Spending Your Time Wisely
A woman commented that, sadly, her dad never invited her into his garage workshop. In that brief sentence, the accusation was complete. It was the way of things in times past when woodworking at home was perhaps more of a necessity rather than some kind of hobby. Anyone with a full-time job had a single day on Saturdays or even just half a day to get tasks at home done. Back then we worked 46-hour weeks so about 11 hours more than the current UK and EU trend. In the US men average 40.5 hour weeks. Add commute time to this and we see that 20% of EU residents spend an hour and a half commuting to work with the remainder averaging 25 minutes and so too the UK average is between 15-25 minutes. The US is 55 minutes commuting per day so these facts should really be added to the working day as this is the time away from the home. Imagine how much you could get done if commute time was woodworking time or time with your kids in the workshop. Oh, and we should not discount the therapy of finding an hour or two’s space and therapy from an all-consuming boredom in the daily grind of work too. Every parent needs space alone from time to time. It’s something parents should work out honestly with one another. Some jobs need therapy and it’s not gender specific. I can be just as much at home in the kitchen or in the garden as I can in my workshop.
One of the things I have seen is that most woodworkers will indeed use machines to cut down on precious time dimensioning stock. but then there are other anomalies that must be considered. many people go to the gym for exercise, park their cars nearest to the gym doors and disallow the healthy exercise of hand sawing and planing wood to dimension. These seemingly minor deviations stack up. Exercising at the workbench would of course be good exercise and there is no gym fee. But massive arms, legs and chests with racks of muscles do not translate into usable muscle. I might even suggest they get in the way looking at how some men and women walk from place to place.
So what is Paul saying today? I’m saying that mostly it is about choices. I cannot say that my childhood was easy because my evenings and weekends were spent with my dad bailing cardboard for the paper mill. The thing that mattered most though was that I was with my dad in those formative years. he, with my mother, taught me to work. I have no regret about my childhood even though my brothers and sisters were given privileges I never had. Looking back now I see how much my dad paid into my life. The work wasn’t interesting but being in that part of my dad’s life was invaluable. Dads, if you do have a workshop making wood work at home then make an allowance of time to bring your kids in there with you. It doesn’t take too long before they are less of an intrusion than they are at first. At ages three and four my granddaughter demands all of my attention, as did my boys when they were her age, but then came the day when they needed much less of my time and we had companionable time chit-chatting across the bench or when I or they needed a hand on projects. Imagine your fourteen-year-old and your eighteen-year-old turning parts for pieces for the White House or creating the bald eagle inlays for the doors. That’s what came as a result of three- and four-year-olds making a spatula and a nuisance of themselves in the workshop a decade before.
Boys and girls need to be taught to work and everything considered work can equal any kind of play you might consider. My four-year-old granddaughter can crack eggs for a bake or an omelette, make a salad, chop veggies and make simple cakes. She digs in the garden, saves worms from getting underfoot and then spokeshaves wood from rough to smooth. Her current project is the biggest yet and we used offcuts for it.
For the dowels, she drove square sticks cut for her through a 4mm nut and then drove them into 4mm holes she and I drilled together with a drill driver. Schoolwork is rarely physical and certainly, technologies taught through a keyboard will not stand them in good stead for a workshop experience with hand work. Most often it gives them a very distorted picture of what craft is or could be. I’m glad that I do not have to deal with AI, CNC equipment and even general woodworking machinery, but it makes me ever conscious that I only have a more narrow window of opportunity woodworking with my grandchildren than in my day 30 years ago. Parents, if you miss this time to get with your kids in the garden growing food, in the kitchen prepping, cooking and baking and in the workshop woodworking and metalworking, repairing things, etc the chances are you never will! Building muscle in the gym is far less useful than building muscle with your children day by day. That muscle is memory–creativity, unity and lovingkindness is more costly than gold.
How valuable!
While I agree with you on hand woodworking being good for you not all gym memberships are for big muscles! Sometimes your body needs an aerobic workout and your mind needs some social stimulation. I used to think gym memberships were only for weight lifters until I finally went to one to play pickle ball and learned something about gyms.
As far as children not knowing what work can do for you well I couldn’t agree more.
A lot of people don’t know where food comes from or how to cook for themselves.
It’s all rather sad if you ask me.
I work with my hands all day long doing metal work over 40 hours per week. When the weekend comes, woodworking as a hobby is a way for me to unwind. Sometimes I’m too tired from the work week and opt to watch a game on tv or read or take a nap. Without the use of my jointer, power planer, table saw, and bandsaw I’d have no the desire to get out there considering the labor intensive job of dimensioning rough lumber by hand. I actually enjoy using power tools for this. Doing that work by hand would zap the joy out of the hobby for me. Thank God for machines. It’s the hand cutting of dovetails, mortise and tenons, raised panels etc., that are pleasurable to me. (Thanks to you Paul)
There is a balance depending on the person and their working life.
For many years, woodworking was my primary hobby. My young daughter Alie spent much time in the shop with me: sometimes to make, but other times just to watch and keep me company. In recent years, Alie has confessed that she wished that I had taught her more about making and fixing things. (There isn’t much that I cannot repair or make). I wish that she did not move so far away, or I would still be teaching her. These days, woodworking is no longer my main goal or interest, but I use it to support other hobbies, such as making repair parts when fixing old clocks, or building structures and carving just about any part that I need for my model train hobby. Woodworking is a great skill to have, and once you develop that skill, it is yours for life.
I think that most men in woodworking in times past missed the boat with their children and especially with daughters and granddaughters. Education was fixed that way in all aspects of society from teachers to parents and people with influence going from educationalists to politicians. There were no exceptions on two continents as far as I could see. It will take some time to get things to filter down and hopefully it will be in the heart of the people and not legislation that does it. I am sure the best age in my experience with a few hundred children to pass it on is from somewhere between 7 and 15 years but that does not exclude any other ages from learning.
Hello Paul,
I agree 100%. Being a single parent with a young girl, she was always by my side.
When I designed and made a summer house I remember her playing with some off cuts of wood, drilling holes in them. As I glanced over I saw how happy she was immersed in her world of creativity. She was 6 at the time.
When the summer house was finished and I cleared the remaining off cuts up to reuse later, I was told not to look in her box. I didn’t if course. On Christmas morning there was a large box wrapped up by the tree. When I openrd it up she had made her version of the summer house we made and it was tied together with string through the holes she drilled. That was nearly 30 years ago and every Christmas it comes out on display as a reminder of the happy times we shared making things together. So as you say, that we spend with our children is priceless.
How lovely. Thanks for sharing.
Brilliant!
There’s no telling the lessons learned working with Dad! A good friend, Todd, 40 yrs or so was engaged in a remodel at home. Ryan, his son, was 3 at the time. Because of his size, and the nature of the current task, Ryan was in need of a job he could do to help out and stay safe. he was given a coffee can, and was told, “any bent nails you find are worth 5 cents apiece”. Dad went back to work, Ryan off to pick up nails. Sometime later needing to check on progress and wellbeing, his son was strangely absent. A short search, and Ryan was found, behind the garage. A hammer in hand, the coffee can at his side, happily bending a pile of straight nails!
Thanks Paul. Well said. My daughter at age 4ish when I started having her show up in the shop was you described, required full attention. At age 11, now, she can do most things on her own. Rather recently, my cousin, asked me if I wanted the workbench my grandfather made for him, when he was a kid. I couldn’t say yes fast enough. It will be perfect for my daughter to work on. When my daughter isn’t working on it, it will hold my sharpening stones. She’s very excited once we get this cleaned up and in place.
I don’t know what my daughter will end up being in life. It’s her choice. All I can do is expose her to lots of things and see what interests her. When we find something she likes, naturally, we allow her to spend more time doing it. Carving basswood seems to be something she enjoys. My wife is a graphic artist and has a room in the house dedicated to that. My daughter has a table in that room and spends more time in there painting and crafting. That is good as well. She definitely has a naturally talent and aptitude for art (like my wife) and a vivid imagination and has won a few awards locally though we don’t get hung up on the awards. Based on what I see her doing, I could imagine her working at Pixar to design the animation and even come up with the story lines (it’s amazing the ideas she comes up with). She would likely sculpt the characters out of clay.
My youngest daughter, who is 28 now, has always been around me in our garage shop, never underfoot, but always watching and learning.
She has built her own bed and furniture, and I stopped monitoring her years ago. She calls me out to see what she’s built, and, rarely, to consult on how to build whatever she is working on.
Lately, she has been making a laminated coffee table for her cousin out of old wine boxes.
She called me out to the garage because our 1953 10″ Craftsman table saw had developed a squeak when it was shut off. After unplugging it, and taking the blade off to check for small wood pieces that might have fallen into the blade pivot area, she and I determined that the squeak was coming from the pulley end of the motor. After calling around and learning that no one works on single phase motors anymore, I pulled the motor off and set it on the saw’s table, in order to blow any dust out of it, in case that might be the problem. That’s when I noticed two additional holes in the motor casing, facing down. I had taken the motor off numerous times over the years, but never paid any attention to those holes. Short story long, I shot compressed air into those holes for a full five minutes before the dust stopped shooting out. At least 72 years of dust took a long time to come out. Once I finished with the dust removal, I remounted the motor, reassembled the saw, plugged it in again and turned it on.
No more squeak!!! Sometimes the solutions are the simplest things.
She’s back out there, working on her table again.
My Dad let me play with “swords” in his cabinetry shop. I wasn’t allowed around the table saw when he was working near it, so I would spend time outside hacking and slashing at my imaginary foes with some long sticks of the waste (it was too loud in there anyway!).
I had to retire from my hard-lived days of swashbuckling adventure and taming the wild beats of ParkingLotshire (a few stray dogs that enjoyed helping me eat lunch) when he eventually asked me help. It was such a neat experience.
Who’s to say what could have been if the shop didn’t burn down. A pile of sawdust found an ignition source and fire consumed the warehouse. I worked through the loss telling myself that it was burned down someone wanted my secret stash of faithful swords.
Hand tools give me a reason to work with wood again (bench planes are a different kind of sword). Another plus is less sawdust 🙂
“A woman commented that, sadly, her dad never invited her into his garage workshop. In that brief sentence, the accusation was complete.” Heck yes, and to the point. Don’t diminish the sexism that permeates every aspect of daily life. I get your excellent point that parents are overworked and tired, and often have to support their families working in crappy jobs, and don’t get enough time for themselves. US society is extremely hostile to families. Living in a way that feeds our souls rather than killing them is very difficult, and that is why I regard you, dear Paul, as a genuine revolutionary.
But. Girls know when they are treated differently just for being girls. They’re not stupid and they’re not blind. Parents are supposed to parent, and try to make the world a little better than the world they grew up in. The barriers against girls in pretty much everything are innumerable, and range from subtle to grossly blatant, to literally dangerous, even lethal. Boys are invited, girls have to push or sneak their way in. Girls learn very early in life that they will hear No many times every day, in many ways, while every door is open for boys. Except, of course, for “girly” stuff, because nothing is worse for a boy than being girly.
It is a continual source of astonishment how societal blindness persists. Rocket ships to Mars! Super fun fast electric cars! Super computers! Exploring the human brain, the deepest parts of oceans, far reaches of the universe! But treat girls like people, on their own individual terms? That’s when the earlids close and the denial and defensiveness arise to defend the status quo.
Denial and defensiveness, and arguing with people’s life experiences don’t fix anything, like the #1 excuse “Girls just aren’t interested.” Really? I bet money they’re getting all kinds of signals they’re not welcome. Aptitudes and interests are not defined by gender. Imagine trying to figure out why a mis-cut tenon doesn’t fit the mortise by denying there is anything wrong with it. When the choices are being super-humanly persistent and putting up with indifference and abuse, or abandoning one’s dreams, it is no wonder that so many girls give up their dreams. The girls who persist pay for their successes with a whole lot of pain. (No this is not hyperbole, it is exactly literal.)
Perhaps it is a bit of progress to not actively exclude girls. That is one small step. People who are used to being excluded, girls, women, people of color, people from different cultures, disabled people, neuro-atypical people, shy boys, gay boys and men (because nothing is worse for a man than to be like a girl) need to be invited. It’s not enough to refrain from being actively hostile, they deserve the same open invitations as “regular” boys.
I expect a certain amount of “yesbut whatabout” reactions, after all, nobody wants to be thought of as a bad parent, being a parent is very difficult, and parents want the best for their kids. Listening, observing, and moving one’s own ego out of the way is more effective, and certainly more beneficial to both parents and children. Shush that nattering inner voice always going on about “Kids should be this way”, and observe how they really are.
Both biological sexes are actively discouraged from woodworking in just about every realm of life on every continent (and so too other manual crafts) equally in our present time because fewer and fewer people, teachers, parents, policymakers, influencers on the whole, in all realms see no future for people like myself. The demographics don’t stack up. Getting off the linear conveyor belt to live individualistically has no taxable and gainful future in their eyes. We are not the target, not even in their sights and certainly no one with any kind of clout listens to what we might say so as such there is no gender specificity so eventually this dinosaur group will by the very nature of democratic consumerism indeed follow the general rule and all die out as neither parents will go much beyond being machinist production workers I suppose. There is, of course, less bias despite what you have written so clearly and precisely as there will be no need for skilled woodworking beyond this infinitesimally tiny percentage of people in a garage or shed somewhere in the garden. I will point out yet again that it is more unlikely for people to actually physically know someone, anyone, anywhere in their life, who actually makes something, anything, to sell and earn their living from. As a boy, I knew many many a dozen who wove baskets, caned chairs, threw pottery, made furniture by hand, were saddlers, gunsmiths, watch repairers, metalsmiths, blacksmiths and so on. My voice is now drowned out all the more and that’s because people like me are not even a statistic.
those are the memories, tired after work but time was found to build the Lego, etc together. playing board games even now 30 years later, with the odd game of boggle or 6. after he’s finished work. great times.
Hi Paul. Thanks for this very nice article. I have a three-year-old granddaughter who loves to come into my shop. Got a year or so, I’ve searched for small hand tools for her, such as the Stanley 100, etc., small hammers, screwdrivers and wrenches. All are in a plastic tote and she knows it’s hers. And I’m building her a wooden toolbox for it all. I’m living in the moment with her.
Thank goodness the opportunities for handwork are becoming available for all.
I just have to point out that the little girl in the last photo who is using what appears to be a “right-handed’ hammer clearly has her shoes on the wrong feet. Little kids shoes and feet are rather blocky so I don’t think they really feel the difference. This made me smile and remember when this happened to us probably 50 years ago. We were responsible for getting a friend’s daughter dressed and to a wedding. She was about four at the time. We thought we were doing great. We got to the church on time and she looked perfect except when we looked down at her feet and oh my – left shoe on right foot and vice versa.
Paul, in a word …”Nailed”! (Pun intended)
Paul, this is one the best blogs I have seen from you. I have a 6 year old, 3 year old, and 1-1/2 year old. All boys who get extremely excited when they get to go out to the shop with me. It has been very hard lately separating work time and time with them. I need to work harder at giving them this time. Thank you for this.
Thanks, I needed to read this.
As a father of a 6 year and 4 year old boy and girl, I rarely invite them to the shop.
It seems that I always don’t have “time” for that, because I’m always working on different projects.
I must change that.
In your days, did you have your children all at the the same time in the workshop?
What do you advise for parents that have more than 1 child?
And your days, were they in the workshop a bit of time everyday, or just a predefined day of the week?
I work six days a week averaging eight-hour days making at the bench and then about 3-4 hours in addition writing and drawing. I’m not really sure what the question is though?
I’m sorry, I didn’t type my question correctly. What I wanted to ask was if in your days, did you have specific days for your children to come to your workshop? Or were there all the days? Or whenever they feel they needed to?
My family life was very different than for most families, children and parents in that part of their education was exposure to several crafts. They attended classes with very experienced artisans working in pottery, leatherwork, blacksmithing and more. This was every school day. Any period that they were not involved in these other crafts they were usually with me. I heard someone today talking to a colleague in a cafe comment that he’d spent two days with his children and what hard work it was. I am never sure why parents see children as hard work. My boys spent hours after every school day in the workshop with me. They wanted to and iof I had tried I would not have been able to keep them out. As they became more skilled and interested they often worked with me. Thise formative years equipped them for life. It’s a narrow soan of time to get them to engage and to do it voluntarily. They were always making something or learning something. That could be playing music, orchestra and so on too. They also learned to food to eat and also raised chickens for eggs and meat.
It’s really a matter of choice, prioritising and such like that. Eventually, with age differences, the older ones can take care of the younger. Most of the days kids are in school so I am not sure that being hindered from making a living was ever altogether a problem. My children came in after 3.30 PM and worked into the evening as I often or mostly did. My workdays were from 6 AM until 10 PM up until into my 60s. As a single-income family I needed to realise double income by a doubly long day.
Hear, hear! Most of my projects take much longer than they should, for exactly this reason (fortunately my wife is very understanding). I’m currently on year three of a kitchen remodel…but my son is quite good on the lathe, and my little girl loves to tinker with me when I head to the garage. They always need help cutting a stick to length, sharpening a gouge, or an extra hand to hold a glue-up together. No problem. It’s already been 3 years…what’s another day? I wouldn’t trade that time with them for anything.
That was a very sensitive and meaningful message Paul. Your creativity and humanity continues to shine, through your work, and as a parent and grandparent. Thanks as always!
Paul, I want to thank you for your coments they are inspiring. And you are so right we need to spend time with our children and grand children. It is sad that some of ue lose that because we think that we are to busy or more concern with our lifes and not our family”s life . I have done it myself so I know that is very true, we tend to exclude our children because we think that we need to not be bothered because they take so much time doing what we are doing or trying to help. When all it take is love of them not ourselves.
The “huge” muscle thing is often if not always a manifestation of body dysmorphia, psychological problem.
I love the time that I spend in the workshop with my 5 year old grand-daughter – she has two stools of differing heights (designed and made by me) to get her up to the right level. We don’t do anything complicated – just mess about with offcuts to make simple boats, planes and dolls house bits and pieces – but the time is precious.
p.s. I think your grand-daughter has her trainers on the wrong feet!
My dad was a house framing contractor. Even when I was a very small boy he would always take me to his job sites every Saturday. One house site was up in the mountains of Arizona. The house site was going to be a rancher’s house on a working horse and donkey farm. I was too young to work at the time so I would play in the left over sand piles left from the concrete guys. But on this site the donkeys were keyed in on me. I would walk into their little herd and follow them up the mountain while my dad worked. Beautiful cold mountain air, breath taking views and the donkeys led me to the top of a high saddle between two peaks. The best grass was up there so we stayed up there for hours. I remember sitting down on a large rock and watched my dad carrying beams, framing walls, and rolling trusses. They were so far away they looked like ants carrying stuff in and out of an ant den. When I turned 9 years old he put me to work. My first job was roaming around the job site gathering all the small block cutoffs and plywood scraps putting them in piles so the framers weren’t tripping all over little blocks of wood laying everywhere. From 9 years old I worked for my dad every Saturday and every summer and Christmas break from school and every day after school until I was 18 years old. I loved it. I joined the Marine Corps at 18 and after I served my duty I went back and worked for him again for several more years. Working with wood is so incredibly fulfilling and rewarding to me.
I tried and tried and tried like xxxx to get all my four sons in the garage with me to learn about woodworking and fixing stuff. Absolutely no interest from any of time the whole time they were living at home. So the old adage about a horse and water is always true.
Paul, what a nice post! Tim, I will commiserate (and wait for grandchildren): I tried to get my step kids to do chores and at their young age I think they would have gladly done, but alas Mom (and I was step-dad so easily over-ruled) didn’t think they should be. By their teens it was too late and then wife would get upset if they didn’t know how to do something which then made them upset so they wouldn’t want to do it. What a mess!
I even tried to show them how to tie their shoes when I noticed their slow method… I tried so hard to be subtle and sensitive, but the teenagers would have none of it (I even bit my tongue when I thought of teasing them about velcro..) Now Stepson is in college. I tried to show him a few things for his bicycle (like how to pump up tires, adjust the saddle). He stood at the door 15 feet away wouldn’t come near… fail – defeat I finally cheerily said ” well anyway, if you have any issues go to a bike shop…” : (
I think all too often we use the term step-son, step-daughter and then step-mum and step-dad as though this means dad-once-removed. Better to drop the step and just be a dad. Any man can father children but not every father can be a dad. You did the right thing from what you say so there is no condemnation and self-approaching there.
Beautiful sentiment. We have all missed out on time with children and now grandchildren. I can remember leaving my house with my children fast asleep and kissing them goodnight after they had fallen too sleep in the night.I carried a lot of guilt for that now but I thought I was giving them a better life than I had. I was wrong. God bless you Paul.
Your comments ring so true. I’ve always had some sort of wood shop in the basement. My oldest son used to play around a bit with me in the shop from time to time, but never seemed to be particularly interested. 15-20 years later he decided to get a fine arts degree, and is adept at pottery, woodworking, welding, and glass blowing. He tells me he learned it from me, which is generous but not really accurate. I think what he really learned was that anyone can pick up a tool and make something, and that with persistence and desire, can eventually gain some level of mastery. Now my grandchildren want to come to “Pop’s shop” and cut pieces of wood. They may never become woodworkers, but my hope is they will always understand that their hands are capable of making anything, should they so choose.
Two stories
My daughter was about 10 when I had her help with the local scroll saw club’s demonstration booth at the County Fair. She sat and cut out bunnies while the old guys did very intricate cuts. Almost everyone coming through watched her instead of them. You could see them thinking; If a little girl can do this…
Even further back, I was attending a national physics conference in San Fransisco. One evening I attended a Women in Physics session. While riding the train back to UC Berkeley I noticed two young women from the conference session. They were graduate students at UCB, one of our top schools. I asked them if there was anything they would have wanted to have learned in high school that they didn’t. After a pause they both said they knew as much as the guys, but when they got to the labs they didn’t know how to use the tools and the guys did.
Well, in the negative, I suppose that’s been equalised today. Both men and women know very little about holding tools to work with in my experience which is more a sign of the times and the needs of industry than lacock on their part. Also, the arts of any kind are mostly seen as some kind of negative manual work beneath the intelligent enough to get a degree so manual arts take the back seat. I often wonder if hands will become obsolete as we use them less and less. Machine woodworking is mostly popping a switch and feeding wood in a straight line into some kind of cutting blade or feeding a hand-held machine along the edge corner of a piece of wood or following a jig when you think about it. Minor amounts of energy deployed, little strength, etc. Probably the more skilful energies come from using the beltsander to keep it level and stop digs.