Worrying about the draft

and the mysteries of gender

My son Paul turns eighteen next month. For a while this summer, I’d been carrying a secret worry in my heart. Not about how a twice-exceptional neurodiverse guy is going to launch from home. Not about how Chris and I will react to an empty nest. Not about the continued pursuit of a driver's license. Not about whether Paul’s accumulated enough life skills to care for himself.

Actually, yes, I’ve been worried about all those things, but not secretly.

I’ve been quietly stewing about the draft.

I’ve never registered for the selective service. I don’t know how it’s done. The only thing I know is that 18-year-old boys have to register. I also know maybe the post office is involved somehow?

All summer, I’ve been holding this little worry in my heart. What if Paul doesn’t figure out how to do it? What if we forget to remind him? Will he go to jail? How soon do the consequences of not registering kick in? What if we all just forget that registering for the draft is a thing?

I kept my worry quiet until one Sunday morning, I blurted it all out to Chris.

“You can’t forget,” he said. “There are so many opportunities to register. It just happens. You can’t forget.”

I knew immediately-- as he spoke from experience-- that he was right. His immediate assurance and his surprise at my worry got me to thinking about the gendered experiences that remain in our lives.

So many opportunities have opened up to women in my lifetime. Milestones of success that used to be marked only for men are rare. Girls mow the lawn and stack firewood. Boys do the laundry and cook. Husbands are present for childbirth.

And yet some experiences -- like registering for the draft -- remain purely gendered. The equivalent adolescent experience must be menstruation. A girl turns ten or twelve, and she enters a world where she always knows where a pad or tampon is. She always knows where her purse is, and it’s not a big deal.

I learned a few months ago that Chris had no idea what really happens at a mammogram, how the machine works, that is. And why would he? We don’t see mammograms on TV. Even when Chris has gone with me over the years when I have had follow-up films and biopsies, the husband doesn’t come back for the procedure itself. It’s not like childbirth.

It’s corny to say that your spouse is your best friend. People need solid friends outside their marriage, and I love my friends. And Chris is my best friend, my “dearest friend” as Abigail Adams said. It’s weird to think that there remain gendered aspects of each of our lives to which we do not have any access or understanding. We don’t think about it daily, not until a son approaches adulthood and one of the mysteries reveals itself.