The rule is if you cook you don't do dishes

I seriously think this was the main reason I learned to cook. (The secondary reason was that I was a really picky eater as a kid, and I could only know for sure what was in stuff that I made. Not exactly passion and vocation as motivations go, but it worked out pretty well.)

I think everyone would appreciate coming home to a meal already prepared and waiting, but that doesn't mean it's some sort of entitlement for omnivorous husbands :)

I do most of the cooking, but with 4 people with varied schedules we end up cooking for ourselves most of the time. The boys both cook. Even after more than 20 years, every single time DH comes home and finds that I have made a family dinner he is hugely appreciative. He acts like it is the nicest thing that has ever happened to him. I don't think his mom cooked much.

None of us like to clean up and we all suck at it. I haven't yet found a solution to this problem.

This is how it works in our house. The rule is if you cook you don't do dishes, and 90% of the time that means I cook and DH does the dishes.

Similar in our house. While I was working, and pre-Ryan, Wallybee would cook on weekdays and I'd cook on weekends. Whoever didn't cook would clean up.

Now, her parents cook and I run the dishes. (When we're all healthy.) It's a decent arrangement.

Show of hands -- who else wants a billytea's-inlaws of their very own?

t raises hand

Show of hands -- who else wants a billytea's-inlaws of their very own?

Look, you really do. And they come with their own interepreter! Oh, wait, I'm keeping her. Come to think of it, I'm keeping them too. Get your own live-in-laws!

I clean as I cook. I cannot work in a messy kitchen and I hate being faced with a mountain of pots, pans, and dishes at the end of a meal. Even if someone else is cleaning, the idea of it makes me crazy. So generally, if I'm cooking, there's very little beyond the actual serving and eating dishes and utensils that need to be cleaned afterward.

hand raised My parents and in-laws get waited on when they visit. I need to visit them more often.

This whole "helpless male" bullshit annoys the hell out of me.

Back when my wife would sometimes leave or a day or two for church stuff. It would drive me nuts when my MIL worried about me being able to take care of the kids and make dinner and stuff, even though I did that almost every day.

I clean as I cook. I cannot work in a messy kitchen and I hate being faced with a mountain of pots, pans, and dishes at the end of a meal.

I like to clean as I cook too, but I'm rarely able to achieve enough efficiency to avoid stuff to clean at the end.

My mother comes over and starts cleaning things up that I didn't even notice. I have decided it is too much trouble to stop her.

When TCG's stepmom and dad come over for dinner, she starts to clean up after we eat. Try to discourage this because I think she thinks I should get up and do the same. Usually I have done the meal planning, shopping and cooking, and TCG is going to do the clean up.

I should say that it isn't a sharp divide between what we do. Often TCG will make a salad or do some of the choping, and I'll put away leftovers and anything that needs to go back in the fridge while he is doing dishes.