I read this hilarious article in the NY Times today. The author talks about how much she abhorred her Home Ec classes in high school –

…of being in that last wave of girls, in the ’70s, who were expected to master the domestic arts in school.

Seventies? What about the mid to late eighties? When I was in high school in India, all the girls had to learn to sew. Needless to say I hated it with a passion. The stitching itself was not terrible, but they insisted that we learn to be able to cut a pattern, change the size of said pattern and other such painful things.

I remember it vividly. We had to make a Jabla (a what??). Basically it was a little, sleeveless top for a child. The sizes we made were for 3-5 year old kids. All the girls had to make one. We were graded on it. You had to get a decent grade since this fed into your national level 10th grade scores. I have no clue what the guys in my class did during this time? Soldering, perhaps?

If it is such a life skill (I agree that being able to sew on a button is definitely a life skill), how come the guys weren’t required to learn it? And why isn’t soldering a life skill I needed to learn? Who do you think knows where the fuse box even is in our house? Ha!

Anyway, after much searching, I found that a Jabla is technically an upper garment worn by Parsi children. At least now I know.

Unlike the journalist at the Times, I have not rediscovered a love for tailoring. I do what I must to survive. Maybe one day if I have a small child that needs a frock stitched for a doll…