Division of labor (not a gender issue).

[Anonymous]

Both genders cook and clean in my household. We’ve always divided the work so that whoever cooked, does not clean up. Recently, it’s become an issue that one family member occasionally makes more elaborate meals during the school/work week and the other members are stuck cleaning three appliances or hand scrubbing a cast iron skillet, etc. is it unreasonable to say that either the cook helps clean up these meals or we need to limit ourselves to two cooking containers/devices during the week?

[Anonymous]

I think it’s said to say no elaborate meals more than once a week personally. It would take the enjoyment out of the meal for me knowing the huge clean up involved after.

[Anonymous]

The simplest way to solve this, if the cooking load is pretty well-divided, is to adjust so that the person who cooks also cleans. Or at least to try it on for a few weeks and see how it goes.

That way, they can make meals as elaborate as their heart desires and you can enjoy them (but not the extensive cleanup).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The simplest way to solve this, if the cooking load is pretty well-divided, is to adjust so that the person who cooks also cleans. Or at least to try it on for a few weeks and see how it goes.

That way, they can make meals as elaborate as their heart desires and you can enjoy them (but not the extensive cleanup).

+1

[Anonymous]

We have approved weeknight meals and weekends are more elaborate. I like the suggestion about switching up so that who cooks cleans, EXCEPT that keeps someone in the kitchen much longer and I am sure there are other odd jobs on a weeknight that should not then fall to the person who was not cooking.

[Anonymous]

We have this issue in my household. Adults do the cooking and teenagers do the cleaning. Once in a while DH gets too ambitious and DD will yell, I'll clean, but I'm not cleaning THAT! DH and I will pick up the cleaning slack beyond the "normal" amount of dishes.

[Anonymous]

You need to switch it to cook also cleans and it's just alternating nights of work. Fair's fair.

[Anonymous]

I would say that the deal is that the cook has to wash anything that can't go in the dishwasher (assuming you have a dishwasher)

[Anonymous]

Yes, the chef for the night needs to pitch in on the cleaning. This also means that while cooking, the chef is motivated to do some "clean as you go".

[Anonymous]

If you are a good enough cook to make elaborate meals, you are ready to learn to clean as you go By the time the food is done all the prep dishes should be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are a good enough cook to make elaborate meals, you are ready to learn to clean as you go By the time the food is done all the prep dishes should be done.

My spouse is a truly excellent cook who has never developed this skill, which is why the cook also cleans most nights in my house. (I clean as I go and do a lot more one pot type meals.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are a good enough cook to make elaborate meals, you are ready to learn to clean as you go By the time the food is done all the prep dishes should be done.

This.

[Anonymous]

The cook cleans at our house. So much easier to just clean as you go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The cook cleans at our house. So much easier to just clean as you go.

Excellent point. The current setup has no incentives built in to keep things tidy and dishes minimal