Not this dad. The simplest tasks challenge me, let alone undertaking a remodel any more extensive than replacing a table lamp. For decades my running joke is I consider home improvement to mean getting three estimates. Do it yourself projects for me are making coffee and sharpening pencils. 

My father tried to teach me. He started with the easy stuff – getting tools, holding boards and flashlights, and making beer runs. I mastered beer retrieval but struggled with proper tool identification and steadying lumber. Whenever a flashlight was involved, my aim was way off his mark. Based on my performance with the basics, he never even attempted to allow me to wield a hammer or saw. I didn't mind. Whether it was disinterest, lack of aptitude, or a combination of both, it wasn't my bag. After one particularly exasperating episode involving me not being able to find some sort of screw and its corresponding driver, he shook his head in frustration and said, “I hope you get a job someday that pays you well enough so you can hire someone to do this for you, or you’re screwed.”  Fortunately, I did, and I wasn’t. 

I'm not a complete home maintenance and repair washout. I've done a fair amount of landscaping, painting, and even some wallpapering, but drilling, sawing, fixing, and hammering? Not so much. I've assembled furniture, but I still can't quite get A to align with B, and every assembly requires at least one tear down and reassembly because I put the right one where the left one should be. My wife, Chris, has taken to unclogging drains, repairing leaky faucets, hanging shelves, and replacing loose and broken handles and pulls. An attack on my masculinity? Hell no. You go girl!

Obviously, I wasn't a role model or teacher for my kids. But I passed along other skills. Contractor evaluation and selection, negotiating installation charges, and of course, beer retrieval. My son-in-law's father is quite handy and an excellent carpenter on top of it, so my daughter is doing fine. And last year, she rolled up her sleeves and tackled redecorating and rebuilding projects herself after they moved into a new house. 

If genetics and environment were the controlling factors science claims, you would think my son Jonathan would be a broken, misshapen chip off the old home maintenance block. But the offspring of a man who avoids touching walls and once spent eight hours replacing a single four-foot board on a deck and in the process broke three saw blades, stripped half a box of screws, and was asked by a neighbor if he knew any words other than those with four letters, is a master of doing it himself. He has torn out walls and designed and built a deck from scratch. There isn't a repair or remodel project he can’t tackle. When I ask him how he does it, he says, "YouTube.” 

There might be something to the instructional capabilities of YouTube. But shortly after we were married, Chris bought me the entire Time Life Home Repair and Improvement set of books. The do-it-yourself YouTube of the '80s and '90s. I tried. But after a particularly disastrous and expensive self-repair attempt on a water heater that required a professional plumber's intervention, she sold them at a neighborhood garage sale and hid my socket set. In Jonathan's case, my father's DIY DNA skipped me but clung to him.   

Recently Chris and I took advantage of his skills and had him remodel our laundry room. As expected, the new floor, cabinets, counter, lighting, and shelves look great. I assisted in the areas where I'm proficient—pulling out my credit card to buy supplies, picking up lunch, and disposing of cardboard. 

There was a point where he was working in a tight corner, and there wasn't enough light for him to see what he was doing. I grabbed the Maglite I keep handy and fired it up over his shoulder, happy to help. After a few moments, he heaved a heavy sigh, leaned back, and said, "we're not spotting planes. I'm down here." 

Yeah. My dad's DIY DNA. 

He figured out how to hold the light himself while I got him a beer. I’ll stick to my strengths.