Growing up, my father would spend his weekends under the hood of our family car, grease-stained manual in one hand, wrench in the other. These days, when my daughter’s car makes a strange noise, she immediately books an appointment with her mechanic through an app. Both approaches work, but they represent completely different philosophies about what it means to be a self-sufficient adult.

The generational divide between boomers and millennials isn’t just about avocado toast or homeownership. It’s about fundamentally different approaches to managing daily life. What one generation saw as basic life skills, the other views as outsourceable tasks worth paying someone else to handle.

Before you rush to judgment either way, consider this: maybe both generations have valid points. Maybe the real question isn’t whether we should do everything ourselves, but rather which tasks genuinely deserve our time and energy.

1. Basic home repairs and maintenance

Remember when every garage had a toolbox that actually got used? My generation grew up watching our parents fix leaky faucets, patch drywall, and replace electrical outlets. We learned these skills not because we loved them, but because calling a professional for every minor issue would have bankrupted us.

Today’s millennials? They’ve got TaskRabbit, Thumbtack, and a dozen other apps connecting them to handymen for even the simplest jobs. I watched my neighbor’s thirty-something son hire someone to hang pictures last month. The same kid who can code in three programming languages couldn’t figure out how to use a stud finder.

But here’s the thing: that same young man works sixty-hour weeks at a tech startup. Is it really wrong that he’d rather spend his precious free time with his family instead of learning to spackle walls?

2. Cooking meals from scratch

My mother could stretch a chicken into four different meals across a week. She’d make stock from the bones, soup from the stock, and sandwiches from whatever was left. This wasn’t gourmet cooking; it was survival economics. During those tight times when dad was between jobs, her resourcefulness kept us fed and taught us that cooking was non-negotiable adulting.

Now? Meal delivery kits, DoorDash, and pre-prepped ingredients from the grocery store have transformed cooking from necessity to optional hobby. Millennials aren’t just ordering takeout; they’re subscribing to services that deliver perfectly portioned ingredients with step-by-step instructions, or better yet, fully prepared meals that just need reheating.

After retirement, I actually started cooking seriously and discovered something interesting: following recipes is a lot like following life advice. Sometimes you need to adjust the seasoning to your taste.

3. Doing their own taxes

Tax season used to mean spreading papers across the dining room table, calculator in hand, instruction booklet at the ready. We’d spend entire weekends deciphering forms, double-checking math, and hoping we didn’t mess up badly enough to trigger an audit.

Enter the age of TurboTax, H&R Block apps, and online CPAs who’ll handle everything for a few hundred bucks. But even these options aren’t simple enough for many millennials, who increasingly turn to full-service tax preparers for even basic returns.

Can you blame them? The tax code has gotten infinitely more complex, and the gig economy has created tax situations our generation never faced. When you’re juggling 1099s from five different side hustles, maybe professional help makes sense.

4. Washing their own cars

Saturday car washing was almost a ritual in my neighborhood growing up. Driveways turned into amateur detailing shops, with buckets of suds, garden hoses, and that one neighbor who always had the good wax. It was part maintenance, part pride, part weekend routine.

These days? Monthly unlimited wash subscriptions, mobile detailers who come to your office parking lot, and express wash tunnels that cost less than a fancy coffee drink. The idea of spending two hours washing and waxing your car by hand seems as outdated as using a paper map.

5. Grocery shopping and errands

“Never shop hungry” was the advice my mother lived by, armed with her coupon organizer and handwritten list organized by store aisle. Grocery shopping was a skill, an art form even. You knew which stores had the best produce, where to find deals, and how to squeeze every penny.

Instacart, Amazon Fresh, and curbside pickup have eliminated the need to ever set foot in a grocery store. Millennials aren’t just avoiding shopping; they’re paying significant upcharges and tips to have someone else navigate those fluorescent-lit aisles for them.

But when both partners in a household work full-time and commute an hour each way, is spending Saturday afternoon comparison shopping really the best use of their time?

6. Moving their own furniture

How many bad backs can be traced to helping friends move in exchange for pizza and beer? That was the social contract of our generation: you helped others move, and when your time came, they helped you. We’d rent a U-Haul, recruit every able-bodied friend, and make a day of it.

Now there’s an app for that too. Professional movers for even studio apartment moves. Services that will come pack your boxes, load the truck, drive it, and unpack at your destination. The pizza-and-beer moving party has gone the way of the landline.

7. Laundry and ironing

Learning to separate colors from whites, understanding water temperatures, and mastering the iron were coming-of-age moments. My generation treated laundry day like a marathon event, planning our week around when we could monopolize the washer and dryer.

Wash-and-fold services, dry cleaning delivery apps, and subscription services that pick up your dirty clothes and return them clean and folded have turned laundry into another outsourceable task. Some millennials have never owned an iron, relying instead on wrinkle-release spray or professional pressing services.

8. Walking their own dogs

This one still boggles my mind. We got dogs knowing full well that daily walks were part of the deal. Rain or shine, early morning or late night, walking the dog was just what you did. It was exercise for both parties and often the only quiet thinking time in a busy day.

Professional dog walkers, doggy daycare, and apps like Rover have turned pet care into a booming industry. Millennials hire walkers not just for emergencies or vacations, but for regular daily walks while they’re at work or simply because they’d rather not.

Final thoughts

Here’s what I’ve learned after watching my own kids navigate adulthood: every generation defines self-sufficiency differently. My father’s generation might have looked at us boomers hiring plumbers instead of digging our own wells and thought we were soft too.

Maybe the real skill isn’t knowing how to do everything yourself, but knowing when it makes sense to do it yourself and when it’s smarter to call in the pros. Time, after all, is the one resource none of us can make more of. If millennials have figured out how to buy some back, maybe they’re onto something.