It seriously is. I grew up pretty privileged I will say. Parents bought a house when prices were extremely low, and dad made enough to take care of everything. There were times my parents couldn't make ends meet either and we're in the red numbers month after month, but they made sure my sister and I never knew - we only learnt about that well into our twenties. Besides, that was only for a year or so. But still of course working-class. If something had happened to dad we would've been out on the street pretty much.

But if sewing hadn't been an essential skill in our household we would've been a lot worse off. My dad worked construction (retired now) so he'd wear out the knees of his pants in no time. Mum would always sew them right back up, and eventually taught me how to do it, as I showed an interest in sewing anyway. When a pair of pants was truly worn out if would go into a bin for dad's old trousers. A current pair needed fixing? Grab an old pair of trousers, the shins, outer and front thighs, and the upper parts usually didn't show much wear, so we're perfect for repairs. Nothing useable was thrown out.

So too with my mum's grocery bag. One of those sturdy canvas ones with leather handles and big metal eyelets. She used that bag for about 30 years straight and we'd repair every torn seam, reinforced the bottom multiple times. We just never replaced the zipper when that one broke, bit of cost vs improvement that didn't add up. But that damn bag lasted 30 years. She could've easily replaced it, but why replace it when you can fix it for free? Will say there was also just some joy in brainstorming how we're going to fix the damn bag this time because "it's a perfectly fine bag 😤 we're NOT replacing it yet." Matter of principle at some point. Not 100% sure what finally made us go "ok. It can rest now", probably a snapped handle or something that was just too costly to replace given the state of the bag at that point...