How much do you care how your lawn looks? How much time, effort, and money do you put into getting your lawn to look a certain way? Do you compare your lawn to your neighbors’ lawns? Are you annoyed if you have neighbors who don’t take care of their lawns? If you live in an apartment or condo, is not having to deal with a lawn, one of the reasons that you don’t live in a house?
The lawn is a big deal in America. People really care how their lawn looks and other people really care how your lawn looks. There are lots of people who don’t even use their lawn but still really care how it looks. The only time they’re on their lawn is when they’re taking care of it.
We have a dog and kids so there are practical reasons for us to have a decent lawn. I don’t want to be wiping mud off the dog’s paws every time it’s wet outside. The kids play in the yard so it’s better to have grass to run on than just dirt or weeds. But my goal is for our lawn to be good enough. It’s a practical goal more than an aesthetic goal.
We have tons of trees and some of them are oak trees. It’s takes a lot of time and energy to clean up all the leaves and acorns that fall off the trees. The acorns are a pain. If I didn’t clean them up they’d overtake the lawn making it hard for the grass to survive. They’re uncomfortable to walk on and the squirrels would be burying them all over the lawn making holes everywhere and digging up the grass.
I don’t put that effort into our lawn so that it looks nice for other people. I don’t even put the effort in so that it looks nice for us. I put that effort in because we use the lawn. I would often rather be doing something else. I like being outside and I don’t mind the physicality of it but lawn care is usually not a lot of fun or my first choice of how to spend my free time. I try to do just enough work on the lawn to keep it good enough, but I’ll bet there are people who think I spend tons of time on the lawn or too much time on the lawn. Neighbors have mentioned our lawn to me. I assure them that it’s not perfect. It looks good from their side of the street but if they were really checking it out they’d see the bare spots and the weeds. They seem unconvinced. They think I’m being lawn modest. They think I am really into this American lawn thing and trying really hard to make it look like a golf course, but really I just want to have a useable lawn.
What’s with all this lawn talk, you wonder? Our lawns are such a good analogy for anything and everything else in our lives. Every decision we make about how to spend our time or how to spend our money is a decision of one thing over another. We do not have unlimited time or money, so we always have to pick one thing at the expense of another. I have a certain amount of free time after work. How much time do I spend working on the lawn? How much time do I want to spend with the kids or doing some other thing? Can I do both? How much money is too much money to spend on fertilizer and weed killer for my lawn? Do I want to use all organic products or do I want to spread poison all over this lawn that surrounds the home I live in?
Always choices. Always trade offs. Where do we put our priorities? Do we make something a priority because it really matters or do we just care what other people are going to think? Is this choice about appearance or is there a practical value to our choices? When we choose one thing, what other thing are we passing up?
I don’t care if you want your lawn to look good so that you’re the envy of your neighbors and I don’t care if you don’t take care of your lawn at all. I don’t care if you bought the expensive, uncomfortable pair of pants because they are stylish or if you bought the less expensive, comfy pants. We all have to sort out these choices, priorities, and trade offs, on our own, all day long, everyday.
I just think it’s super interesting. Last week, when I was out in my yard picking up acorns again (I’ve filled a 5 gallon bucket with acorns about a dozen times already this season), this whole idea just occurred to me. The trade offs. The idea of what our lawns represent to people and how people think about us and judge us based on our lawns. And then how all these lawn choices are just a microcosmic example of the prioritizing that we do all the time. I’m trying to get my kids to understand that every choice is choosing one thing over another. There isn’t enough time in the day to do everything. Every moment on lawn care is a moment away from something else.
Even thinking about the motivation for our choices is interesting and our lawns are an especially good example of this because people do seem to care how lawns look even if they don’t use their lawn much or it’s not their own lawn. The part of this that’s about appearance and how other people see us, make how we feel about our lawns a great analogy. Why do we make the choices we make? Why are our priorities what they are? I’m curious about that and no matter what the whys are, it’s a lifelong project to balance all the trade offs.