My parents both grew up poor and they passed their frugality on to us. I learned to sew when I was very young and I still repair clothes. I do my own plumbing, electrical, and masonry work.

i took a major appliance repair course several decades ago. and to my wife's annoyance i was able to keep old appliances going indefinitely.
wouldn't have much of a clue today. if the motherboard goes then the appliance is considered not worth fixing, even though everything else is in good condition. sometimes i think there is a built in obsolesence.

Less time, or time devoted to ..important things. And, ultra-complicated things.. Grew up holding the flashlight as my dad worked on our car in the driveway. Anymore, he’ll open the hood and say “Look at that” - “Where would you start?” When my dad began turning his vehicles over to a ‘paid mechanic,’ I knew things had changed..

I dunno. For me, it was being a starving student in the 90's that taught me to have a bash at fixing stuff. Shit, it was that or wait for the landlord, and that was never going to happen.

"Necessity is the mother of invention." You do what you have to, to make life more tolerable. I also grew up poor, and though middle class today, at the age of 82 I still grow 3 crops a year in my vegetable garden, do my own yard work, and to other things I need to, like building my own work able out of left over lumber.

Keep on doing it, you are not alone there are at least two of us. I too grew up working class, and will never forget how to be thrifty and look after things. In the future if this planet has one, we will be seen as being at the cutting edge, the names have changed, we called it thrift and make do and mend, now they call it being environmentally aware and recycling. But its the same thing really, and the extra pleasure you get from something you repaired is just the same.

I agree. Society is now a throw away lot. No fixing of things, just buy a new one.

There are ‘Repair Cafes’ popping up around the country which are for fixing your things specifically. You are taught how to do it yourself.
[repaircafe.org]

Unfortunately it turns out that it's cheaper to replace something than to repair it. Thus our enormous garbage problems!