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Home economics isn't what it used to be. Quite literally. And the professionals view that as a good thing.

When Margaret Viebrock received her bachelor's degree in home economics education from North Dakota State University in 1970 she proudly embarked upon a career as a home economist.

In three short decades she morphed into a family and consumer scientist, along with other professionals in her field. The changing rhetoric is more than cosmetic. Home economists needed to escape the narrow old-time perception that focused on cooking and sewing. The new name connotes both a broader and scientifically deeper subject.

Family and consumer scientists also work differently than traditional home economists.

Viebock reflects: "When I was originally hired, I worked in Chelan and Douglas counties and at that time my job responsibilities dealt with food, nutrition, and consumer education. I worked with homemaker clubs. A typical day then was answering consumer questions. I taught quite a few workshops on how to purchase and use a microwave oven. They were relatively new at that time. I taught food preservation, but also typical of that time was teaching a variety of classes that I thought people would be interested in.

"We didn't do a lot in the way of needs assessment to learn what people wanted. Lectures were developed by specialists and we just delivered them out in the counties."

Viebrock says the family and consumer scientist operates very differently. "We've expanded way beyond the traditional field of home economics and if there's to be a traditional part it is teaching life skills to people or families who didn't get them at home and need some life skills to get along."

The family and consumer scientist begins with a needs assessment. Programs are less for the "general public" and are designed for narrowly targeted clientele.

Instruction may be designed for child care providers or for entrepreneurs who want to start a business, or people with diabetes, or for farm families who need information on risk management.

"It's not that we've forgotten the whole background of what home economics is about, but we're taking a whole different slant on how we teach. We have repackaged for a more sophisticated audience," Viebrock says.

Family and consumer scientists also have had to adapt to societal changes, such as the decline of traditional family structures. Many of extension's clientele today don't live within a family structure where they learned homemaking skills from parents or other adults.

"Today we teach classes to teenage parents, or to students in alternative schools, where they need to learn those life skills,"

Viebrock says. "Or we teach classes for people on assistance programs." Classes may include parenting skills, food buying, and budgeting. Viebrock has taught a series of four classes in the Okanogan area for people in the "Families That Work" program, which is part of the Work First Program in the state welfare system. People enrolled in this program not only receive training to help them succeed on the job, but also on how to achieve a healthy balance between family and job.

Family and consumer scientists in Washington State University Cooperative Extension still help 4-H leaders with the sewing part of the 4-H program, but no longer conduct the traditional sewing classes for adults because many commercial enterprises do this as part of their business.

"When we first started teaching family finance we taught basic budgeting principles, how to decide the difference between needs and wants, how to save, etc.," Viebrock says. "Now we've ratcheted it up in terms of audiences. We teach women who are interested in investments, or in learning computer programs to manage books for a business or farming."

One goal is to get farmers to think more about communication, "getting them to use their softer side," Viebrock says.

Another is to get farm women more involved in marketing. "Some research is showing that women are better marketers than men. When you're so tightly tied to the crop you've grown you may not be the best marketer." "Another area we wouldn't have ever thought of once back in the 1970s is helping people develop small businesses, such as specialty foods, and stressing the importance of adding value to locally grown commodities," Viebrock says.

"The basic business principles are still there, but content needs to fit the audience.

Margaret Viebrock received a bachelor's degree in home economics education from North Dakota State University in 1970 and joined the WSU faculty in August, 1970. She received her master's in Adult Education and Nutrition from Central Washington University in 1978 and has served as chair of WSU Douglas County Cooperative Extension since 1981.

"Before, when we taught communication skills, we taught how to communicate and listen within the basic family structure; but now we're targeting a different audience for a different reason. Farm families deal not only with the inter-generational issues and communication, but also need to know how to talk with the banker, attorney and other businesses that affect the success of the farm.

"We used to teach basic discipline to parents; how to get children to mind. Today classes center more on things like helping children cope with divorce, how to be a single parent, grandparents raising grandkids," Viebrock says. Thirty years ago these weren't big issues.

Even in nutrition, the focus has changed considerably. For instance, diabetes education has become much more important. "We now teach how to prevent or delay onset and how to control it."

And diabetes education programs are aimed directly at segments of the population where the need is greatest. This includes Hispanics, Native Americans, and African Americans.

Viebrock says the method of delivering education also has changed greatly. Thirty years ago, extension workers organized general meetings and invited the public to attend. Today, great emphasis is placed on working through other organizations and agencies to reach target audiences.

Working with farm families on risk management provides a ready example. "Agriculture has spent a lifetime dealing with agriculture and not dealing with the family part of the farm," Viebrock says. "The last three years I've spent extensive time pulling the two together. What's the value of the farm if you lose the family in the process of saving the farm?" Viebrock asks.

Recognizing this, extension's innovative agricultural educators now are building family topics, as well as production concerns, into their programs. As a result, extension's grower meetings often have a new look.

"We're doing programs that include education on partnership or inter-generational communication, men's health and wellness, and things on property succession and coping with change." Not only are agriculture and family and consumer sciences faculty working together on programs, other disciplines such as sociology and psychology are being consulted, or even invited to provide speakers.

Helping minorities improve their nutrition involves studying their traditional diets and helping them modify their eating patterns without abandoning historic cultural values. Indeed, Viebrock says sometimes minorities can eat healthier by returning to abandoned practices and learning to eat with moderation.

Viebrock encourages Spanish-speaking families to eat their native foods, but maybe prepare them in healthier ways. Traditional Hispanic diets include little meat but lots of vegetables, fruits, and bread products, Viebrock said. But when they Americanized their diets, they ate less of their native foods, like salsa, which is very high in vitamins.

With Native Americans the challenge has been more one of teaching food safety and different ways of preparing their traditional diet. Viebrock said Native Americans also need to learn to reduce the amount of calories they consume.

Future of family and consumer sciences

Viebrock says the family structure will never disappear, but helping families become more self-reliant and more resilient is going to get tougher.

"Families are busy with outside activities, they eat fewer meals together, they don't plan for time together, and the influences of the media all have an impact on their welfare," Viebrock says.

"I feel one of our challenges will be to work with children and teens and teach them the values of working together, an appreciation for good food, how to use money wisely, and the importance of nurturing and parenting skills."

Terence L. Day,
Information Department