Are Dishwashing Machines Really Necessary?

When I was young, there was hardly anyone with a dishwasher. In my house, I was the only dishwasher I knew of! As time passed and the years went by, dishwasher sightings became more frequent. I would go over to friends’ houses and see that their moms were using dishwashers. We would go on family vacations sometimes and stay in a condo that would have a dishwasher, which would thrill me to no end! Sadly, my mom never decided to buy one. But now that I am older and have my own family, I can certainly understand more from her point of view. If you never grew up having one, and got used to hand-washing dishes, then dishwashers would really seem like an unnecessary appliance. This has led me to wonder if dishwashers are really necessary at all?

My grandmother did her dishes by hand. Not only that, but she cut and stacked wood for the fire, spent most of her day gardening, canning, or cooking, and washed clothes with a wringer washer. I think that if she saw all of today’s modern home appliances she would laugh and wonder what we do with all of our free time. Yet we still manage to fill every minute of time in our day planners, and rely on time saving devices such as dishwashers and microwaves. Many people in the older generation today do not even bother with all the new, latest kitchen gadgets. I feel that the primary reason is that they already know how to do the task without the help of a machine, and do not see the machine as helpful. Other reasons could be that they view the appliance as an extra expense, and then on top of that, you need a place to store the new appliance.

I, too, am also starting to question the usefulness of many modern kitchen appliances. Sometimes I think it may be age-related, meaning that as you grow a little older and take off your rose-colored glasses a bit, you start viewing new acquisitions differently. Instead of thinking a new dishwasher is “exciting”, I now want to know how much it is going to cost, and how much it will make my electricity and water bill go up. Things kind of lose their thrill when we look at things through a more realistic cost and effect standpoint.

This has made me scrutinize many of my kitchen appliances and actually get rid of a few of them. The bread maker is gone. The juicer, although nice in theory, is way too much of a pain to clean, so it is gone. The pasta maker (what was I thinking?) is most thankfully gone. Even the toaster oven is gone. I realized that all these years I pretty much had a toaster oven sitting on the counter because it looked “right”. But the reality was that I either used a toaster or my real oven. And even the toaster I don’t use that much.

So the question I raise again. Are dishwashing machines really necessary? And the answer to me and many others is a most definite no. TV ads, radio and magazine commercials, along with good old peer pressure have coerced us all into spending gobs of money on all the latest kitchen appliances, including, special Bosch dishwashers (how technical does a dishwasher need to be?), over-the-stove microwaves, stainless steel everything, and refrigerators that can make iced tea (just kidding on that one, or am I?). The point remains that we are totally surrounded by modern, state-of-the-art gadgetry, designed to make our life so much easier and better, when in reality….picking up a dishcloth and some soap and washing those dishes simply and quietly by hand doesn’t seem like too bad of an idea after all.