Invited for dinner then being asked to help clear up

pollypenny

Would you have been left sitting alone otherwise?

Then she was being kind to you. No problem.

Btw: not keen on this 'it's the way I was brought up' which seems to appear now and then. Sounds rather sanctimonious.

Georgiegirl256

I don't know why you'd be offended? Surprised, yes, but offended is abit extreme.

If someone asked me I'd probably be abit shocked, as I'd never expect that from any of my guests. I think if you've invited people over for a meal, then it's then quite rude to ask them to help with tidying up.

I would always ask if there was anything I could do (most people usually refuse this as they don't expect a guest to lend a hand) as it's only polite. However, there's a difference between the guest offering and the host asking.

bagpussbear

I wouldn't be offended. It's generally a polite thing to ask if the host needs any help anyway, whether with prep or with clearing up. At least that is how I was brought up.

I've never asked a guest to help. But if they offer, then I accept and it's a nice opportunity to have a bit of a natter together.

I don't think this something to be worked up about OP.

FreddieFrugal

Georgiegirl256 wrote: »

I don't know why you'd be offended? Surprised, yes, but offended is abit extreme.

At least the OP didn't flip the dining table in their fury.

Georgiegirl256

ellie99 wrote: »

or was the mother meant to wait until the OP had left?

Personally I would. Would most people not?

Bella73

Honestly, I would be more "offended" by the fact that my friend cleared off with his brother to pick someone up, why couldn't you go with him if it needed two people...that is the bit I find odd, but as he obviously felt fine abandoning you with his parents you obviously know them reasonably well in which case I would not be offended at all by helping wash up and would have offered.

ciderwithrosie_2

I would not directly ask guests to clear up, but I probably wouldn't say no if they offered to help dry up or something. I don't have a dishwasher so washing up after a dinner party is rather tedious.

My aunty and uncle are the sort that expect guests to just muck in. Whenever we've been there, as children and adults, you can't just sit, you have to be gainfully employed - laying the table, shelling peas etc. Still, they faff around so much, doing other 'important' things, if people didn't help, dinner would be at midnight or something!

PenguinOfDeath

In that situation wouldn't be offended, no. However I would probably expect the host to wait to do most of it when the guests that left.

I remember once a friend invited a group of us to her place for a BBQ, probably an equal amount of male to female. After the food was eaten I was sat outside chatting, and I overheard some mumblings from inside. Apparently, because I am female I should have been helping the other females clear up afterwards, when it was perfectly acceptable for the men to be sat drinking beer!

Kynthia

I think being offended and thinking the mother crude is overreacting. It was a family dinner and you were treated as family. The others were going off to collect someone, the gathering was going to continue once they all came back so the washing up couldn't wait. The mother either didn't want you sitting on your own feeling awkward or was treating you like family by asking you to muck in. This wasn't a dinner party put on to entertain you and others so the dynamics are different. Plus people have their own norms and sometimes they differ from yours, which doesn't make them wrong.

PasturesNew

I'm terrible enough in my own kitchen, with "my little ways" - I would find it a very traumatic time to have to wash up other people's dishes in their kitchen with their sponges/liquid and in their way .....

If I had people round for a meal (it won't happen) .... I'd have washed up a lot as I was going, some stuff would be in soak on the side - and everything else would be rinsed/stacked and left until guests had left. I don't want people trying to help as I have "my little ways"