Washing Up

Over the years I have watched the many different rituals families have for dealing with the dishes after a meal. As a child, when we were little my mother washed the dishes alone. As we got older, my two elder sisters and I would take turns doing the dishes after dinner. I always greeted my mother’s requests with a certain amount of resentment, as my mother never asked my brother, the oldest child, to do any housework. I certainly couldn’t define sexism way back then, but I remember wishing that I too had been born a boy, so that after dinner I could spend my free time as I pleased. When the housework was delegated, my mom would assign rooms to each of us girls. “Monica, clean the living room, Maria, clean the kitchen, Tammy, clean the bathroom, and Matthew, feed the dog,” she would say. Since the rooms rotated among us girls, I assumed that eventually it would be my turn to feed the dog. After weeks of watching my brother dumping dry dog food into a dish and filling up the dog’s water dish only to return to the couch in seconds flat, I asked my mom why he never had to clean. “Because he’s a boy.” was her reply. My brother stuck his tongue out at me.

In 1983 we took the trip of my dreams. My mom and we four kids spent three months in Australia with her family. There were so many things to like, the aunts and uncles and cousins to kiss and cuddle us. The accent so like my mother’s that it made us, “the yanks” as they called us, the different ones for a change. My uncle had a house near the beach, and my grandparents had a tiny little house with a barn and animals. I loved the way that the table was always the center of activity at any given time of day, during meal times, of course, but also after dinner for long sits with tea and cookies, or custard with sliced bananas. Lively card games went on at the table, and hours of conversation. A child approaching one of the many tables we ate at that summer were never shushed and sent away. I can remember being lifted into many a lap as they kissed and cuddled me, passing me around the table so that everyone could have a turn. I have never felt so loved before or since.

Certain differences were apparent from the start. After a meal at my grandmother’s house, she would say, “Time to wash up.” Volunteers would rise and head for the sink. After about a week of this, she looked around the table with her piercing blue eyes and said, “Time to wash up. This week will be boy’s week. Matthew and Lawrence (my uncle who also shared a disdain for the sink duty) it’s your turn.” I almost laughed out loud, I was so happy to see my brother wearing an apron.

One of the things that I have realized in my life is that some of the greatest gifts come during the simple moments we tend to take for granted. With two, or three, or sometimes even four of us in the kitchen (one to wash, one to rinse, one to dry, and one to put away) the conversations were always lively. I have had many a heart to heart talk while doing chores with someone. I miss those times now. Tonight as I eye the dinner dishes with dread, I am longing for a volunteer to rise from the table to join me at the sink, making it more of a moment to be enjoyed than a moment that fills me with dread and loneliness. Perhaps in time while my children stand beside me at the sink, we can laugh and talk about things big and small. Right now they argue over whose day it is to help me at the sink.