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

[nimthiriel]

For us it came down to we each had certain jobs around the house, and we always ended up doing dishes together (one washing, other drying). So Phil would do the vacuuming and laundry or mowing the lawn, while cleaned the kitchen and bathroom. Basically it came down to what we each preferred, had more experience with, or were able to do (you may recall what happened the one time I tried to empty a vacuum cleaner bag).