Pat, you are leading your daughters down the path of dirty hands and
unnatural activities!!! If you train little girls how to use tools,
solve mechanical problems, and to fix & maintain mechanical things
before they understand that girls are not supposed to be able to do
that sort of thing you can taint them for life! Your daughters might
start looking at fixing a car themselves as a viable option to having it done
by a mechanic when they grow up. They would be looked upon by their peers
as a wee bit daft. If you are not carefu, they might get too much knowledge
to convencingly fake helplessness and end up with all the mechanical
maintenence. Let me tell you such a tale of fall ...
Herstory:
My stepfather was a tool & die maker by training and started a machine
shop in the garage. His family, two step daughters of tender age and wife,
became his part time work force. His shop specialized in making small
parts for big companys like the telephone company. I got started out as I
recall by filing burs off parts. Before too long I graduated to cutting
stock on the power hack saw after my step father set up stops. From there
I went to the drill press. I was too young to know that this wasn't
girl's work {my mom was doing it too}. Before I was 10 I knew the basics of han
hand tools, the drill press, arber press, mill and lathe. More trouble followed
when I approached the time of getting my first driver's license.
My step father insisted that no daughter of his was going to find herself
stranded alongside the road & that basic maintenence was too basic
to pay for.
Therefore, before either myself or my sister could get a drivers license
we had to demonstrate to him that we could do the following:
Safely jack up a car and remove and replace a tyre,
Add gas to a car from a can,
check all fluids, this included knowing what the fluids are & what happens
if they are not there(radiator, battery, engine, transmission),
Replace headlights, and brake lights,
use a flare,
Clean battery terminals,
replace oil & filter,
Clean air filter and renew the oil bath,
replace spark plugs,
Replace spark plug wires,
Know that a low voltage wire goes from the coil to the distributer.
Oh yes, we had to be able to identify the basic external parts of
an engine (what a carb is, a generator, water pump, fuel pump etc)
and have a rough idea of that the parts do,
He thought that setting points & timing was too complicated & I was starting
to rebel by then.
One, I demonstrated to him I learned all that stuff, I was taken down to
get a driver's license. As much as I thought I didn't need to know all
that stuff, that basic knowledge kept me from getting stranded several
times and let me know when a boyfriend was faking knowhow & getting him
away from my car.
Then came my first car, a '55 Ford that had been sitting in an orchard
with windows rolled down for a couple of years. My step father towed it
home & said something to the affect of"Here 'tis daughter, good luck getting
it running"!!!!!???#*!
Well, I changed the oil & filter, flushed out the radiator, checked battery
fluids 7 transmission fluids, cleaned the battery connections, cleaned the
car, ploished the car & it still didn't run. Finally, he decided I was not
going anywhere & came out to trouble shoot the car, explaining as he went
along. Problem # 1 dead battery. He explained that clean terminals & a battery
charger were not its reserection. He took me to the store & I watched while
he got a battery. That got the car started but exposed problem #2 holes
in the muffler. It was off to the muffler place. This exposed problem #3
low power. This is where I got my first lesson in points and timing, and
compression test. problem #3 was burnt valves. This was where i got my
first experience cleaning grease off parts {i've hated that job almost as
much as I hated dirty internal engine parts ever since}. This is where I
learned that ordinary people can take appart an engine 7 put it back together.
After that the car ran well & I had my first car out on the road.
These experiences put me onto the road of dirty nails.
After I moved away from home & became sa poor student I started following
a pattern. Something would go wrong with the car, I would take it to a gas
station with a good mechanic. They would diagnose it for me & provide me with
an estimate that I could not pay. After pulling my jaw off the ground, I
would collect my car, go to the library, read about the part of the car that
had problems, go to the auto parts store, bought necessarry tools & parts, got
treated as a dumb errand runner for a boyfriend/husband. Then I
got home, and fixed whatever was wrong. Some times I fixed the same thing
multiple times until I did it right. Several times I disassembled way too
many parts & it took me forever to do all this stuff for the first time.
But each time, I learned.
Now, I tend to work on cars because I would rather spend my money on other
things that a mechanic. If my Step father had not tought me how to use
tools and fix things befor I could learn that girls were not suposed too,
I could live a life without being greasy, spend days at the beach, unstead
of listening to breakers as I push a wrench, not be such an oddity ...
On the otherhand, I wouldn't have an old roadster, or the satisfaction of
something fixed well that otherwise would to have been replaced, or the
security that comes from knowing that I could handle most any problem or
emergency that comes up. Or to make my own decisions baseed upon my
own desires as opposed to just needing someoneto take care of me.
Mechanical knowledge and compeidence is a double edged sword for a woman
in this society. Now that I have it, I would never really want to be
without it, but sometimes it cuts a bit.
You who are showing your young daughters how to use tools and fix things are
providing tham with the oppertunity to become independent masters in a
highly mechanical society. You are empowering them to be free and independant.
Empowering tham to be able to make decisions in this society based upon their
own desires and not because they lack basic survival skills. You are also,
making them a wee bit odd.
TeriAnn
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