AIBU to be embarrassed about mowing the lawn?

[Folicky]

Or maybe not unreasonable, but rather am I being neurotic in being embarrassed about mowing my own lawn?

I’m a single parent. I used to have a large front & rear garden and paid to have it mowed. I’m moved to a house on a smaller plot and it is definitely feasible that I mow the lawn. The only thing is, I think it advertises the fact that we’re without a geezer. And while I live semi-rurally, there are a little knot of houses around me, so others could see me doing it and I’m likely to be doing it at times when other people are around (evening or weekends) as I work regular full time hours. Maybe, I’m being a bit sensitive about it because my new & closest neighbours are being very boundaried / dick-ish if I ask for advice about anything eg whats’ the best gp surgery in the locality? Do you need BT and a satellite dish to get a good signal (it’s rural)?, etc. They seem to see that asking for advice as a sign that I’m a bottomless pit of requests when really they’ve been questions about quite discrete areas of life. I think they must have had a bad experience in the past. Somewhere in my psyche I think they’ll see me pushing a lawnmower in my garden as a request for help (it isn’t, I don’t want them or him in my garden) and it will feel awkward. I also don’t want to be adopting a stance of placating my new neighbours when they’re probably a bit difficult. That wouldn’t feel good to me, I don’t think.

Any other dude-less (for the moment) mothers feel this way?

Any solutions? From emboldening words to suggestions about early morning mowing, and advice welcome. Thanks.

This isn't some weird sort of lady garden related euphemism is it? If yes, definitely don't tend to it during daylight hours. If no, don't be daft, they will not notice/care. And yes I do all such chores here even though I am not currently "dude-less". You will be happily jet washing your patio in no time.

But regardless of who mows the lawn, aren’t they going to realise that there’s no man there anyway? Just by virtue of their being no man there! I can’t see why this would be remarkable to them though, there are plenty of single parent families around.

I prob now our lawn 3/4 times compared to dh 1

That’s because I only work 10 hours and have more time to do it between rain etc.

No one cares.

I live with a man and I mow the lawn. My neighbour lives with a man and she mows her lawn. It can be done without a penis.
Now barbecuing, on the other hand...

I have a 2 acre lawn, a husband & an adult son. I mow the lawn and love it. I'm elderly btw.

What the fuck? Just mow the lawn. This is bizarre- surely no one links the sex of the person wielding the lawn mower to their inherent desire (or lack of!) to cohabit with someone of the other sex?

I live alone and mow the lawn. But no one has ever seen this as a request for help?
I can use an electric drill too. :-)
I imagine you're totally overthinking this and all will be well.

Sorry your neighbours are making you feel unwelcome though.

It is a shame you have found them unfriendly though.

I agree with the people saying go ahead, mow the lawn. Just wanted to add that I'm sorry your new neighbours are being a bit twattish. People in villages can be like that at times (I live in a village). I hope they'll thaw a bit as time goes on, but their opinions don't really matter anyway if they're going to be like that.

I mow the lawn sometimes.

(Side note, if you do need satellite internet that actually comes from a satellite be aware there's 'latency' which means it feels sluggish and is useless for online gaming/gambling. But possibly better than sub 1mb with BT. Also rural here)

Sorry, OP but is this a serious AIBU or a wind-up?
I am married and female but mow the front & back garden at home. I don't understand why I shouldn't do it or defer to my husband or a gardener?

Seriously!

I can't believe that anyone in the 21st century thinks mowing the lawn is a man's job

I do 99% of the gardening because I love it. I also mow the lawn 99% of the time because I hate how scruffy an overgrown lawn makes my garden look.

It isn't the 1950s.

WTF

I’m married and I mow the lawn. I don’t think anything of it.

I always mowed the lawn as gardening was my hobby.

• get a few flowers in the borders, make it nice, look like you enjoy it. If your in the uk lawnmowing will be getting less now as we head for winter then nothing for months!

I mow our grass not my dp. Why would he necessarily do it?

Just to add, if you do really think it may be misconstrued as another request for help, the if the opportunity arises just mention that you enjoy mowing/gardening or be seen gardening often so there is no doubt, I appreciate this may not be easy to do.

I mow our lawn. I do not think highly impractical DH knows how to turn on the lawn mower.
I love pottering in the garden and my DH does not.

He will hoover the stairs and I assemble flatpack furniture. No such things as "pink jobs and blue jobs" any more!!!!

Bit put out that no one has seen me mowing the lawn as a request for help and offered to come and do it for me though

I can understand how you feel that, in a way, you can be perceived as exposing a vulnerability or needing help.
However, they would notice there isn’t a man about the house anyway.

Having an overgrown lawn would look like you don’t care much about your own property, but you don’t have to be too obsessive about it.
The worst thing you could do, even worse than not mowing the lawn, is cutting the grass early in the morning or after 7PM - very annoying because of the noise and no neighbour would be impressed with that.

There are plenty of married women doing this job so you wouldn’t stand out because of it. But you wouldn’t be very popular if you don’t keep the property looking smart.
It may also be an opportunity to chat to neighbours as they might approach you voluntarily - usually, kind of gardening at the front of the property takes twice as long because of chatting.
Would you feel comfortable hiring someone to do it for you if you can afford it? I do a fair bit of the big jobs around the house when I have the time because I can but I find mowing the lawn hard work and boring so leave that to DH. If I was on my own, I’d just have to do it myself, it would be a crap job but that would be that.

Single female here, who mows lawn, and has never noticed either of my (lovely) neighbours take it as a cry for help. Instead we have the occasional conversation about the state of our respective lawns, leading to a bit of general garden discussion. I'd suggest you mow on a Saturday/Sunday afternoon/early evening (peak lawn-mowing time round my way) and nod sociably at your neighbours whilst you are doing it!

There are no such thing as man jobs and womens jobs.

I fix cars for our whole street and enjoy carpentry.

Thanks for the replies.
I’m usually not at all binary.... I think my misinterpreting neighbours are melding my mind. The husband is ruining my rural idyll with his scrambler revving and leaf blowing -every-single-night. Compensatory me thinks.

Back to my dimension of this. I had a corded Flymo many years ago but drove over the lead, so need a new lawnmower. Any advice on a good cordless, light one?

Do I need to go self-propelling in order to make it not overly laborious?

Another female mower here, for 2 or 3 months every summer while DH is suffering from hay fever and the garden becomes the enemy.