SO THEN comes in the argument about TIME. My favorite. Greenie, I don't have time to do dishes. I'm too busy. I have kids. We make a lot of dishes. Um, that's what kids are FOR... to do dishes. If you have kids and they ain't doin' dishes, you are doing something seriously wrong. They're too busy with all their activities?? YOU are doing something seriously wrong. Chores are FOR kids. Kids are for chores. We all did them. It made us better. I know a certain 22-yr-old that can't do dishes to save her life. THAT is WRONG. Kids on step-chairs to reach the sink to do dishes? THAT'S more like it. We juggled school and homework and playtime and still were expected to do our chores. Period. We earned an allowance, we didn't just get it handed to us, or get "rewarded" for behavior we were supposed to exhibit anyway. Kids should do chores. I will not back off of that opinion, no matter how many people try to say I have no idea what it's like because I don't have kids. I was a kid. I did dishes. Every day. Get over yourself and get over your kids and figure it out.
Then there's my other favorite thing: families who use paper or Styrofoam (??????!!) plates at dinner because they don't have time/can't be bothered to do dishes. See the above paragraph so I don't have to repeat myself. There is NO excuse to use anything disposable at the dinner table. Hell, I ain't even giving a pass on lunch. PLATES. Clean things when done. Repeat.
This is what we call progress, Folks. Disposable lives and no time to do BASIC things that we used to have to do, but now we don't have time because we are too busy running around and stressing out to do the most basic things in the world. Make it into family time. Catch up on the day over dishes. You're spending time together, who cares if it's a "chore"? Whatever. Just frickin' do something.
Wait, wait.. we have free time now and we're happier and oh so much more productive and life is so much easier.
Oh. Wait. No it's not. No WE are not.
Let's go back, shall we?
We use a dishwasher because I feel it is important for a child to have chores. My autistic step-son is the one that does the dishes as one of his chores. There is a lot less breakage and replacement with the dishwasher than washing by hand. We don't have to overly rinse either. We have a scraper that easily removes leftover food from dishes without water. A damp cloth removes anything else.
ReplyDeleteWe don't use many chemicals in our system. We purchase either Method's Smarty Dish or 7th Generation dishwasher products. We don't use rinse aids. We don't have spots because we just open the door a little to let the steam out after the cycle ends.
Finally, my landlord says we use 20% of the water that the previous tenants did. This is with the city mandated landscaping on the property.
You are rare, sir. Rare. :) Thanks for being around.
ReplyDeleteI really prefer doing dishes by hand, but after a bad bout of eczema and hives (yes - allergic reactions to both the detergent and the gloves) I finally relented.
ReplyDeleteI think that I used much less water doing them by hand though. I know the makers of dishwashers claim that you don't have to pre-rinse, but this only works if you dirty enough dishes so you can do them before the food dries and welds itself to the plates.
Plus, when you do them by hand it's a one step process... you wash them, and they're done. You don't have to rinse them, load them, spend an hour or so listening to the damned thing, then unload the sucker... it's just simpler.
If only I could get the cats to wash the dishes...