What They Don't Tell You

How does becoming a mother affect your surfing life?

- ASHTYN DOUGLAS - ROSA

“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.