What They Don't Tell You
Surfer|Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020
How does becoming a mother affect your surfing life?
ASHTYN DOUGLAS - ROSA
What They Don't Tell You

“THIS IS THE PERFECT MOM BOARD,” says 41-year-old Margaret Yao Calvani, pulling a mint green, single-fin midlength from the crammed board racks lining her garage in North County San Diego. “I used to be more of a longboarder, but once I became a mom and started schlepping buckets and wetsuits and towels and snacks down to the beach, carrying a longboard was too much.”

The space around us—a scene likely familiar to any parent who surfs—is overrun with boards, strollers, tiny bicycles, miniature wetsuits and a half-finished load of laundry. At Calvani’s feet is a car seat and behind her is a folding table that sometimes functions as her work desk. It’s covered with papers, a yellow toy car and a volcano-making kit.

Calvani and her husband, surfboard shaper Matt Calvani, own Bing Surfboards in the small surf haven of Encinitas. The two met 15 years ago when Calvani was a competitive longboarder riding for the Hap Jacobs surfboard label, which Matt was shaping for at the time. Before the couple had their children—6-year-old Jacob and 2-year-old Coco, who have since taken over their parents’ quiver space—they were living “fancy free”, as Calvani puts it, surfing daily and going on surf trips whenever their growing surfboard business allowed.

This story is from the Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020 edition of Surfer.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

This story is from the Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020 edition of Surfer.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

MORE STORIES FROM SURFERView All
60 Years Ahead
Surfer

60 Years Ahead

We had a whole plan for this year. Funny, right? Surfer's 60 year anniversary volume was going to be filled with stories nodding to SURFER’s past, with cover concepts paying homage to the magazine’s most iconic imagery. Our new Page One depicts something that’s never happened in surfing before, let alone on a prior SURFER cover. And our table of contents was completely scrapped and replaced as we reacted to the fizzing, sparking, roiling world around us. In other words, 2020 happened to SURFER, just like it happened to you.

time-read
4 mins  |
Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020
A Few Things We Got Horribly Wrong
Surfer

A Few Things We Got Horribly Wrong

You don’t make 60 years of magazines without dropping some balls. Here are a few

time-read
7 mins  |
Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020
THE LGBTQ+ WAVE
Surfer

THE LGBTQ+ WAVE

Surf culture has a long history of marginalizing the LGBTQ+ community, but a new generation of queer surfers is working to change that

time-read
10+ mins  |
Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020
For Generations to Come
Surfer

For Generations to Come

Rockaway’s Lou Harris is spreading the stoke to Black youth and leading surfers in paddling out for racial justice

time-read
5 mins  |
Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020
Christina Koch, 41
Surfer

Christina Koch, 41

Texas surfer, NASA astronaut, record holder for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman

time-read
4 mins  |
Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020
END TIMES FOR PRO SURFING
Surfer

END TIMES FOR PRO SURFING

By the time the pandemic is done reshaping the world, will the World Tour still have a place in it?

time-read
10+ mins  |
Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
Surfer

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

After decades of exclusive access to Hollister Ranch, the most coveted stretch of California coast is finally going public

time-read
10+ mins  |
Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020
What They Don't Tell You
Surfer

What They Don't Tell You

How does becoming a mother affect your surfing life?

time-read
10+ mins  |
Volume 61, Issue 3 / Winter 2020
Surfer

Four Things to Make You Feel A Little Less Shitty About Everything

Helpful reminders for the quarantine era

time-read
10+ mins  |
Volume 61, Issue 2
The Art of Being Seen
Surfer

The Art of Being Seen

How a group of black women are finding creative ways to make diversity in surfing more visible

time-read
4 mins  |
Volume 61, Issue 2