Men Pull The Wagon

Why is it, that men insist on pulling the wagon loaded with beach toys, umbrellas and coolers on and off the beach? Women carry a chair, or a child and a bright green sippy cup.

The children rarely carry anything. Maybe a bucket. Maybe a backpack chair. But they are free to run and spin and do whatever they want because they are not old enough to be saddled with the pulling of the wagon. The teenagers, heads drooping,on their phones walk at least a hundred feet back from their parents as though to say, "No, that is NOT my family." They plop their beach wares down on the sand, snack, play in the water and eventually, leave when the baby gets fussy. They pack up and once again, the father lugs all things back to the car while the women chase their little one who has already decided they were done on the beach. Some how, some way, everyone makes it to the car with the father in the lead, because no one else expected to know WHERE said car is. After he puts all the "beach necessities" in the trunk, he sits in the driver's seat and delicately gets out of the parallel parking space it took half an hour to find. In the meantime, the children start getting hungry, argumentative and fussy and the mom tries to calm everyone down until they finally arrive back at their beach rental.

Twenty six years ago I got married to a wonderful man and our beach trips were no different then the one above. We knew that was how it was supposed to be because that's what our families did when we were growing up. It was what we were taught. We had loving, yet passive mothers to our dominant fathers. Why? Because that's what THEIR parents did. It's what's been happening since the hunter/gatherer days and just like many other things, as women we don't stop to think: Is this really the way I want my life to be? Eighteen years after my husband and I said our vows, we separated. He had fallen into his role as the increadibly hard working bread winner and I was the caregiver. Deep in my soul I knew that being passive was not the way to live my own vision of a meaningful life. Don't get me wrong, my family IS the most meaningful and important part of my life (including my exhusband) but when I looked in my little girl's eyes, I knew I didn't want her only model of "womanhood" to be the passive one I was showing her. After becoming a divorced mom and having to be the beach packer, wagon puller and driver I realized that I was capable of doing so much more than was programed in me. Now, I don't necessarily ENJOY doing all the things, but there are moments where being divorced for 8 years has taught me to do a LOT on my own, including the heavy lifiting a "man of the house" would do. Sometimes, I HAVE wished there was a man around to help me with the heavy lifting, but most of the time I am proud when I've completed a task I never thought I could. Had I stayed married, I'm pretty sure I would NEVER have had to learn how to change a gasket on a toilet tank or fix a jammed garbage disposal. It was trained into me that these things are a man's work and the untraining has been a wonderfully exhausting process.

I guess it's the same way at the beach. Women were trained that their job was that men were stronger and their job was to make sure all the children were tagging along behind them and the men would be the ones to carry the heavy load. Interestingly enough, should another man or woman see a man "allowing" the woman to pull that wagon and see HIM hustling those children along, there would be some whispers: "That's terrible, she has to pull that heavy thing through the sand - he's not even helping." or "What a lazy ass" or maybe, "Clearly she wears the pants in the family." ( I am guilty of these thoughts when I see a woman mowing the lawn).

Let's teach our girls that they are strong enough to pull that wagon or that they can help their partner pull the wagon. Or if they don't WANT to pull the wagon so be it. Let's open their eyes to knowing that they don't have to cater to a social structure that has been in place since,

forever. I want my daughter to know the only guide she has to follow is the one inside of herself. And our boys - let's teach them it's ok not to pull the wagon...and to walk behind their women with a green sippy cup in one hand and children in tow.