a child, I remember our hobbies consisted of needlepoint, knitting, quilting, and crochet. Many of us in my era remember assembling around our fireplaces in the family room, as relatives played a board game. We called it family time. Another family hobby was to put puzzles together.
My family also called cooking a hobby, each Saturday morning after feeding the cattle and other animals, we would gather in the kitchen to bake bread, cinnamon rolls, biscuits and dinner buns for the up coming week. Sunday was also spent with our families; it was saved for church, outings and family visits.
During the week we went to school, came home did our homework, then started in on a quilt, sewing, needlepoint, we learned much throughout that time.
The older we became lessons of these fine arts slipped into another time. Music became a hobby along with seeing and spending time with friends. We cruised around with our friends hung out at the local spots, pool, bowling, movies, and racing soon would become our hobbies. In high school it was still cool to attend football, basketball, and baseball games. Dances, dates and roller-skating took over, the puzzles and the board games we use to play.
Times changed as we changed we grew into adults, no longer did we want to spend time with family, we felt the need to do our own thing with friends. After being an adult I realized some of those hobbies could be considered jobs, no longer did I make bread for fun, but to feed my family. I put my mind to sew dresses for my daughter and shirts for my sons. Were they hobbies, or simply a way of life and a need to know for my future?
Then came the computer age, and the game boy stage, my children found hobbies of their own. "Nintendo", who thought that one up? My husband and I bought our first Nintendo when our oldest was six, or seven, a year later I still couldn't work it, but all three of my children had mastered it in no time. Nintendo became the wave of hobbies, it took over board games, puzzles, and time spent with more then one other member of the family. No longer did we gather around the fire for nice quite family time. They gathered around the television to find out which one was better Mario or Luigi. Later came Nintendo 64, Playstation, Game boy, and cell phones.
They now use computers, and the hand eye coordination in their everyday jobs. So were their hobbies something they did for fun or were they something they did to also prepare them for their own futures? Only they can tell how they feel about all they learned as a child.
I had felt I missed not being able to introduce my children to all the hobbies I learned as a child, and still hoped one day they would want to learn some of the things I had been taught, but I also know that new avenues have been opened to them through the Internet, and games which I had never even dreamed about as a child.
The other thing I've noticed as they marry, and move out on their own, is they did learn many valuable things that I too had learned as a child. My oldest son does artwork on his computer, he plays a guitar, and he loves to work with wood. My youngest son wants to become a chef and still patches his own jeans. My daughter is great with numbers and she wants to become a mechanic, so all in all I think hobbies do live on just not the way we think they should.
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