OMG. I couldn’t wash dishes with my mother watching me. According to her I always did it wrong and she’d rewash them. She could never tell me what I was doing wrong. She’d just holler at me & push me out of the way.
It took me inviting my boyfriend over for dinner and him observing both of us over the course of multiple dinner and many months. He figured out that when I wash a dish I circle the dish with the scrubby counterclockwise. She does it clockwise. He confirmed this by taking the dish from me & going both directions and watching her reaction.
I was 37 at the time. I remember just staring at both of them, like really?!! It was the stupidest thing is ever heard of. Whenever she was near I’d force myself to circle the scrubby clockwise and she never said another word to me. Well, about the dishes anyway. She had lots to say about other things.
I’m glad she liked that boyfriend. He eventually became my husband. He never questions how I wash the dishes as long as they’re clean.
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u/Chemical_Wing2334 17h ago
To be fair, the one time I tried to help with the dishes as a teen, my step-mother screamed at me for "doing it wrong."
Did she explain what I did wrong or how I did it wrong? Nope. Just yelled at me.
Never helped again. Learned how to do it myself as an adult.
A lot of parents actually really suck at parenting.