I grew up in a home without a dishwasher. Technically, we owned a dishwasher, but I don’t recall seeing my mom use it in the twenty-three years I lived in my parents’ house. She always washed our dishes by hand, an approach I adopted when marrying Luke and moving into his apartment.
Over the next seven years, Luke and I lived in three separate apartments—all with dishwashers, all of which went unused. It honestly never occurred to me that I could use our apartments’ dishwashers, and the two of us didn’t have many dirty dishes, so it would have been wasteful to put the appliance to use. Each time we went searching for a new apartment, we chuckled when dishwashers were listed as a feature because it was totally irrelevant to us.
In 2016, we moved into our first home (a rental). I’m not sure why living in a house seemed like a green light to start using the kitchen’s dishwasher, but it did. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Charleston was now old enough to eat solids and we were dirtying more dishes. Perhaps it was because Luke now worked from home, and we were eating three daily meals at home as a family instead of just one or two. Whatever the reason, we got into the habit of running our dishwasher every night and unloading it each morning. Once the twins were old enough to start contributing to our dirty dishes, this seemed like a necessity rather than a convenience. I still washed our pots and pans by hand, but everything else went straight into the dishwasher. I couldn’t imagine a kitchen life without this time-saving appliance.
Two years ago, our dishwasher decided to call it quits. This might not have been a big deal except that all of our other appliances had also died that year. We had replaced the broken refrigerator, oven, and microwave, and done repairs on our washing machine. We simply didn’t have money in the budget to replace the dishwasher too, and since it was technically a nonessential appliance, we put off buying a new one until some later date.
That later date never came. Sure, we could have budgeted for a new dishwasher by now, but after two years of handwashing dishes, we have decided that a dishwasher is no longer a priority. To some, this might seem crazy: we are a family of six, and with the exception of two packed lunches a week and the occasional Saturday at Grandma and Grandpa’s (where lunch and dinner are provided), we eat all of our meals at home. That is a lot of dirty dishes!
So why are we still washing our dishes by hand? There’s the obvious answer that a new dishwasher would require us to spend money on something that may be nice to have but is hardly a necessity. Then there’s the reality that we create too many dirty dishes to get by on running the dishwasher just once per day. I like to keep a minimalist kitchen, which means we don’t have enough dishes for our whole family for more than two meals. If we did have a dishwasher, I would probably want to run it multiple times per day, and that seems excessive.
The biggest answer of all is that I’ve had a big realization: handwashing our dishes is good for me! A lot of too much of my life is about convenience. I order my groceries online and pick them up curbside rather than shopping in person. We have a Roomba that does our vacuuming. Don’t get me started on the ease of Amazon Prime, streaming services, a brain that’s been outsourced to algorithms, virtual banking, and EVERY OTHER TASK that is easier for me to do today than it was for previous generations. I sense a softness in myself that I just don’t love. But washing my dishes by hand is a helpful reminder that I am capable of doing things the old-fashioned way. It may seem silly, but as I scrub food scraps from a plate and rinse soapy water off of bowls, I experience a strange connection to an older, simpler time. I feel gratitude for the conveniences I enjoy AND I see them as just that: nice-to-haves, not necessities. Removing that one extra indulgence of a dishwasher lets me appreciate the conveniences I AM employing, like clean running water and sweet-smelling dish soap and a cupboard full of nice dishes that I purchased at a store.
Much to my surprise, I’ve actually come to appreciate this mindless task of dishwashing that takes zero brain power and lets me escape life’s other pressing issues for just a moment. Often, a kid will join me at the counter while I wash, and we get a moment to chat. Other times, I use my dishwashing time to catch up on podcasts, or pray, or silently observe the kiddos playing in the adjoining room, or let my mind wander to everything and nothing at all. I think we could all benefit from these slow-down moments that are becoming vanishingly rare.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not above a little help. Luke often does the dishes for me when I can’t get to them, and Charleston will probably be taking on this chore in the next year or two. (He’s not quite tall enough yet, which is why we’ve held off on giving him this chore.) I also have a stockpile of paper plates and bowls that I use when I know I won’t be able to get to the dishes right after a meal (since I hate leaving dirty dishes in the sink). Removing any one of these factors might have me changing my tune. But for now, I’m not just okay living without my dishwasher; I’m genuinely happy that my kitchen is a hand-wash only zone.
I’d like to hear from you on this one: are there any appliances or other conveniences that you happily live without? What led to your decision? Do you agree that life has gotten a little to easy for our own good? I’m eager to read your thoughts, especially if you have a differing opinion!
