Whenever I go to someone else’s home for dinner, I always offer to help clean up after the meal is over with because it’s polite and that’s how I was raised. I thought it was a common practice amongst everyone. Yesterday after dinner, I was the only one helping my mom clean up and it was a lot to do. My uncles girlfriend sat on the couch the entire time while we were cleaning up and didn’t offer to help one time. It just dawned on me that she has never offered to help clean up after a Holliday dinner but will gladly eat up all the food, make to go plates, and plop down on the couch right after. My grand mother even helped us and she uses a Walker and has severe back pain. I’d like to bring it up to my uncle because I have an issue with that. Or am I overreacting?
When visiting someone’s home for dinner, do you offer to help clean up after the meal?
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Anonymous
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ALWAYS. At the very minimum, you should at least make an offer to the host, be it family, friend, or new person in your life, to help clean. My mother would lose it if she ever thought she raised a child to sit on a couch after someone has been cleaning and cooking all day so that I can enjoy a meal. Thankfully I have family and friends who 100% get this. I really think it's the height of rudeness not to at least offer to help, but some people weren't raised with good manners so....
I wouldn't directly say something to her unless you have a really solid relationship. What I would do is at the next gathering, go up to her on her couch and LOUDLY say to her so literally everyone can hear, "hey girl, let's wash these dishes together so (insert name of person who cooked) can sit down and relax after all that cooking they did for us."
Christmas day, my hostess, had her sis there, and the sis did the dish washing, and I helped the host clear some of the mess off of the table.
"Real men" do help their spouse with that kind of domestic things. The hostess worked her fingers to the bone putting everything out for us, and I really don't know how she did it. I sent a very pretty table setting for dinner, and also a 'thank you" card yesterday.
That's awesome of you. In our family, we don't really bother the men at Christmas/Thanksgiving while they are watching whatever game, but they know, when the games are over, their "job" is to help with the cleaning after we did all the cooking. No complaints.
@BeeNee Yes, Dave, the husband was watching football, and I along with him. (Although, I am not a football fan) The three (3)-year-old, and the family dog were all over me!!
Some people are just lazy, inconsiderate, or oblivious. Maybe she was not raised that way. At the holiday gatherings when I was young, all the women would help each other out in the kitchen with the cooking and cleaning. I offer to help when I'm at a friend's house for a dinner, there are no more family dinners anymore.
When I visited my cousin's house for Thanksgiving, I did some dishes but she uses detergent that she makes and not the store bought but I had a great time I like how she turned her life around, she takes care of her little girl, she does whatever she can her health is poor, She has a great house and she deserves it, Her late Grandma raised her from age 57 on
Yes, I always offer. Sometimes the hostess will say it's not necessary, other times they'll thank me for helping. The most common "cleanup" I do is take the dishes and silverware from the table to the kitchen counter.
I always help clean up, if it my family even help setup.
There are people that married into the family though that think if they are guests they do not have to do anything and never offer to help but no one says anything to avoid problems.
Hell nawl. I’ll cleanup my own mess i made while there. But dassit. If someone invites me to their place, then that person or their cleaning staff should be responsible for the mess that guests make.
They chose to throw a party at their own house. When i throw a party, i serve stuff that i know i won't have to clean as much. In the future, when i throw Thanksgiving parties and 4th of July parties, everyones eating off paper plates and forks lmao. So all i have to clean is the dishes we cooked from
You sound like an angel. I have invited girls for dinner before. Did everything by myself, sometimes even giving my portions of food, if they liked that much. They never helped a little bit in either pre-eating or post-eating. Most girls are like this.
You could ofcourse talk to your uncle about it, but how is he going to react? Will he become hostile? defensive? supportive? You have to outweigh the pros and cons, for cons, is it worth the hassle?
In my country, well, at least in most families, guests are not expected to help cleanup. It would be nice if they offered, and we (our family) would've eventually just declined the help so they can relax, but then again, it's our culture.
If your uncle would be understanding, he should be the one to talk to his girlfriend. And if he's really considerate, he'll make it as if it's his observation, not yours.
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