The automatic dishwasher, which started appearing in most homes during the 1950s, did more than leave the plate, glasses and silverware sparkling and sanitized. It changed some long-lived practices and altered dynamics between certain family members. Prior to that time, dishes were scraped, rinsed, washed, dried and put away by hand, and it was more often than not a cooperative effort between sisters or mothers and daughters. Families without daughters were known to actually teach boys to deal with the used cutlery, soiled plates and greasy pots and pans.
In those long-ago days, mothers and daughters traditionally left the table immediately after family meals and headed for the kitchen, where they began putting away leftovers, rinsing pans and scraping bits of food from plates into pet dishes for the cats or dogs, before preparing a sink full of hot, soapy water for washing the silver and glasses first. There was often contention between siblings as to whose turn it was to wash or dry the dishes. For some indefinable reason, washing was almost universally the preferred chore, and the sister, daughter, son or brother stuck with the lowly task of drying them was apt to whine and approach the task reluctantly.
I clearly remember some of the complaints from my sisters and myself, as teens living at home, complaining about both the washing and drying duties. Some, I imagine, will be familiar to my older readers; others, I imagine, were unique to my sisters. (After all, it took a lot of imagination to out-whine each other when four sisters were involved.) Here are a few of the excuses and complaints we hoped would get us exempt from those dreaded chores:
“You washed last time, it’s my turn. I don’t care what you say, washing is easier than drying. Besides, the dryer has to put away and always finishes last. I always have to dry, and then I have to walk 10 miles putting everything away while you just stand in one place and I do all the work.”
“Washing makes my hair frizzy. It ruins my nail polish and makes my fingers puckery. The water’s too hot and steam makes my nose run.”
“You only let them soak awhile, a quick rinse under the faucet and stack them on the drainer. I can’t keep up with you and you don’t get off all the hard stuff.”
“I can’t wash dishes on a full stomach. Aren’t you supposed to wait a half hour after eating? And it’s a darn poor dish dryer who can’t get off what the washer misses.”
“You always hurry up to finish so you can get the best chair and the good reading lamp and tune the radio to your program. Tomorrow, I get to wash and you have to dry.”
Homework, a date or choir practice were not valid excuses but only incentives to perform the chore at warp speed.
After company dinners, when there were a number of aunts, grandmothers and cousins present, the conversation was usually much more pleasant. The aunts and grandmothers discussed children, husbands, flower gardens, health issues and gardening. Unmarried aunts and older cousins were more inclined to focus on things such as hair styles, fashions and boyfriends. If teens and younger children were involved in the kitchen work, they generally remained respectfully silent, hoping to catch some mention of “grownup” topics, giving them fodder for whispered conversations about some of the mysteries they were yet to encounter. Those “adult” topics would probably prompt the more circumspect mothers to send the young girls out to feed the table scraps to the dog, or to the dining room to wipe up the table or take the tablecloth outdoors to shake out crumbs.
As automatic dishwashing machines found their way into the kitchens of older women, it took some time for lifelong habits to catch up. Many homemakers resisted this modern convenience at first, or settled for a portable model which was relegated to an inconvenient corner and seldom used. Others embraced the machines enthusiastically, considering it a luxury too long in arriving. Kitchens had to be remodeled to accommodate it, and we really should include a garbage disposal, too. Some housewives persisted in thoroughly rinsing, even washing, the dishes before loading the dishwasher. It was still possible for sisters to find something to squabble over when it came to doing the dishes, however. It takes the machine over an hour to wash, rinse and dry the dishes and for them to cool down, so dishes often remain in the dishwasher until “later.” The new issue is whose turn it is to empty out the dishwasher and put the dishes away. I did it last time.