Yep, we‘ve all seen it in homes of other people, maybe in our own homes the man who sits back and lets his wife do all the dishes. Let me tell you it doesn’t happen in our house. Mick washes the dishes and I dry.
Yes, we vaguely toyed with the idea of a dishwasher after we moved, but never went ahead with it. One reason was expense and not having a lot of room. We’d have to lose a kitchen cupboard to put one in. But the more important reason is because that time doing dishes is put to good use. That time doing dishes is, and always has been, a relaxed time for talking over the events of the day.
When the children were young, we always did the dishes as a family. one washing, one or two wiping and one putting away. Back then it was a chance to catch up on what each one had been doing during the day. Of course some of that chatter happened at the dinner table. So in a sense this was just a continuation of that.
Now there’s just the two of us, unless one of the kids and their spouse and family come down to stay for a night or two or more if they can. The other night our daughter and son in law were down and I had no hesitation in volunteering my son law to wipe up, which shows you two things. No, its not that I’m a bossy boots but that we have a good relationship with him that I can do that and I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to do it because at home he and his wife are used to doing the dishes together.
Growing up my father always washed up and I wiped. It was the same in Mick’s household. His Dad always washed up. So maybe it’s all about patterns, we see in our parent’s marriage. Or maybe they found as we do that it’s a valuable time to talk – a time too valuable to waste.
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