Is it ladylike to mow the lawn?

[Kaylee]

I've never mowed either. Growing up, my mom always did it (I think she used it as a stress reliever because when she got mad she's either move, paint, or do landscaping). We have this crazy yard (large, sloped, and rocky in places) that requires a riding mower but can only be written a certain way in certain places without danger of tipping over and has other spots that have to be push mowed. We've always had crappy 2nd or 3rd hand mowers, so DH has always done it because even he has had trouble keeping the stupid thing running long enough to finish mowing.

In my neighborhood, most of the husbands mow the yard in the older couples and the majority of dual income couples, but a lot of the stay at home moms/wives mow because they are home to do it during the day.

[Tator Tot Tubby]

I was worried about that. Oh, well. It's not my fault that the world is full of euphemisms. :D

lol sorry

I do wonder though what the fundie thoughts are on women shaving anything...... I assume they shave their legs since they wear skirts but the other stuff.......I dunno

[AmandaP]

What if I mow in a dress? Which I totally do...

My headship works very long days at a fairly physical job. I am home all summer with our pre-school sons. It wouldn't make sense for me to leave the mowing for him to do when I have plenty of time and strength.

[marmalade]

Live in a condo now, so it's not an issue. Growing up, it was totally equal. One week, my brother would have the "outside" chrores," which included lawn mowing until we moved to a place with a brick backyard and a desert-landscaped front. The other had "inside" chores: table setting, clean-up, cooking one meal/week once we were hit middle school, and ironing (I HATED ironing).

Although there was no lawn, there WAS a huge oak tree that rained leaves into the yard and onto the sidewalk belonging to the property. One side of our house faced a busy thoroughfare and if I was raking leaves on a hot Indian Summer day in my Daisy Dukes, I defrauded plenty, given the honks I got from passers-by.

Oops. :mrgreen:

[fundifugee]

Mow two acres of lawn and three of pasture on a 85 degree day in Illinois, you will sweat like a mofo, riding mower or not! My Mother and I trade off weekly on the mowing at the farm, but mowing sucks rider or not...oh and my headship mows at our house in town, but he hates if Mother and I go on Vaca and he has to mow at the Farm!!

Interesting. If it is a farm, don't the animals do the mowing? Or can you do a seasonal mow and bale?

I have a friend who bought two sheep for the 1 acre pasture/orchard adjacent to her property. They sheep are named Mow and Stewie, for their intended purposes.

[notsocommon]

Am I the only one who thought this thread was about something completely different?

Were you thinking about someting like this?

MvFSgXpyhoM

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I've never mowed a lawn in my life, as I've never lived anywhere that had enough grass to bother (the current residence has maybe a meter wide swath, but as it is contiguous with the neighbor's actual expansive yard, he just does my bit with an extra two passes with the mower for free).

Shoveling snow and raking leaves, I do those. Leaves fall on cement and vinca and ivy ground cover just as they do on a lawn, after all. I also weed the sidewalk (brick sidewalks can get pretty weedy in the summer).

Still it would never have struck me that mowing the lawn is something women shouldn't do. If all the kids are girls, well, a girl is gonna mow the lawn, yes? :D

[Funky Chicken]

Over here, "cutting someone's grass" means doing the horizontal mamba with someone else's partner or spouse, so yes, it's not ladylike. Or gentlemanly either.

[SoybeanQueen]

We fight about who gets to mow, too. Two years ago, my husband bought a huge ZTR mower and it's pretty fun to zoom around the yard on it. My nephews will come mow for free just so they can drive it. My kids ask if they can mow. Hopefully it's not un-ladylike because I let my daughters use the mower pretty often.

I also have a horticulture degree and one of my areas of expertise was turfgrass management. The lady of the house is the expert around here, even if it's man's work.

[darkplumaged]

I have never mowed a lawn. My dad always did it when I was a kid, and I've never had a lawn as an adult. However, when we buy a house, I will be mowing at least some of the time. My Command Man headship says so, and I must submit! :roll:

Actually, I sort of look forward to it. It will be good exercise, at the very least, and I always feel so accomplished when I do something I've never done without totally screwing it up.

[emmiedahl]

I have never mowed a lawn even though I have spent most of my life at houses with lawns. I guess I have been supporting sexism where this is concerned, because my husband would never ask his wife to push a mover over hills and I feel no need to volunteer.

When we are no longer in the apartment, I will give it a try. I insist that we share household chores and none of the menfolk bitch about washing dishes and floors. What's good for the gander is good for the goose, I suppose.

[Wolfie]

I never mowed a lawn until I bought my own house. I grew up where it was not something that the ladies did. (I have no idea why, because it went back a couple generations and my family is also pretty feminist on that side.) My dad or brother did it. But we didn't have any other chores that were gender specific. Then in rentals the landlord did it. Now I own an acre and about 1/4 of it is grass, so I have to mow it. I'd love a riding mower, but can't afford one. I have bad hips so I just have a self propelled "push" mower.

[kittypie]

Uh, I have not read the whole thead, but if mowing the lawn is unladylike then I have been disappointing God by being a failure at female since oh, about age 12.

Hmm. I should start a blog. "Disappointing God since 1958" -- but that might be a rip-off of John Shore's "Trying God's patience since 1958"

ETA my late husband was most likely to be, uh, "jumped" by me after he came in from mowing the lawn. So effin sexy. This did not seem to be the case when I would be the one mowing the lawn.:D

[constantgardener]

I would like to be able to mow the lawn but I am ashamed to say I am too feeble to start the mower (it's a petrol one with a pull cord). I just can't pull the cord back hard enough to make it start! It really annoys me because I have to nag my husband to do it. I hate untidy lawns. I am a trained horticulturalist and I love working in my garden, but I am not very strong and it really gets to me that I can't manage the heavier tasks.

[Miss M]

Interesting. If it is a farm, don't the animals do the mowing? Or can you do a seasonal mow and bale?

I have a friend who bought two sheep for the 1 acre pasture/orchard adjacent to her property. They sheep are named Mow and Stewie, for their intended purposes.

We can't have livestock due to low water level in our well, we used to have cows and of course then the pasture didn't have to be mowed. But even then we would still have to mow the expansive yard and the road side along our crop acres.

M.

[currywurst]

Ladylike? :roll: Do these fundies not understand something about being a lady? A lady had a wet nurse, a lady's maid, a cook, several handmaidens, etc, etc. The reason a lady could be a lady, i.e. wear long, beautiful dresses, have perfect hair, pump out lots of kids year after year, is because a lady was wealthy enough to not have to do any actual work.

If these fundie men want their wives to be "ladies" then they will need to provide a lifestyle that a lady has.

[reds]

Mowing the lawn has always been my chore. I loved it when i was a kid and did love it until my parents got on a kick that the grass trimmings had to be picked up. So then it became a chore because lugging the bags of grass to the dump pile was more work than pushing the lawn mower.

When i turned 18 I started working for my uncle. He did all the fields for the schools in the county. Large tractors with flail cutters and darn it was dirty work. I did that for the summers when i was in college. See picture. And add 50 years to the technology! :lol:

The one thing i hated and still HATE is using the weed eater. Damn thing, whether it was gas or electric, always made my forearms go to sleep.

We now have a riding mower for our farm and it is still 3 hours to cut the grass. I will be teaching my daughter soon to operate it. Start with steering and not actual cutting for the first year.!?

[genericJname]

I haven't lived in our own house yet but I think I'd like to do the mowing. Growing up, my dad tried to teach me a couple times and didn't approve of the straightness of my lines and so the task got inherited by my younger brother :(

[donks]

I don't mow the yard, that's one of The Boy's chores. I do bushhog the pasture, though. Even with horses on it, it takes mowing 2-3 times a season (each mowing takes several days). Horses won't eat the rough stuff cows and goats thrive on, they're very picky!

[camdendayton]

I would like to be able to mow the lawn but I am ashamed to say I am too feeble to start the mower (it's a petrol one with a pull cord). I just can't pull the cord back hard enough to make it start! It really annoys me because I have to nag my husband to do it. I hate untidy lawns. I am a trained horticulturalist and I love working in my garden, but I am not very strong and it really gets to me that I can't manage the heavier tasks.

I have never mowed a lawn but I often helped my mom w/ the rip cord. I'm sure there was something wrong with that mower that made it harder than it should have been, but man that was a pain! My mom loved mowing the lawn as she got "sun" and exercise (so yea, a 2-piece swim-suit was involved.)

:whistle:

[TMS]

It may not be ladylike, but it's damn sexy.

[Loveday]

Hope no one minds me resurrecting this thread from a few pages back, but I just mowed my lawn and remembered the thread about halfway through. I hope none of my neighbours noticed me suddenly start to laugh; I probably looked like I'd lost my mind. :lol:

I'm sweating in quite an UNladylike fashion right now. But I never claimed to be a 'lady,' so I don't particularly care.

I do feel a little thinner, though, which, considering I need to lose about thirty pounds, is a very good thing. ;)

[Beammeup]

I mowed my mom's lawn while pregnant. I took plenty of breaks for water and mowed in the evening. My mom lives on the main road into the neighborhood where our church congregation lives. The next day at church it seems all sorts of people had noticed me mowing while driving by, and had plenty of things to say, but not a one stopped to help. SMH. My mom was at work, my husband was in Iraq, and the dang thing was looking like a jungle.

Now with my husband home, he mows her lawn, and I garden and weed. My husband loves to use my mom's awesome self propelled mower, he says it gets him an hour to listen to music and be left alone. I have a massive garden growing in her back yard, and if you think I don't work hard back there, you are full of it.

[HoneyBunny]

Love, love, love mowing the lawn. 52 years old, and I see at least another 20 years of lawn mowing in my future. Given the choice between mowing the lawn or doing indoor housekeeping, I'll choose being outside any time.

My husband was in the military for 27 years. Who do all these fundies think mows the lawns of servicemen when they're gone for a year at a time??

[jjmennonite]

I have no headship, so I mow my own lawn. I got a push mower last year and I LOVE it - so fun. My lawn is not large, and the dog pee keeps the back yard from growing too much. I also do not water my lawn - environmentally unfriendly and makes less mowing - brown is a natural stage of grass here.

Once in my previous house I was mowing the back lawn and I made a HUGE rip in my shorts, showing ass and panties. I decided to mow the front, without going in to change. Noticed a lot more traffic than usual, going by our quiet street. Later I saw the main street had been detoured past my house! I guess I defrauded many that day.