Damn, you might be a long lost brother. I have the same complaint about the diswasher loading.
I do most of the laundry too. I also do the garbage, most of the vacuuming, all the repair work, including light sewing, the mowing and I wash the toilets and bathrooms. I also make a lot of wooden toys for the kids and several pieces of simple custom furniture.
In interest of full disclosure, I believe my wife changed 90% of the diapers for our two kids. She does the cooking and the lion share of the childcare. We both work full time.
She also has to put up with an opinionated, passionate Baseball and Giants fan and I drive her nuts with shutting off lights and saving energy.
We have a dishwasher to take care of most of the work, and the remainder gets washed by whoever didn’t make dinner. Since I make dinner about 80% of the time, that one person is The Boy more often than not. Everything goes into the drainer to dry, and then gets put away whenever someone works up the energy to do it (or whenever we get around to doing the next batch of dishes).
I actively dislike doing dishes. I tend to get bad eczema in the winter, and anything that involves dunking my hands in hot soapy water for an extended period of time is Very Bad.
I think it should be a one-person job, my husband thinks it should be a two-person job. This thread is funny to me because we actually have this issue with all of our household duties. I think things go faster if we each do separate things - I’ll do laundry or straighten up while he does the kitchen. He thinks it’s easier if we’re both working on the same thing. When we’re both working on just straightening stuff up, for instance, he’ll have me come and help him fold a blanket or if he’s folding laundry, he’ll ask me to put the kids’ stuff away while he does our stuff. I think it’s more productive if he does laundry start to finish while I do a different job start to finish. He likes team sports, too :).
One-person job for us. There’s not enough room in our kitchen for two people near the sink. As it is, if our dog decides to lay on the cool floor, there’s sometimes not enough room for one peron in the kitchen.
One person - me - if I can help it. (My wife works at home, so it makes sense for her to cook.) I’d much prefer she not help at all, since I wash dishes in a certain order. I like to get the dishwasher stuff done first, then the pots and pans. If she fills the sink with pots and pans, I can’t do that easily.
I also like to listen to Fresh Air while doing the dishes, which is harder if she’s around. I actually enjoy washing dishes, so it is no great imposition.
Three-person job, here. I load the dishwasher, and the next day, the 6-year-old is in charge of unloading the top rack and the 3-year-old unloads the bottom rack. I’m a big fan of kids having household tasks, so they do whatever they can reach.
Yeah, that’s about right. I do most of the cooking and dishes, but I have to say that grocery shopping is where it has been an issue. (I’m a stereotypical male shopper: make a list, get in, get stuff, get the hell out.) Here’s my take, in something like syllogistic form:
[ul]
[li](Def A) Chores are, by (my) definition, things that have to be done, but are not enjoyable (i.e., there’re other things I’d much rather be doing)[/li][li](Premise A) Dishes are a chore that I have to do[/li][li](Premise B) I want to spend as little time, with as little distraction, as possible doing chores[/li][li](Premise C) Coordinating with another person entails overhead in both time and distraction[/li][/ul]
(A & B -> ~C) Therefore, a chore is something I prefer to do alone.
Just get it done, then my wife and I have more “together time” doing things that we both enjoy. Needless to say, my wife doesn’t really see it that way…it’s that damn C! Y’know, reasonable people can disagree and all that…
For my parents, it’s a one-person job. Whoever doesn’t cook cleans the kitchen(my dad, who works at home, cooks weekdays and my mom cooks on weekends).
Maybe I’m disqualified from answering since I live alone, but my gut reaction is that washing dishes, or just about any other chore, is a two-person task if and only if both persons want it to be.
In our house, one person will “dish” and the other person will “scrub.” The disher rinses the plates, loads the dishwasher, and washes anything by hand that needs it. The scrubber clears away the table, puts the leftovers in tupperware, scrubs the counters, and dries any clean dishes. We take turns dishing and scrubbing.
It’s a one-woman job for the most part. My elderly dad’s one job around the house is to empty the dishwasher, though. Nobody can load the dishwasher correctly, so I do it. Lately my husband works nights, so I couldn’t ask him anyway.
However, Saturday night he wanted to watch a movie on On Demand, and I got him to come help me. I did the actual loading of the dishwasher and scrubbing the pots - he put away the leftovers, wiped the counters, and made coffee for the next day. I enjoyed that! I don’t like to ask him though - he does ALL the outside yardwork and stuff, and helps me with other indoor chores like vacuuming.
No need to rinse if your dishwasher is up to snuff. Here dishes are put right from table into the dishwasher, no cluttering up the sink, actually dishes rarely touch the sink. (if food scraps are remaining on the plate the scraps are scraped into the garbage).
If I’m doing the dishes, it’s a one person job. If the wifey is doing the dishes, it’s a two person job (she’s small, and can’t handle the big pots easily… so she calls me over to do them).
Ours is a 2-person job, but not at the same time. My husband clears the table and rinses the dishes. I load the dishwasher because he just doesn’t understand that you don’t load up the top rack, then block the water from reaching the detergent dispenser. Plus I can fit more in the dishwasher than he can.
I usually put things away afterwards because I know where they go. He’ll leave a pile on the counter when he doesn’t know where I store them. No biggie - it works for us.
That’s a good point - although dish washing is a one-person job for me, I’ve never considered dishwasher loading part of dish washing - it’s just an overall kitchen chore.
For me, loading the dishwasher is a one-person job, but unloading is a two-person job (me and my 21-month-old son’s) while for my husband, it’s a one-person job entirely because he’s worried our son will break something. I get over that by just having him empty the silverware, even if all he’s doing is handing it to me. At least it encourages him to participate in the chores.
Dishwashing is always a one-person job. Unless it’s a high-traffic situation, with too many outsize dishes to put in the tray (like at Thanksgiving, or for parties). Then it’s two-person, with one drying to keep up with the washer.
95% of the time (or better), though, it’s one person.
