Chivalry Is Not Dead
Arriving at the outdoor swimming pool with my 8-year-old on this sweltering 96 degree day, I was relishing the opportunity to melt in the shade, all alone for once finishing a favorite Jenny Lawson memoir, while my son experimented swimming with his new birthday snorkel set. Unfortunately, summer camp kids and families with the same plan to cool off overtook the pool. Surveying the landscape, there was nary a chair in sight for this weary, anything-but-lazy mother who had just finished canoeing 5 miles in windy conditions with my 13-year-old for 'extreme forced family fun' (#FFF) on the Willamette River. I considered the hard swimming deck cement my consolation prize in motherhood. Spotting a chair near the elementary school summer campers sitting on their towels playing cards, I eagerly asked the camp counselor if it was taken. "Yes," she replied, "the boy who can't swim sits there." Dumbfounded, I struggled with this logic while the chair remained un...