7 things blue collar Boomers know about survival that white collar Boomers had the luxury of never learning - Silicon Canals

"Both groups navigated massive changes, but they learned vastly different lessons along the way. Growing up working-class outside Manchester, I watched this divide play out in my own family. My father worked in a factory and got involved in the union, while my mother worked retail. They taught me survival skills that my university friends' parents never had to learn."

"When calling a repair person means choosing between fixing the washing machine or buying groceries, you learn fast. Blue collar Boomers can diagnose a car problem by the sound it makes, patch a leaky pipe with materials from the garage, and keep a twenty-year-old appliance running with replacement parts they fabricated themselves. They grew up in homes where "broken" meant "figure out how to fix it," not "time to buy a new one.""

Blue-collar Boomers developed hands-on survival skills through necessity, learning to repair appliances, cars, and home fixtures using basic tools and garage materials. Repeated repairs built mechanical intuition that enables diagnosis and fabrication of replacement parts. Growing up in working-class households instilled do-it-yourself problem solving where 'broken' meant 'figure out how to fix it' rather than replace. These skills saved money and cultivated deep system understanding. White-collar Boomers frequently outsourced repairs due to greater means and time pressures from long corporate hours, so they lacked the same practical repair knowledge and self-reliant experience.

Read at Silicon Canals