Dad Needs Me Today.

"Time to get up. C'mon now, I need your help today?"

"Oh, Dad!" I think. "I don't want to go to work today. I hope Mom has some work for me today. Mom's chores will not be nearly as hard."

It is Summer and I get to sleep in. Yep! Sleep in Dad's truck as we snake our way through the city on our way to his job site. I am a seventeen years-old and my father is a sub contractor. Born in the 1920's, raised in The Depression, and very used to traditional gender roles, but Dad could be an advocate for women's rights because he doesn't much worry that I am a girl. I get to help him work...hard. He works hard every day except Sunday. I guess it's that farming runs deep in his veins. He loves to be outside and it doesn't seem to matter whether it is sweltering hot or freezing cold, Dad works outside. Dad works outside. He seems to think it is good for my character development for me to experience nature in all its variety while wielding whatever hand tool the job requires.


I consider my father a great man who doesn't have all the trappings of financial success but he and my mother have their most beloved treasures-each other and all us children. So, since our family is large, growing, and hungry, he takes us to work when he can get away with it. I guess he needs us. We are captive and able to learn whatever he needs us to do with which ever hand tool he deems necessary. I have at my disposal shovel, hammer, level, plumbline, transit, pick, and crowbar...just to name a few.

So what is it Dad has me doing today? We are digging footings for a new house. Other contractors use power equipment but not my dad - we make do with shovels, picks, and crowbars. I am not the fastest with a shovel but for a skinny teenage girl, I do ok. Dad says you have to really step on the shovel and fill it up in every scoop. As a child of the depression, he lets nothing go to waste. When the shovel doesn't seem to be working well enough, Dad fetches his file from the truck and sharpens the point of the shovel so it really bites into the soil. Who knew you could sharpen a shovel? But it really works!

Digging footings by hand is not what I call a great summer day's activity but strangely, when the day is done and I am showered clean and looking at my sunkissed reflection, I am happy. I am learning new skills, growing stronger, and I feel satisfied that I am not a typical lazy kid who idles away the season. How many girls get that kind of experience? Ok, how many girls want that kind of experience? I get to feast on a home grown, home made lunch while relaxing in the shade with my father. It doesn't matter though that it is a different life than most of the kids at school. Most kids are hungry for personal experiences with their fathers and mothers. Me, I get to drink deeply from the well of parents' care. And of course, I get to go to bed tonight and sleep well hoping that Dad will NOT need me tomorrow.

Household Tools for Women?

About five years ago, I was browsing through the in flight magazine while I was waiting for my airplane to take off. I usually sort of half look at things in those magazines but never really consider buying any of the products listed “Too pricy” is what I usually think.
But I came across and article about a couple of companies who were making and marketing household tools for women. What? Tools for women. What kind of tool does a woman need? Isn’t a hammer a hammer and a screw driver a screws driver? What’s up with women’s tools? My interest was definitely piqued. I read on. Pliers with soft pink grips and placed aesthetically in a pink box. Oh yeah that’s appealing. How manly is that? It’s still a level but now the bubble was cute and PINK.
Wait there’s more. It turns out these companies were making the tools a little bit smaller, to better fit the size of a woman’s hand. Not quite so heavy either. So this tool box wasn’t just the same old socket wrench repackaged to make women think they were so cute. These tools were actually re engineered and designed with women in mind! OK, that’s cool. But still why do women need their own tools? I should have instinctively known the answer to that one. Why indeed. After all I was a single mother with a fixer- upper house. I had collected quite an array of gadgets and thingies to handle a home owner’s little challenges.
Well I was not alone. For the last several years, women have been doing more of the jobs that were typically thought to be men’s work. Think about it. Women are pilots, doctors, lawyers, CEO’s and heck, even military combat personnel so why shouldn’t she have her own designer measuring tape? Yep, Women are buying houses alone; women are staying single longer or becoming single again. Who is going to fix the leaky faucet or patch the hole in the drywall after a rousing indoor teen-ager soccer game? I was reminded of a single woman friend of mine who when we were talking about finding the right man to complete our lives she said something like this. “I used to look for men who were strong and handsome and Prince Charming like. But now that I am a home owner, I think I am looking for a man who can fix stuff. Maybe I should date a plumber for a while, then a roofer, then a painter.”
Oops, sorry. Can’t say I just want him for his repair abilities. It wouldn’t be right. So I guess it’s was inevitable; Women’s tool boxes: Man not included. But do I have to get the pink set?