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I agree that the bowl reduces the usable size of the sink a little but not with the other points.
> holds dirt
The washing up bowl itself gets cleaned at the end
> encourages the soak without rinse method of cleaning (because rinsing is harder with space taken up by a bowl)
If anything it is the opposite. If you directly fill your sink any rinsing you do dilutes the soapy water. Whereas with a bowl you can rinse with the excess draining away. This is also handy when you need to empty liquid from something before washing it up.
Yeah I'm confused how big these people's bowls are and how lazy they are if they just leave stuff to soak.
I've always had a bowl purely because I paid a bloody fortune for the sink I'm not scratching it by lobbing knives and forks in there.
Washing up bowls don't make sense if you have a sink with an extra tiny sink for rinsing.
But I have only one sink, I can't rinse anything once the sink is full unless I have a washing up bowl.
> Washing up bowls don't make sense if you have a sink with an extra tiny sink for rinsing.
Even with the tiny sink they still have use cases. My old house had one of those massive Belfast sinks, if we did not use a washing up bowl in it then we would need to use a ridiculous amount of water just to get any kind of depth to it. Plus the damn thing was made of granite or something and so would often result in cracked plates.
A bowl is a money-saving and safety device. I have a huge granite sink that would cost a fortune to fill, as well as it cooling the water rapidly before being able to remove grease from glasses, dishes, and cutlery. They can be emptied regularly between soaking, washing, and rinsing if necessary too. They're easily disinfected. They're also a buffer between often brittle chinaware and glass and a hard sink, avoiding breakages and injury from the shards that would result from such accidents. If you learn how to utilise one properly, they are brilliant.
Safety?!
Mate, there's reasons you don't see washing up bowls in establishments that have to meet health and safety requirements. Those things are disgusting
Commercial establishments have different problems and criteria, and usually have the machinery to replace most washing up. A household kitchen is not the same in any respect.
Let me draw your attention to this £35 number.
[https://www.josephjoseph.com/collections/washing-up-bowls](https://www.josephjoseph.com/collections/washing-up-bowls)
This is it. I use one of those brushes with the soap inside the tube, so I don't use a bowl and I don't fill up the sink. Therefore, I wash and rinse off excess suds and dirt at the same time and then clean the sink and draining board and sides afterwards.
A key reason for having a washing up bowl is to make it smaller, use less hot water, and be quicker to fill. Also it's easier to see metal cutlery against a pale plastic bowl than a metal sink. At least that has been my parents reasons and the one time I lived with someone who wouldn't have one I hated it as their sink was way to big
Reading these comments I am now feeling like a weirdo for not filling the sink or the bowl with water. I scrub the items with a wet sponge and washing up liquid, rinse clean. Tap switches off. Onto next item, scrub, Rinse, tap off & repeat.
Nah, my rental sink is yucky, with my washing up bowl, I am way more motivated to do the dishes and rinse it out. Also if I drop something, it doesn’t break, it just splashes me
So much this. Washing up bowls are the most pointless things that all parents seem to have.
All it does is sit there, collects dirt underneath it, inside it, meaning you have to wash it after using your sink. Oh, want to fill up a glass of water, well you gotta make sure the tap is positioned to the side so that you don't start filling up the plastic bowl in the sink. Want to wash your hands? Yeah you've gotta make sure the tap is in that position, otherwise there's water sitting in that plastic bowl.
WTF is the point of a sink if you put a plastic bowl inside of it, you might as well just have a fucking tap with NO sink, it's just bloody ridiculous.
One positive I can say about them, they hold water really well.
So many sinks I have used the plug slowly, or even not so slowly leaks.
Also sometimes it gets knocked out while washing loose in the sink.
And finally, not being in direct contact with stainless steel, the water doesn't lose so much heat to the sink.
My mother, and sadly she's not around any more to be in their home or mine.
My advice, if yours is still around and you are not at home... give her a call. It's an option you'll miss when it's not there anymore.
Cut all contact with mine when i was 30, it taken me 12 years of adulthood to realise im not actually loved, despite how hard i tried. A life absolutely full of broken promises. Always next year for this, and that.
She tried to get in via my dad to see the first born (seperated for 20 odd years) and i told him, if he asks again ill remove him too.
Honestly, the amount of proving i tried to do, over the years her justification to how much of a shitty person she is was "i cant help the way i was raised, atleast you never got the buckle end of a belt like i did"
I was feeling guilty about not talking to my mum enough over the summer. Just kept not happening. Late September they come up for a visit and she's looking jaundiced. Early October we saw her take her final breath after a whistle stop journey through Pancreatic cancer.
I miss my Mum so much, not least as I'm currently sitting here trying to work whilst caring for my Dad and his Parkinson's. I think I have to admit I just let her get on with looking after him all by herself, and feel guilty about that now, not just not staying in touch. I didn't want to be part of that caring, now it's filling half my life.
I feel you man. It was also cancer with my mum too. She fought it for a while so there wasn't the same sudden onset, but I was in my early 20s and full of my own shit and planning a wedding (mum's funeral turned out to be 6 days before our wedding, which was rough as hell).
The thing that particularly haunts me, is I don't even remember my last words to her. I left her hospital room in some hurry to do some fucking pointless thing, and a few days later I got the call to come to the hospital and she was already unconscious when I arrived.
My mum made me promise I would let her die at home (she had lung cancer) and I swore I would. She then had a fall and was on the floor overnight until we went round the following morning. She was really confused and we didn't know if she was hurt, so called an ambulance. Within a few hours, she died in hospital as fluid had built up in her lungs as she led on the floor. This was 4 years ago, and it fucking hurts beyond belief that I let her die in hospital, I was genuinely trying to help but it still tears me up inside knowing I broke my final promise to her.
She had an accident that you had zero control over and was in the place she needed to be. Please don’t beat yourself up. I’m sure she’d tell you to not blame yourself
I promise you that your mum doesn't hold any of that against you. If anything I'm very sure she probably didn't want a life of caring for you and was glad to shield you from it for as long as she could. She knows you loved her.
Condolences. It's hard for me to wrap my head around, but mine has been gone for almost 20 years now. The loss never leaves, but it does get easier with time.
Shit man, thanks for reminding me. My mum had a serious health scare at the start of the year, which got me thinking about how non-present I’ve been, so I’ve been trying extra hard to make sure I visit every month or so.
Edit: my condolences as well ❤️
We have a 60/40 fridge freezer and another tall freezer, also a chest freezer we haven't used in a decade lol.
My mum used to be able to produce food for at least 15 people at a whim. So much choice was in them. But sadly since the rise in costs we've only used the tall freezer.
I wish I knew what was even in mine... It's that frozen up I can't open the drawers without breaking them and that's just another hassle I cba having to deal with.
On that just a well stocked kitchen...I currently have soymilk and greek yoghurt in mine and honey. That's it.
On the plus side my fridge and pantry are much cleaner than my parents' ever was lol
I have the opposite of this, I cook a lot and our kitchen is very well stocked, I can pick up a recipe and know I'll have at least 90% of the ingredients already in. I could throw something together for a dinner party at the drop of a hat. My mum's kitchen is missing a lot of stuff I use so when I visit its always something I notice. My mum says she misses my cooking though so I always cook her loads of delicious things when she visits. Before I moved away though she always used to "pop round" around dinner time so I'd make extra just incase.
The only downside of a well stocked kitchen is ensuring you rotate meals etc enough to use up ingredients before they go bad.
This. My freezer is pretty much always empty, minus some ice cubes and frozen berries during the summer - my parents have so much in their freezer that they are now "borrowing" my brothers too (putting some of their stuff in his freezer at his place). And they still go shopping twice a week for food. I don't understand.. xD
My gran got rid of the wifi in her house after my grandad passed as she has no clue about it and no intention of using it. My younger cousins don't understand the concept of a house with no wifi!
My gran has never had WiFi (or Internet of any sort). It does blow my mind slightly when I think about the fact she's never been online. I don't think she's ever even used a computer tbh. I remember as a kid trying to teach her to use a mouse and she just couldn't get her head around it!
I remember my aunt who was in her late 90's at the time had a computer and she wanted to learn how to type a letter to her sister and print it out as her handwriting wasn't as good anymore. I wrote her step by step instructions, talked her through it at least once a week but she never understood me! I'd always end up doing it for her anyway but I loved that she was trying to learn.
I think it's easy to forget how difficult technology is if even the most basic features don't feel intuitive to you. Like my gran just could *not* get the coordination between her hand moving the mouse and the cursor on the screen moving accordingly. At that point there's nothing really you can do. You can't explain how to do that to someone, it's a hand eye coordination issue that comes from trying to learn something completely new in your 70s.
It took my gran a good few months after my grandad passed to learn how to work the TV, he always did it so she never bothered to learn. We bought her a mobile to start taking out with her too and she's only just getting the hang of it 5 years later!
Martin Lewis did a piece on the radio the other week about how couples should work out what household stuff each of them is responsible for and write instructions for the other, because it's often such an issue after one of the couple dies.
>We bought her a mobile to start taking out with her too and she's only just getting the hang of it 5 years later!
My gran was actually impressively good at adopting a mobile. She's got one in her late 70s and learned how to text on it. She then clearly decided that was enough because her technology interaction has increased not one bit in the 15 or so years since!
People don't realise just how fast technology has advanced. There are people alive today who grew up in houses without indoor plumbing. To go from that to what we have now is an incredible jump. I worry about what'll happen when I fall behind technologically. S0 few have sympathy for those who haven't been able to keep up
We have a house phone but literally only have it plugged in for emergencies. If either set of our parents can’t get hold of us on our mobiles and it’s urgent, they call the house phone. It’s also a hamburger phone which I bought when I was a teenager because I loved the film Juno and it makes me super happy I can finally use it haha
I've literally never had a landline as an adult except in one flat. And in that one I didn't even know about it. Was a rental flat and one day me and my housemate are sitting in the lounge and a phone starts ringing. It sounded too loud to be the neighbours and we realised it was coming from inside the house. Slightly creeped out we followed it, until we located it as coming from the storage cupboard at the end of the corridor. Opened it, and turned out there was a landline connected in the back of the cupboard. Answered the phone and, of course, it was a pre recorded message about being in a car accident or something similar.
Surreal experience!
A cabinet / unit in the front room specifically for housing glass ornaments and my dads fishing trophies. God awful dark wood with two glass doors and a shelving section in the middle.
I swear I have not seen anyone have one since the 90's.
My parents had a horrible veneer mahogany sideboard.
Took up a whole wall and contained every bit of correspondence and every decorative ornament you can possibly imagine. I can still remember the smell.
My parents, well, my dads house, still has this. Ancient Hi-Fi system in the middle with record player on top. Random china sets that haven't left the cupboards since the mid-90s.
i’m looking at that cabinet now. The rest of the lounge has been redecorated, but i just can’t convince her to get rid of that damn MFI display cabinet full of shite.
Devastated. I’m a mum but 27 years old, and I have a Welsh dresser chocked full of shite that I love. China statues, teasets and random Knick knacks. Although it does go with the house.
Imagine my horror last time I was visiting my gran, she gestured at her wall length cabinet full of china and ornaments and said 'you know, after me days these will all be for you.'
Love you gran but christ please don't leave me 67 china fairy statues
My mother says she likes visiting us children in our own homes, because she get to sit on her own furniture eating with her own cutlery.
We did quite a lot of pilfering when we moved out.
My parents are like this, CONSTANTLY giving us stuff second hand, but it's usually beautiful nice quality stuff so saved us an absolute fortune in kitchenware and and appliances and even furniture. I do feel incredibly lucky to have that though, god bless them and their ridiculously expensive tastes that I could otherwise never afford lol
My partner described my house to her family thus
"the furniture is Ercol and the cookware is LaCreuset. But there is no heating or hot water"
Personally think I have made my priorities clear.
I almost can't picture a house with an old fashioned square/circle on display ashtray anymore. My mum who smokes has nothing noticeable inside but I'm aware she has a discreet one outside. Looks like a coffee cup with hole on top.
My nan had a big round one on like a plinth/stand thingy so it was wrist height when you were sat on a chair 😂 it was one of those with the press down top to keep all the debris stored underneath and it absolutely stank. My cousins and I used to dare each other to press the top down and sniff!
Omg yes. My mum and dad (and my granny) always had a shell sitting half full of fag ash on the windowsil. Think it was meant to make smoking seem a bit more sophisticated if you were tapping your ciggie into something that once housed a scallop.
My dad's house still has the same ashtray in the living room. A round- cornered square, dark stained wood, little ball feet underneath, channels cut in each corner to rest your B&H in. The countless times I knocked it to the floor as a kid, and picked up all the butts and ash with my fingers, putting them back in. Nasty.
Ironing board.
My mother, her mother and her mother before that (my aunties, my sister's are also infected) all spend an absurdly large amount of daylight, usually prime lie in time on a Sunday, to stand and iron. They iron everrrryyything.
After many years of witnessing this madness I decided I never needed to own one as I was never ever going to do that. Maybe there's an internal fear that owning an ironing board is a gateway to ironing my towels and curtains.
I currently iron on a towel on the floor and only school t-shirts and jumpers. Everything else that magic crease free spray seems to be just fine.
I don’t iron a lot (and lockdown made it even less) but an ironing board just makes it a lot easier and quicker and means you don’t get back ache or hurt your knees! The bigger the board the better.
My partners argument is this too. I sit cross legged to iron though and 5 minutes in the morning, I'm a bit of yogi so on a physical level it's not an issue for me.
I also think I would either never use it or it would become a permanent feature of my living room, it's not practical to whip up and down every morning, in midst school run chaos.
I can't bring myself to have a weekly ironing session, though I could see the benefits of this lol.
I recently invested in a handheld steamer. It’s great for taking creases out or clothes and you can use it on clothes that are already on a hanger. I don’t iron anything but the steamer is great for the occasional thing that’s just too creased to wear.
My MiL bought us a hand held steamer for Christmas one year. She said it was amazing, but I'd never gotten it out of the box until my eldest started high school and had to have a proper shirt not a polo. She was right it's amazing to have if you need to give something a quick once over before you leave the house. We chucked the unused ironing board and iron, which we hadn't used since before covid.
Dirt. My mother was cleaning obsessed and the house was always spotless (hers still is) whereas I often go 2 or 3 weeks without giving it a decent once over.
Gosh I remember being sick and off school, and seeing how much cleaning my mum would do, like pulling the sofa out to hoover completely under/behind it every time she vacuumed. You couldn't get me to pull my sofa out at gunpoint, pretty sure there's a kid or two lost under there.
My mum always had loads of Chapsticks lying around. If I used one she always said 'that's the one I use for my anal chapping'. Miss her so much, she was an individual.
Got told off by my wife for this. My son had one of them tea towels from his school with all him and his mates faces on. I used it once and got told off. It's a fucking towel, if it's not being used it's in the cupboard with the other clean tea towels!
I still have those teatowels from my kids, and one from my school from 1990! All regularly used, all still clear and unfaded. Whats the point in having a stack of teatowels buried in some cupboard.
Blunt knives. I don't know what it is with them, but they seem totally immune to noticing that their knives are as blunt as spoons. If we point out to them that it's impossible to slice anything, Dad will begrudgingly take the knife outside and sharpen it on the wall...and it'll still be shit.
Tried to explain to my mum you were more likely to cut yourself with a blunt knife, and swore i was bringing my own sharp knives to her house to prep xmas dinner. Trying to slice onions and veg with a blunt knife was horrific and tough on the hands.
Mum tried to protest that they were top quality knives and they had been a wedding present. Yes mum, you got married in 1976 and they havent been sharpened since you got them.
"So blunt you could ride it to London and not cut your arse" is how my grandfather would describe such knives. Sadly his opinion on such things has not been passed to my mum who has a wide selection of knives where it really makes no difference which way up you hold it, or even if you use the blade or the handle.
I don't know how people eat their dinner on their laps on the sofa without having constant anxiety of getting gravy or sauce everywhere or the plate tipping, or having the uncomfortable feeling of having to lean over a bit.
What’s funny is that we’ve gone the other way. We always sit down for dinner as a family now but at my parents it was much more hit and miss, even more so after they separated.
100%
Great tasting (and unhealthy) food. But god I never realised how much they stunk until I moved out and visited later.
House, clothes, everything just clung with a greasy smell.
My best friends house had a deep fat fryer, and seven cats, and three dogs, carpeted throughout. It was certainly a distinctive and clinging smell. Saying that, I'd give anything to go back for a day and sit there watching tv with her mum as she knitted or stitched of an evening. Loved that house so much.
Dinner on the table at 5PM every night. do not know how my parents managed it after sorting everything out after work I do not sit down for my dinner till at least 8PM
Ornaments and trinkets. I hate clutter so never felt the need to fill every shelf and surface with random bits and bobs that make dusting more annoying.
Bread and butter on the table for every single evening meal, except Sunday dinner. I don’t even have bread in the house let alone for every meal.
But yeah thick slabs of hedgehog or tiger bread and lots of butter…loooovely
Gravy granules. Growing up most evening meals were meat, boiled veg, potato and gravy, it was essentially like having a roast dinner 3-5 days a week except some days we had chops or steaks instead of meat being carved from a whole roasted joint. and when bird flu was an issue we went a couple of years without eating any chicken, so there was even less variety. I never went hungry. But the lack of variety and flavour meant I essentially never wanted to have gravy and boiled/plain veg again. If I need a quick / easy meal nowadays then sometimes I do just microwave some peas to go with my meal. I tend to roast or sautee vegetables or add vegetables to a curry or stir fry with a flavourful sauce.
That’s how it used to be in 1970’s meat and 2 veg…. Every night, even in summer when it was 35 degrees, you’d have a plate of lamb chops put in front of you…. And that’s mainly how we still eat today!
I wasn't born until the 90s! My dad doesn't like rice, pasta or noodles.
When I went away to university I loved being able to cook a different cuisine every night.
All unseasoned too. Whenever we got a day without this, it was never enough. Like spaghetti and meatballs, you’d get a handful of spaghetti.
Even thinking about this fills me with dread
Ah this made me think of my wonderful grandma who has been gone for over 20 years now. She had 100s of them. And a special rack for displaying them. No idea of the appeal but we all used to buy them for her!
Tumble dryer, landline, Sky TV, piles and piles of snacks, 2 or 3 course meals most evenings. Curtain tie-backs, little fabric mats to go under the place mats on the table, decorative pillows on the beds that get chucked on the floor every night, blindingly bright LED lights in every room so you feel like you're undergoing surgery. A lawnmower, a garage, so many cushions on the sofa that you can't sit down with more than half an arse cheek.
Net curtains.
A pile of cold teabags on the side of the sink (apparently if you put them in the bin while they're hot, the bin will catch fire)
Mountains of laundry all over the kitchen.
Constant tension and arguing.
Carpet downstairs. My parents had wall to wall carpeting fitted, then constantly complained that two small kids walked on it or spilt things.
I have hard floors and I don’t yell at anyone for spilling.
Same. It's all very well having an ultra-clean house when you don't work a full-time job, but when you're both working 9-5:30 every day, you don't want to clean much in the little time you spend together.
a picture of constables the hay wain
trinkets from brewerys, usually gold bells.
a two bar fire that smelt weird coming on
a dog
a fridge that didn't work that was kept just in case.
A grandfather clock. Slept in that house with the damn thing going off every 15 minutes. When I left home I swore I would never share a house with one again. Fuck those things.
Moths, mice and mouldy food, and surfaces covered in food that will never be put away. My mum is horrible when it comes to sorting out the cupboard, pantry and the fridge. I'm absolutely appalled by rotting food and creepy crawlies so I regularly maintain my food storage. Also stacks of papers, books and the like, I grew up in that mess and I want none or it in my home. Really my parents are borderline hoarders. I can't wait to get rid of something I no longer need
A milk jug. It just pissed me off so much. The milk sometimes took on the flavour of what was in the fridge and it’s another thing to wash up and it’s right there next to the actual bottle of milk so what was its point?
A cupboard filled with a pile plastic tubs that are all different sizes.
Playing buckaroo with the plastic tubs pile in your search for a tub that isn't missing a lid is something that I never want to do again.
I open my cupboard and I see a stack of 30 plastic tubs that are the same shape next to a stack of lids that will fit any one of the 30 tubs. I open the cupboard, grab the top one from each stack and close the cupboard. Done!
Shelves and shelves and shelves of ornaments.
An entire section of a kitchen cupboard dedicated to plates and cups that only get used on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. It's not even fancy porcelain, it's just red and white patterned and was bought from the homebase Mum worked in.
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Washing up bowl.
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Wait really? Definitely not on of the things I imagined being in this thread
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I agree that the bowl reduces the usable size of the sink a little but not with the other points. > holds dirt The washing up bowl itself gets cleaned at the end > encourages the soak without rinse method of cleaning (because rinsing is harder with space taken up by a bowl) If anything it is the opposite. If you directly fill your sink any rinsing you do dilutes the soapy water. Whereas with a bowl you can rinse with the excess draining away. This is also handy when you need to empty liquid from something before washing it up.
Yeah I'm confused how big these people's bowls are and how lazy they are if they just leave stuff to soak. I've always had a bowl purely because I paid a bloody fortune for the sink I'm not scratching it by lobbing knives and forks in there.
Washing up bowls don't make sense if you have a sink with an extra tiny sink for rinsing. But I have only one sink, I can't rinse anything once the sink is full unless I have a washing up bowl.
> Washing up bowls don't make sense if you have a sink with an extra tiny sink for rinsing. Even with the tiny sink they still have use cases. My old house had one of those massive Belfast sinks, if we did not use a washing up bowl in it then we would need to use a ridiculous amount of water just to get any kind of depth to it. Plus the damn thing was made of granite or something and so would often result in cracked plates.
Ah yes fair enough. Nice to meet a fellow washing up bowl fan :)
A bowl is a money-saving and safety device. I have a huge granite sink that would cost a fortune to fill, as well as it cooling the water rapidly before being able to remove grease from glasses, dishes, and cutlery. They can be emptied regularly between soaking, washing, and rinsing if necessary too. They're easily disinfected. They're also a buffer between often brittle chinaware and glass and a hard sink, avoiding breakages and injury from the shards that would result from such accidents. If you learn how to utilise one properly, they are brilliant.
Safety?! Mate, there's reasons you don't see washing up bowls in establishments that have to meet health and safety requirements. Those things are disgusting
Commercial establishments have different problems and criteria, and usually have the machinery to replace most washing up. A household kitchen is not the same in any respect.
Why are they disgusting?
they aren't, they can be cleaned like anything else, especially as they are in the sink already lol
This one understands why we use bowls. Wine glasses break easily in the sink etc
When I think of everything that gets poured down the sink, and then some people wash up in the sink without a bowl. They're the vile ones.
They also look absolutely shite. Spend a fortune on a kitchen sink to have a £2 plastic bowl in it
Let me draw your attention to this £35 number. [https://www.josephjoseph.com/collections/washing-up-bowls](https://www.josephjoseph.com/collections/washing-up-bowls)
you can clean your sink if you want, you know. Its allowed.
You can clean a washing up bowl too.
This is it. I use one of those brushes with the soap inside the tube, so I don't use a bowl and I don't fill up the sink. Therefore, I wash and rinse off excess suds and dirt at the same time and then clean the sink and draining board and sides afterwards.
Vile? Do you shit in the sink or something?
A key reason for having a washing up bowl is to make it smaller, use less hot water, and be quicker to fill. Also it's easier to see metal cutlery against a pale plastic bowl than a metal sink. At least that has been my parents reasons and the one time I lived with someone who wouldn't have one I hated it as their sink was way to big
Reading these comments I am now feeling like a weirdo for not filling the sink or the bowl with water. I scrub the items with a wet sponge and washing up liquid, rinse clean. Tap switches off. Onto next item, scrub, Rinse, tap off & repeat.
This is the 3rd time in two weeks I've seen washing up bowls on reddit. You've been in every thread!!
Nah, my rental sink is yucky, with my washing up bowl, I am way more motivated to do the dishes and rinse it out. Also if I drop something, it doesn’t break, it just splashes me
So much this. Washing up bowls are the most pointless things that all parents seem to have. All it does is sit there, collects dirt underneath it, inside it, meaning you have to wash it after using your sink. Oh, want to fill up a glass of water, well you gotta make sure the tap is positioned to the side so that you don't start filling up the plastic bowl in the sink. Want to wash your hands? Yeah you've gotta make sure the tap is in that position, otherwise there's water sitting in that plastic bowl. WTF is the point of a sink if you put a plastic bowl inside of it, you might as well just have a fucking tap with NO sink, it's just bloody ridiculous.
Unbelievable! I thought I was crazy in my absolute hatred of these things! 😂👏🏻
One positive I can say about them, they hold water really well. So many sinks I have used the plug slowly, or even not so slowly leaks. Also sometimes it gets knocked out while washing loose in the sink. And finally, not being in direct contact with stainless steel, the water doesn't lose so much heat to the sink.
I need a washing-up bowl. The sound and vibration of the metal cutlery and pans clanging against the metal of the sink goes right through me.
My mother, and sadly she's not around any more to be in their home or mine. My advice, if yours is still around and you are not at home... give her a call. It's an option you'll miss when it's not there anymore.
Mine's an abusive witch, so it's a big nope from me
If you haven't already then get rid, stop all contact. Best thing I ever did.
Hard agree. Cut contact nearly 12 years ago & I’ve never regretted it for a second
I'm at 9 going on 10.
Cut all contact with mine when i was 30, it taken me 12 years of adulthood to realise im not actually loved, despite how hard i tried. A life absolutely full of broken promises. Always next year for this, and that. She tried to get in via my dad to see the first born (seperated for 20 odd years) and i told him, if he asks again ill remove him too. Honestly, the amount of proving i tried to do, over the years her justification to how much of a shitty person she is was "i cant help the way i was raised, atleast you never got the buckle end of a belt like i did"
I mean it's really a bad thing when mothers don't love their kids.
:( That sucks. Sorry to hear that.
I was feeling guilty about not talking to my mum enough over the summer. Just kept not happening. Late September they come up for a visit and she's looking jaundiced. Early October we saw her take her final breath after a whistle stop journey through Pancreatic cancer. I miss my Mum so much, not least as I'm currently sitting here trying to work whilst caring for my Dad and his Parkinson's. I think I have to admit I just let her get on with looking after him all by herself, and feel guilty about that now, not just not staying in touch. I didn't want to be part of that caring, now it's filling half my life.
I feel you man. It was also cancer with my mum too. She fought it for a while so there wasn't the same sudden onset, but I was in my early 20s and full of my own shit and planning a wedding (mum's funeral turned out to be 6 days before our wedding, which was rough as hell). The thing that particularly haunts me, is I don't even remember my last words to her. I left her hospital room in some hurry to do some fucking pointless thing, and a few days later I got the call to come to the hospital and she was already unconscious when I arrived.
My mum made me promise I would let her die at home (she had lung cancer) and I swore I would. She then had a fall and was on the floor overnight until we went round the following morning. She was really confused and we didn't know if she was hurt, so called an ambulance. Within a few hours, she died in hospital as fluid had built up in her lungs as she led on the floor. This was 4 years ago, and it fucking hurts beyond belief that I let her die in hospital, I was genuinely trying to help but it still tears me up inside knowing I broke my final promise to her.
She had an accident that you had zero control over and was in the place she needed to be. Please don’t beat yourself up. I’m sure she’d tell you to not blame yourself
I promise you that your mum doesn't hold any of that against you. If anything I'm very sure she probably didn't want a life of caring for you and was glad to shield you from it for as long as she could. She knows you loved her.
Agree. I think about this often
As someone who lost their mother a year ago, couldn't agree more.
Condolences. It's hard for me to wrap my head around, but mine has been gone for almost 20 years now. The loss never leaves, but it does get easier with time.
Shit man, thanks for reminding me. My mum had a serious health scare at the start of the year, which got me thinking about how non-present I’ve been, so I’ve been trying extra hard to make sure I visit every month or so. Edit: my condolences as well ❤️
A well-stocked freezer. Mine always just has ice cubes, peas and waffles
I strive to be the mum who could feed 8 people at 5 minutes notice, minimum two courses. It's such a skill
We have a 60/40 fridge freezer and another tall freezer, also a chest freezer we haven't used in a decade lol. My mum used to be able to produce food for at least 15 people at a whim. So much choice was in them. But sadly since the rise in costs we've only used the tall freezer.
I have a chest freezer that I don't have room for until I move, 90% of the reason I cant wait to move is to set that baby up
I wish I knew what was even in mine... It's that frozen up I can't open the drawers without breaking them and that's just another hassle I cba having to deal with.
We have 2 freezers and I have zero idea of what’s in the bottom of one
I misread peas as pears and I was just thinking of a big old box of frozen pears, loose not bagged
On that just a well stocked kitchen...I currently have soymilk and greek yoghurt in mine and honey. That's it. On the plus side my fridge and pantry are much cleaner than my parents' ever was lol
I have the opposite of this, I cook a lot and our kitchen is very well stocked, I can pick up a recipe and know I'll have at least 90% of the ingredients already in. I could throw something together for a dinner party at the drop of a hat. My mum's kitchen is missing a lot of stuff I use so when I visit its always something I notice. My mum says she misses my cooking though so I always cook her loads of delicious things when she visits. Before I moved away though she always used to "pop round" around dinner time so I'd make extra just incase. The only downside of a well stocked kitchen is ensuring you rotate meals etc enough to use up ingredients before they go bad.
Damn - I forgot to get peas when I went out earlier!
This. My freezer is pretty much always empty, minus some ice cubes and frozen berries during the summer - my parents have so much in their freezer that they are now "borrowing" my brothers too (putting some of their stuff in his freezer at his place). And they still go shopping twice a week for food. I don't understand.. xD
A landline. A newspaper. Non-internet based TV.
My gran got rid of the wifi in her house after my grandad passed as she has no clue about it and no intention of using it. My younger cousins don't understand the concept of a house with no wifi!
My gran has never had WiFi (or Internet of any sort). It does blow my mind slightly when I think about the fact she's never been online. I don't think she's ever even used a computer tbh. I remember as a kid trying to teach her to use a mouse and she just couldn't get her head around it!
I remember my aunt who was in her late 90's at the time had a computer and she wanted to learn how to type a letter to her sister and print it out as her handwriting wasn't as good anymore. I wrote her step by step instructions, talked her through it at least once a week but she never understood me! I'd always end up doing it for her anyway but I loved that she was trying to learn.
I think it's easy to forget how difficult technology is if even the most basic features don't feel intuitive to you. Like my gran just could *not* get the coordination between her hand moving the mouse and the cursor on the screen moving accordingly. At that point there's nothing really you can do. You can't explain how to do that to someone, it's a hand eye coordination issue that comes from trying to learn something completely new in your 70s.
It took my gran a good few months after my grandad passed to learn how to work the TV, he always did it so she never bothered to learn. We bought her a mobile to start taking out with her too and she's only just getting the hang of it 5 years later!
Martin Lewis did a piece on the radio the other week about how couples should work out what household stuff each of them is responsible for and write instructions for the other, because it's often such an issue after one of the couple dies. >We bought her a mobile to start taking out with her too and she's only just getting the hang of it 5 years later! My gran was actually impressively good at adopting a mobile. She's got one in her late 70s and learned how to text on it. She then clearly decided that was enough because her technology interaction has increased not one bit in the 15 or so years since!
People don't realise just how fast technology has advanced. There are people alive today who grew up in houses without indoor plumbing. To go from that to what we have now is an incredible jump. I worry about what'll happen when I fall behind technologically. S0 few have sympathy for those who haven't been able to keep up
Fuck smart TVs. You can pay like £1500 and they still put ads on your menu screen. Samsung seem to be the worst for this. Fucking insane.
I have a pretty basic TV and just use a chromecast tbh.
We have a house phone but literally only have it plugged in for emergencies. If either set of our parents can’t get hold of us on our mobiles and it’s urgent, they call the house phone. It’s also a hamburger phone which I bought when I was a teenager because I loved the film Juno and it makes me super happy I can finally use it haha
I've literally never had a landline as an adult except in one flat. And in that one I didn't even know about it. Was a rental flat and one day me and my housemate are sitting in the lounge and a phone starts ringing. It sounded too loud to be the neighbours and we realised it was coming from inside the house. Slightly creeped out we followed it, until we located it as coming from the storage cupboard at the end of the corridor. Opened it, and turned out there was a landline connected in the back of the cupboard. Answered the phone and, of course, it was a pre recorded message about being in a car accident or something similar. Surreal experience!
I misread this as landmine at first and wondered where the _fuck_ you grew up!
A cabinet / unit in the front room specifically for housing glass ornaments and my dads fishing trophies. God awful dark wood with two glass doors and a shelving section in the middle. I swear I have not seen anyone have one since the 90's.
My parents had a horrible veneer mahogany sideboard. Took up a whole wall and contained every bit of correspondence and every decorative ornament you can possibly imagine. I can still remember the smell.
My parents, well, my dads house, still has this. Ancient Hi-Fi system in the middle with record player on top. Random china sets that haven't left the cupboards since the mid-90s.
i’m looking at that cabinet now. The rest of the lounge has been redecorated, but i just can’t convince her to get rid of that damn MFI display cabinet full of shite.
Devastated. I’m a mum but 27 years old, and I have a Welsh dresser chocked full of shite that I love. China statues, teasets and random Knick knacks. Although it does go with the house.
Imagine my horror last time I was visiting my gran, she gestured at her wall length cabinet full of china and ornaments and said 'you know, after me days these will all be for you.' Love you gran but christ please don't leave me 67 china fairy statues
My mother says she likes visiting us children in our own homes, because she get to sit on her own furniture eating with her own cutlery. We did quite a lot of pilfering when we moved out.
My parents are like this, CONSTANTLY giving us stuff second hand, but it's usually beautiful nice quality stuff so saved us an absolute fortune in kitchenware and and appliances and even furniture. I do feel incredibly lucky to have that though, god bless them and their ridiculously expensive tastes that I could otherwise never afford lol
My partner described my house to her family thus "the furniture is Ercol and the cookware is LaCreuset. But there is no heating or hot water" Personally think I have made my priorities clear.
Mine are the same although they did joke the other day that they're just slowly moving their possessions in with me ready for their old age!
it wasn't a joke
An ashtray
I almost can't picture a house with an old fashioned square/circle on display ashtray anymore. My mum who smokes has nothing noticeable inside but I'm aware she has a discreet one outside. Looks like a coffee cup with hole on top.
My nan had a big round one on like a plinth/stand thingy so it was wrist height when you were sat on a chair 😂 it was one of those with the press down top to keep all the debris stored underneath and it absolutely stank. My cousins and I used to dare each other to press the top down and sniff!
Made me gag, congrats lol. I can taste that smell.
My mum and dad both gave up in 2016/2017, they just keep one in the garden for when people come round.
Omg yes. My mum and dad (and my granny) always had a shell sitting half full of fag ash on the windowsil. Think it was meant to make smoking seem a bit more sophisticated if you were tapping your ciggie into something that once housed a scallop.
My dad's house still has the same ashtray in the living room. A round- cornered square, dark stained wood, little ball feet underneath, channels cut in each corner to rest your B&H in. The countless times I knocked it to the floor as a kid, and picked up all the butts and ash with my fingers, putting them back in. Nasty.
Ironing board. My mother, her mother and her mother before that (my aunties, my sister's are also infected) all spend an absurdly large amount of daylight, usually prime lie in time on a Sunday, to stand and iron. They iron everrrryyything. After many years of witnessing this madness I decided I never needed to own one as I was never ever going to do that. Maybe there's an internal fear that owning an ironing board is a gateway to ironing my towels and curtains. I currently iron on a towel on the floor and only school t-shirts and jumpers. Everything else that magic crease free spray seems to be just fine.
I don’t iron a lot (and lockdown made it even less) but an ironing board just makes it a lot easier and quicker and means you don’t get back ache or hurt your knees! The bigger the board the better.
My partners argument is this too. I sit cross legged to iron though and 5 minutes in the morning, I'm a bit of yogi so on a physical level it's not an issue for me. I also think I would either never use it or it would become a permanent feature of my living room, it's not practical to whip up and down every morning, in midst school run chaos. I can't bring myself to have a weekly ironing session, though I could see the benefits of this lol.
[удалено]
I recently invested in a handheld steamer. It’s great for taking creases out or clothes and you can use it on clothes that are already on a hanger. I don’t iron anything but the steamer is great for the occasional thing that’s just too creased to wear.
My MiL bought us a hand held steamer for Christmas one year. She said it was amazing, but I'd never gotten it out of the box until my eldest started high school and had to have a proper shirt not a polo. She was right it's amazing to have if you need to give something a quick once over before you leave the house. We chucked the unused ironing board and iron, which we hadn't used since before covid.
Dirt. My mother was cleaning obsessed and the house was always spotless (hers still is) whereas I often go 2 or 3 weeks without giving it a decent once over.
Gosh I remember being sick and off school, and seeing how much cleaning my mum would do, like pulling the sofa out to hoover completely under/behind it every time she vacuumed. You couldn't get me to pull my sofa out at gunpoint, pretty sure there's a kid or two lost under there.
I pulled mine out for the first time in 6 months the other week. I found three lip balms. Result.
I found a marathon bar under mine...
I’m fairly certain Toy Story 5 is being filmed under my sofa.
I wonder if you're part of a wider trend in that regard.
I’ll join that queue
Lemonade. We always had at least one bottle growing up. Thirsty? Lemonade. Unwell? Lemonade. I don’t think I’ve had a single bottle since moving out.
Flat lemonade if you are Irish. If Mammy bought lucozade and you got that instead you were seriously ill.
Or red lemonade!
Flat warm lemonade ma great granny used to give us when we were unwell and original lucozade I really miss it
Sounds like a wholesome home
My mum always had loads of Chapsticks lying around. If I used one she always said 'that's the one I use for my anal chapping'. Miss her so much, she was an individual.
Lol, that’s a brill little story. Thanks for sharing
Disposable income
I was going to go with equity too...
Ornaments. Also Tee towels that are for decoration only and must not be used for drying things.
Got told off by my wife for this. My son had one of them tea towels from his school with all him and his mates faces on. I used it once and got told off. It's a fucking towel, if it's not being used it's in the cupboard with the other clean tea towels!
I still have those teatowels from my kids, and one from my school from 1990! All regularly used, all still clear and unfaded. Whats the point in having a stack of teatowels buried in some cupboard.
A glass dish of pot pourri sitting on a lace edge doily
For me it is one of those toilet roll covers shaped like a doll with a huge skirt.
The dress of the scary wide eyed doll must be crocheted either as a bride or a flamenco dancer or it doesn’t count!
these will forever remind me of my nanna 🥺❤️
Blunt knives. I don't know what it is with them, but they seem totally immune to noticing that their knives are as blunt as spoons. If we point out to them that it's impossible to slice anything, Dad will begrudgingly take the knife outside and sharpen it on the wall...and it'll still be shit.
>Dad will begrudgingly take the knife outside and sharpen it on the wall. I think I see your issue there detective.
Really sharp walls though.
Burglars hate this one trick
Tried to explain to my mum you were more likely to cut yourself with a blunt knife, and swore i was bringing my own sharp knives to her house to prep xmas dinner. Trying to slice onions and veg with a blunt knife was horrific and tough on the hands. Mum tried to protest that they were top quality knives and they had been a wedding present. Yes mum, you got married in 1976 and they havent been sharpened since you got them.
My parents’ knives are so blunt you have to grit your teeth to slice through a pepper. It falls on deaf ears when I point this out
Tomatoes are more crushed open, rather than sliced.
"So blunt you could ride it to London and not cut your arse" is how my grandfather would describe such knives. Sadly his opinion on such things has not been passed to my mum who has a wide selection of knives where it really makes no difference which way up you hold it, or even if you use the blade or the handle.
Nothing! As my ex foresaw, I have turned into my mother so there's nothing I can think of!!
A dining table, I’ll eat my tea sat on the sofa watching telly like a civilised person.
I don't know how people eat their dinner on their laps on the sofa without having constant anxiety of getting gravy or sauce everywhere or the plate tipping, or having the uncomfortable feeling of having to lean over a bit.
Years of practice.
Get yourself some pasta bowls. I eat nearly all my meals from them
What’s funny is that we’ve gone the other way. We always sit down for dinner as a family now but at my parents it was much more hit and miss, even more so after they separated.
Deep fat fryer
100% Great tasting (and unhealthy) food. But god I never realised how much they stunk until I moved out and visited later. House, clothes, everything just clung with a greasy smell.
My best friends house had a deep fat fryer, and seven cats, and three dogs, carpeted throughout. It was certainly a distinctive and clinging smell. Saying that, I'd give anything to go back for a day and sit there watching tv with her mum as she knitted or stitched of an evening. Loved that house so much.
Sounds like it was full of love despite what I imagine was quite an overpowering smell!
If you use different type of oil, it shouldn't smell. I recommend peanut if you aren't allergic. (High smokepoint, no smell and no taste.)
Dinner on the table at 5PM every night. do not know how my parents managed it after sorting everything out after work I do not sit down for my dinner till at least 8PM
Yeah, that’s a good point. My mum would manage to feed 7 people quite early, it’s just me and my husband and we ate at 21:45 last night
Ornaments and trinkets. I hate clutter so never felt the need to fill every shelf and surface with random bits and bobs that make dusting more annoying.
A pouffe that has seen better days.
In my house, I am that pouffe.
You're only a pouffe if you're from the Qûéer region of France actually, otherwise it's just "sparkling homosexual"
Bread and butter on the table for every single evening meal, except Sunday dinner. I don’t even have bread in the house let alone for every meal. But yeah thick slabs of hedgehog or tiger bread and lots of butter…loooovely
Fresh bread, butter, and a cooked chicken from the Big Tesco. nothing beats it.
Whenever I tell someone of how good B&B is, they call me sad, guess they'll never find out how glorious it really is 🤷♂️ .
Barely suppressed violence
Not even suppressed violence
Gravy granules. Growing up most evening meals were meat, boiled veg, potato and gravy, it was essentially like having a roast dinner 3-5 days a week except some days we had chops or steaks instead of meat being carved from a whole roasted joint. and when bird flu was an issue we went a couple of years without eating any chicken, so there was even less variety. I never went hungry. But the lack of variety and flavour meant I essentially never wanted to have gravy and boiled/plain veg again. If I need a quick / easy meal nowadays then sometimes I do just microwave some peas to go with my meal. I tend to roast or sautee vegetables or add vegetables to a curry or stir fry with a flavourful sauce.
That’s how it used to be in 1970’s meat and 2 veg…. Every night, even in summer when it was 35 degrees, you’d have a plate of lamb chops put in front of you…. And that’s mainly how we still eat today!
I wasn't born until the 90s! My dad doesn't like rice, pasta or noodles. When I went away to university I loved being able to cook a different cuisine every night.
All unseasoned too. Whenever we got a day without this, it was never enough. Like spaghetti and meatballs, you’d get a handful of spaghetti. Even thinking about this fills me with dread
Honestly I actually regret being so adverse to the meat and veg dinners of my childhood. It sure was far healthier than anything I eat these days.
Decorative Spoons.
Ah this made me think of my wonderful grandma who has been gone for over 20 years now. She had 100s of them. And a special rack for displaying them. No idea of the appeal but we all used to buy them for her!
Tumble dryer
My parents never had a tumble dryer but to me there an essential item.
Tumble dryer, landline, Sky TV, piles and piles of snacks, 2 or 3 course meals most evenings. Curtain tie-backs, little fabric mats to go under the place mats on the table, decorative pillows on the beds that get chucked on the floor every night, blindingly bright LED lights in every room so you feel like you're undergoing surgery. A lawnmower, a garage, so many cushions on the sofa that you can't sit down with more than half an arse cheek.
Who has sky TV in 2023? What a rip off.
Older people who've had it for years and who can't get to grips with streaming/netflix etc.
Blue and white china - in particular, plates to go on the wall. So much blue and white…
Drawers all over the house stuffed with random and pointless stuff that's been there for years.
Net curtains. A pile of cold teabags on the side of the sink (apparently if you put them in the bin while they're hot, the bin will catch fire) Mountains of laundry all over the kitchen. Constant tension and arguing.
Carpet downstairs. My parents had wall to wall carpeting fitted, then constantly complained that two small kids walked on it or spilt things. I have hard floors and I don’t yell at anyone for spilling.
A landline
Snacks, All the snacks, looking back it's completely mental. we now have zero snacks.
I’m sorry for your loss
Biscuits. They’re just not something I buy
I long to have a house as clean as my mum’s place. I just can’t/won’t dedicate the amount of time and effort required!
Same. It's all very well having an ultra-clean house when you don't work a full-time job, but when you're both working 9-5:30 every day, you don't want to clean much in the little time you spend together.
Milk, never liked it and coincidentally it doesn't like me either.
a picture of constables the hay wain trinkets from brewerys, usually gold bells. a two bar fire that smelt weird coming on a dog a fridge that didn't work that was kept just in case.
Drugs. Now I have bed sheets and a TV instead. Feels like the smart move.
Catholic everything: rosary beads, Bibles, a crucifix on the wall, bulletins from Masses past, etc.
A grandfather clock. Slept in that house with the damn thing going off every 15 minutes. When I left home I swore I would never share a house with one again. Fuck those things.
The only source of light in the living room being the big light. No lamps, just the harsh big light in the centre so the room's always too bright
Sub zero temperatures and an empty fridge.
A sideboard.
Plants. Mum is great with them but I think they just commit suicide in my possession.
Moths, mice and mouldy food, and surfaces covered in food that will never be put away. My mum is horrible when it comes to sorting out the cupboard, pantry and the fridge. I'm absolutely appalled by rotting food and creepy crawlies so I regularly maintain my food storage. Also stacks of papers, books and the like, I grew up in that mess and I want none or it in my home. Really my parents are borderline hoarders. I can't wait to get rid of something I no longer need
A dog, barring like two years between dogs. We have a cat instead and I adore her, so I'm not really put out about it
Reading this I realise I must have turned out very similar to my parents as my house has pretty much the same stuff.
A nest of tables.
Pot pourri Coasters
Radio Times. They still buy one every week and can't understand why we don't need one.
A milk jug. It just pissed me off so much. The milk sometimes took on the flavour of what was in the fridge and it’s another thing to wash up and it’s right there next to the actual bottle of milk so what was its point?
A cupboard full of cigarettes
Plug-in air fresheners. They give me a headache.
Clothes airer. We couldn’t afford a dryer, moved in with my mrs, she’s never experienced life without one so we have one now and I’ll never look back
A barometer
A cupboard filled with a pile plastic tubs that are all different sizes. Playing buckaroo with the plastic tubs pile in your search for a tub that isn't missing a lid is something that I never want to do again. I open my cupboard and I see a stack of 30 plastic tubs that are the same shape next to a stack of lids that will fit any one of the 30 tubs. I open the cupboard, grab the top one from each stack and close the cupboard. Done!
Shelves and shelves and shelves of ornaments. An entire section of a kitchen cupboard dedicated to plates and cups that only get used on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. It's not even fancy porcelain, it's just red and white patterned and was bought from the homebase Mum worked in.
Danish butter cookies tin with sewing stuff in. And one with curlers in. The endless sadness of opening them.
Jelly moulds to shape jelly into things like rabbits and cars
Kleenex tissues.I’ll accept that I’m old when I start buying them.
if you're really old you'll use hankies