Dishwashing is a meditative activity, maybe because it is so often a solitary one. And I’ve had a lot of time to meditate lately. My dishwasher resigned without giving notice, leaving me to think and scrub and contemplate and rinse far more than I normally care to.

One of the many issues I’ve pondered while I’ve been standing at the sink is how can a small family dirty so many dishes? More importantly, how could we dirty fewer of them? Fortunately, I’ve had plenty of time to think up some answers: We could eat out more. And when we eat in, I could more closely monitor my family’s dish use: “Hey! You only drank out of that glass once. I don’t care if it was yesterday.” “You DO NOT need a plate for pie!”

I also thought back to how much I wanted a dishwasher when I was growing up. There were ten children in my family and ten children dirty a lot of dishes. Of course, my parents maintained that they didn’t just have ten children, they had ten dishwashers. And besides, back then the mechanical dishwashers weren’t all that efficient. Of course, their ten dishwashers weren’t all that efficient either.  

I recall that the perceived need to “soak” the pots and pans could get us out of washing them for days. I’ve noticed quite a lot of soaking going on at my house lately too. I also remember that there were many arguments about whose turn it was to wash dishes. But a dishwasher probably wouldn’t have eliminated the arguments; we would have fought over whose turn it was to load it.

It was also while I was washing dishes that I came to a profound realization: I need bigger cupboards. I had no idea how many dishes I was storing in my dishwasher until I couldn’t store them there anymore. It is possible that some of my plates and glasses have until now, never seen the inside of my cupboard. They’ve gone from the dishwasher to the table and back again day after day, year after year. A dishwasher is a good place to store dishes just like a dryer is a good place to store clothing. And no matter how long you leave the dishes in the dishwasher, they never wrinkle.

But what I’ve thought about—stewed about, fumed about—the most while I’ve been washing dishes is all the people I know who wash their dishes before their dishwasher washes their dishes. This has always annoyed me, especially now that I have no choice in the matter.  

I don’t go as far as a young man I know who once left the chicken bones on the plates when he put them in the dishwasher. But, I sincerely believe the smears of spaghetti sauce and the rings of hot chocolate are signals to my family. Really.

Think of it this way: What if someday when I have a dishwasher again, I start rinsing the dishes before I load the dishwasher. This is unlikely, but what if I do, and what if someone comes by BEFORE I run the dishwasher, and thinking the dishes are clean because they LOOK clean, takes them out of the dishwasher and puts them away?not that anyone would put them away. But theoretically, it is possible that we could eat our next meal off dirty dishes that look clean.

But then again, so what if we do? If the dishes look clean enough to eat off before they’ve been run through the dishwasher, why run them through the dishwasher? And that is precisely my point. If your dishwasher really needs you to wash the dishes before it washes the dishes, what do you need your dishwasher for? Unless you just need some time to think, in which case would you like to come to my house to do it?

nna and JK Rowling, for the rest of us, any extra financial resources we have available for our children probably came from robbing our retirement accounts.  

Of course, there are also some myths about the benefits of having children when you‘re a child yourself; the main one being that you'll be able to enjoy your middle years childfree. This is only true for those who manage to keep their kids and their families from moving in on them. We older parents will never have to worry about that; there won't be room in our retirement home.

My friend, who became a mom in her twenties, says she believes older mothers experience more awe and amazement at their children than those who become mothers at a younger age do. And I think there is something to that. Of course, it may not be awe and amazement at all; it may be shock.  

Dorothy Rosby     is a contributing humor columnist for Fabulously40, visit her blog to learn more about her.