Women's Work?

Neither Terry nor I have entrenched roles at home. Both of us cook and clean. Both of us cut the grass... Neither of us considers certain tasks "men's work" or "women's work." ...

But not everyone on our block shares our point of view!

I never work in the yard, one neighbor (a woman) tells me, as I dig in the flower beds.

I only do flowers - the grass is his responsibility, another comments....

At one time, that was the way we did it too... Years ago, Terry (or one of the kids) would cut the grass - and I (by choice) looked after the vegetable garden and the flowers. Eventually I stopped planting veggies - and created more flower beds.














But when Terry complained that my flower beds made grass cutting harder, I took over the grass-cutting, too!














Do you know how annoying it is to cut around all those flower beds? Terry would say...

Well, the flowers are staying, I would reply. In fact, I plan to make more flower beds!

Finally I hit upon the perfect solution: I'll cut the grass from now on... if you don't like the hassle of swerving around them all the time...














So I began to cut the grass... and Terry, in exchange, did more housework. It worked well for us... (Besides, I liked spending time outdoors.)

Terry quickly adapted... But I could see our (male) neighbors weren't happy...

You see, in our neighborhood - with it's large yards - the unwritten, unspoken rule is: MEN CUT THE GRASS...

I'm not sure why they were so uncomfortable seeing ME behind the lawn mower... (Perhaps I was making THEIR JOB look like "women's work"?!)

I sensed it - but I didn't realize how much it bothered them until a week ago when I didn't have time to cut the grass, so Terry did it.

When he came in, he commented: A few of the neighbors were also cutting their lawns - and they all smiled and waved...as though I had been away...

I guess they were relieved! We had (temporarily) upset the balance... but now everything was RIGHT AGAIN!

(Unless I cut the grass next time...!)