As a mother, I’m always vigilant for these situations. This is a story from last night’s 4H meeting. Birding club.
I had three of my kids with me, my boys, 10 and 7, and my eldest girl, 12 years old next week. The night’s project was making bird feeders. A dad passed out the supplies: wood pieces, screws, metal sheeting for the roof and demonstrated how to put it together. Simple construction, easy.
The dad had two electric power drills, one by-hand screwdriver. Ten kids waited patiently.
“Why don’t you help her?” Dad said to his son, a boy well versed in power drill. The boy had just finished using it on his own bird feeder. He picked up the screw and began drilling into my daughter’s bird feeder to attach the base.
My daughter watched.
On the other side of the room, another boy, another girl, same scene.
She said nothing, watching as he began to work on her bird feeder project.
I know how to use tools. I’ve used electric saws, table saws, lathes, jigsaws. I took wood shop in 7th grade when it was required. I took wood shop as an elective in high school. I built ramshackle forts in my backyard. I built a skateboard out of old metal wheels and rough wood. I came home in tears from freshman year wood shop due to the caustic remarks from the male teacher. I never took wood shop again.
My daughter is not me. As far as I can tell, she is not interested in carpentry, power drills or building with scraps of wood. She’s more rubber spatula, cake pans and flour. But this was an easy project. All you had to do was screw straight down four times; plus I think everyone should try a tool when given the opportunity.
Make no mistake – I made sure I was gentle, yet firm.
“Wait a minute. That’s her bird feeder.”
“Excuse me. That’s her project. Let her do it.”
I had to repeat myself several times, my voice raised a bit louder each time. Eventually those boys gave way and the girls used the drills by themselves.
Moms, encourage your daughters to try the new, the unfamiliar.
Tell your sons: help doesn’t mean you do it for a girl. Show her, demonstrate. Then hand the tool to her.
Speak up for your girl so she has a turn to try.
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Twitter: hmariey
Oh how interesting. I can comment in Google Chrome,but not in Opera. For some reason in Opera the form is no longer acting as a form. I did not check it in Firefox (Firefox with all their new addons and bling is too slow on my old junker of a computer) and since I am on an Ubuntu machine I can’t check IE.
ANYWAY, what I wanted to say is that we have struggled with this on a more personal basis. My girls are pretty hands on and tend to not pay attention to details like…how to SAFELY use the power drill… while wanting to do everything themselves, and happily step in and just do it anyway. (Both of them would have stopped the boys without question and said, “No, I will do it myself thank you.”
However, my brother (age 18) has had to learn to back off before a fight ensues. He knows how to use power tools well (as do I since my mom and dad built the house we lived in growing up and we learned by helping, constantly) but the girls don’t even want a demonstration. Meanwhile they often take over for their little brother, and so he is learning from them to just take over and do. So in our case it has kind of backfired. And now I am having to teach him specifically to back off because yes they too know how to play with Legoes or whatever other project he is insisting they can’t do.
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It’s a good point, although I would have loved if someone did mine fo me at that age haha.
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Twitter: SomeGirlsTweets
Way to go, Mama!
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I totally agree and I have an 18 year old daughter that can do just about anything because she has tried just about everything on this farm. She can drive tractors, put up hay, change her oil,…whatever. We want to raise young ladies that aren’t afraid to do for themselves!
It is totally empowering for girls/ ladies to be handy with power tools! I believe all girls should have the skills, even though they may never chose that particular career or hobby.
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Twitter: jamieworley
My youngest girl (9) can probably change a light fixture, replace an electrical outlet, or all sorts of other things just because she LOVES to watch my husband do it, and he takes the time to answer her many questions. I grew up in my dad’s auto repair shop, so I knew more about cars than most boys when I was in high school. And of course, I think it’s just as important for a boy to know how to cook and do laundry and such!
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Well done! When I was in elementary school, we built a greenhouse. I shouldn’t say “we,” though, as the teacher assigned the girls the task of bringing the boys water while they worked. Seriously. Said teacher ran for office a few years ago, and my mom didn’t vote for him because of that.
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