Confession
Earlier this summer, Sunny and I were on a walk and passed a home where a woman was mowing the lawn.
Sunny: Mama, something must have happened to the Daddy at that house.
Me: Why do you say that?
Her: Because Mommies don’t mow lawns. Daddies do.
Womp womp.
I visually cringed knowing that I was indeed reinforcing a stereotype about divisions of labor based on sex, as I myself had never once operated a lawn mower in my thirty years of life; thus the girls had only ever seen James mow the lawn.
I grew up in a household where my parents hired out lawn mowing responsibilities, and then, prior to returning to Williamstown, all of our rental agreements had included lawn care. Our house in Williamstown had a tiny lawn that James mowed with a hand-me-down lawn mower from his parents, a task that he had grown up doing, was familiar with, and didn’t seem to mind.
Granted, he had started to mind when we moved to Vermont and he then had an acre of land to tend with a push mower. He’d mention that I should mow, but I’d brush it aside and claim that that was his job without any real reasoning or explanation to back of my claim.
Sunny saw through my own inherit sexism. Women are obviously perfectly capable of mowing a lawn, and yet, there I was, falling trap to stereotypes about work related labor as determined by sex, primarily because it was an easy excuse not to have to learn and do it myself.
Pathetic, I know.
So yesterday, motivated by the poor lesson I had already begun to teach my daughter and determined to change that, I spent four hours mowing the lawn. While Kaki merrily pushed her toy mower (a gift at her 2nd birthday party from James’ parents) by my side.
Here’s hoping that my daughters learn to tackle all tasks, regardless of the implied gender-responsibilty. Whether or not they enjoy the work is another issue entirely, but it’s not like I enjoy washing dishes or doing the laundry. But it’s work anyone, regardless of sex, is more than capable of doing.
Next up, learning to change a tire! Oh, and finally being the one to make the trip to the transfer station for a trash/recycling dump. My girls are making me a better role model every day.
