This is NHPR’s The Big Question! We ask you a question about life in New Hampshire, you submit an answer, and your voice may be featured on air or online.
Many of us have skills we’ve learned and honed over the years that have helped us through our lives. Passing down that knowledge can prepare a future generation for life and keep traditions alive.
So, for May’s Big Question, we asked: What’s a skill you have that you hope to pass down to a future generation?
Here’s what some of you shared.
Mary Pepin - Webster, NH: What I'd like to pass down to future generations is the skill of mending, the ability to repair our clothing. I do it for friends and neighbors. I repair jeans, knapsacks, gloves. So much can be mended and used [for] a few more years instead of just dumped into landfills.
Laura Bonk - Allenstown, NH: I would like to leave the next generation the importance of thank-you notes, even if that's a text or whatever technology is en vogue at the time. My son's generation, we don't hardly ever get thank-you notes [from them] for birthday gifts, wedding gifts. [I’m] trying to work with my own son and getting him in the habit of [acknowledging] this is important, when someone sends you a gift or does something special for you, to somehow acknowledge them.
Scott Semmens - Stoddard, NH: The skill set that I have thought should be passed down is animal tracking. I apprenticed from a few people, and it gave me the opportunity to actually introduce that to my students at a high school. For me, when I trail, it's really a matter of trying to find the animal without it knowing that I'm there, to observe it briefly and then to move away, hopefully not to disturb that animal.
I really feel that one of the reasons why this skill set needs to be passed on is that [it] will help us to reconnect with the natural world, to change how we live in the world, [and] allow us to begin to mitigate and adapt to the changing world, including through climate change and biodiversity loss.
Sheila Oranch - Hebron, NH: I hope that a large part of my legacy is the ability to gather data, organize it into information and make rational decisions. This is a skill that I did not learn, really, until I was in my 30s, when a visiting philosophy professor offered courses in symbolic logic. The more I learned the skill, the more empowered I felt to understand what was going on in the world.
Mimi Boxwell - Greenland, NH: I hope that I have taught and displayed good listening, that I have taught my children, especially, to listen attentively. When I was writing the eulogy for my mom, I was thinking about who she was [and] what made her special. One of the things that first came to mind was what a great listener she was. When you talked to my mother, you felt like you were the only person in the world. And she passed that gift on to me, and I’m very thankful for the times that I feel like I use it well.
David Erikson - Weare, NH: The skill I hope to pass down to future generations is the ability to fix things rather than throw them away and buy [something] new. I repaired things for my family and my children over the years, for instance, an old solid metal tricycle from the 60s. I taught tech-ed, including woodshop and engineering, to middle schoolers for 14 years. And I'd just like to instill in them the feeling that they could do it. They could make things. They could fix things.
Additional responses:
Pam Stohrer - Cornish, NH: I’m a therapeutic musician and an end-of-life doula. It would be wonderful if more people could provide services at the bedside or chairside. I was present with my dad for a couple weeks as he was dying and like a lot of people, I was floundering. What am I supposed to be doing to make his passage so much easier? It was a wonderful thing to come around to therapeutic music and know that I could help other people that were in the same situation that I was in. I would like to encourage more young people who want to give back to understand the value of complementary therapies.
