dish fairness in an unequal world

[deird1]

Currently reading lots of discussions on marriagey stuff like... housework.


I seem to be the only person in the world who doesn't think that the fairest way to split it is:
- one person does the cooking
- the other person does the dishes

The thing is, there are ways to cook, and then there are ways.

It's possible to cook something in a way which ends up with dishes strewn all over the kitchen. It's possible to cook something in a single dish. It's possible to cook something while washing dishes as you go.


And I agree - in a world where Person A and Person B both cook food and end up with 6 dirty dishes, then the fairest scenario is:
night 1 - A cooks, B does the 6 dishes
night 2 - B cooks, A does the 6 dishes
...and so on, ad infinitum.

However, this is rarely the world I find myself in.


Most commonly, it ends up something more like:
night 1 - A cooks, B does the 6 dishes
night 2 - B cooks, A does the 27 dishes

Or:
night 1 - A cooks, B does the 6 dishes
night 2 - B cooks, B does the 6 dishes while cooking, A has the night off

And, either way, one person ends up with a disproportionate dish load.


Realistically, some dinners will create more dirty dishes than others. And some styles of cooking will create more dirty dishes than others. And, as a rule, the person who is doing the cooking will be the one who chooses what to cook, and how to cook it.

That being the case, I tend to prefer each cook doing their own cooking dishes - with the other person chipping in to do the dishes from eating the food.



So, thoughts? Am I totally weird?

Comments

[marsdejahthoris]

My roommate has physical limitations that don't quite qualify, legally or in our heads, as disabilities. This includes having trouble standing up for long periods of time, which basically means that I do the dishes. Period. Cooking goes mostly to whoever feels like it, but since we cook with similar levels of "involvement," that's fine. (And if neither of us feel like it, we have sandwiches or MAYBE order in.) But she cleans the entire bathroom, because she can do most of it sitting down, the sink doesn't take long, and mildew and other various gunk makes me hurl. It works for us.