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By SARAH SMILEY
Girl Power: Leadership With Or Without Pants
My grandmother, Doris, once a Navy wife, told me that when it comes to husbands, “You need them to lay the keel but not to launch the ship.”She was talking about giving birth while your husband is deployed, but she was also teaching me about girl power. I know this because
In other words, the woman who always wore a dress or skirt taught me all about “wearing the pants.”
When I was a little girl, I would sit at the blue formica bar in
I didn’t know it then, but Doris, my dress-wearing grandmother who definitely wore the pants, was giving me a rich lesson in being a military wife, a role that involves an enormous amount of irony.
The stereotypical military man is full of testosterone and wants to be the carving-knife-on-Thanksgiving wielding “man of the house.” He wants to wear the pants.
In the beginning, he attracts a woman who wants another stereotype in a different sort of garb: her knight in shining armor. Together, they become the picture of the 1950s. And then the man leaves for his first deployment. Now the woman is the de facto head of the house and, as it turns out, she rather likes it!
So what happens when the man returns home from duty? He and his wife fight 10 rounds to determine who will wear the pants. Eventually, the woman puts on her prettiest “dress” and assumes her original position, quietly confident in the knowledge that without her, her husband would be one sorry guy.
They will play the traditional roles of “husband” and “wife,” but both – yes, even him – will be fully aware that, in fact, it isn’t the pants that make the leader.
Some military couples spend their whole marriage trying to balance these shifting roles. The juxtaposition of dependency-when-he-is-home and strong-military-wife-when-he-is-gone is a common reason military couples fight post-deployment and eventually divorce. Peace and a happy marriage come when the woman realizes that all throughout humanity, no matter the generation, females have been in command, despite their apparel.
In this way, maybe
Sometime after midnight, he reached out from the covers of his hospital bed and took
“Do you know that I’ve always loved you?” he asked.
When the doctors came in the next morning, she knew something was wrong by the worried look on their faces and the way they kept feeling Big Jack’s wrist for a pulse.
“Mrs. Thompson,” the doctor said, “When was the last time you spoke to your husband?”
“It was after midnight,” she said. She was still holding his hand.
The doctor pressed his palms together. “Mrs. Thomspon, your husband has died.”
Her knight in shining armor had died holding her hand for strength, until she had nothing left. Ironic, isn’t it?
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Sarah Smiley is the wife of a Navy pilot and daughter of a retired Navy pilot. She is the author of “Going Overboard: The Misadventures of a Military Wife” (Penguin/NAL), and her syndicated column “Shore Duty” appears weekly in military and civilian newspapers across the country. Read more about Sarah at her website, www.sarahsmiley.com.
MILITARY
