I am using a counter_cache to let MySQL do some of the bookkeeping for me: class Container has_many :items end class Item belongs_to :container, :counter_cache => true end Now, if I do this: container = Container.find(57) item = Item.new item.container = container item.save in the SQL log there will be an INSERT followed by something like: UPDATE `containers` SET `items_count` = COALESCE(`items_count`, 0) + 1 WHERE `containers`.`id` = 57 which is what I expected it to do. However, the container[:items_count] will be stale! ...unless I container.reload to pick up the updated value. Which in my mind sort of defeats part of the purpose of using the :counter_cache in favor of a custom built one, especially since I may not actually want a reload before I try to access the items_count attribute. (My models are pretty code-heavy because of the nature of the domain logic, so I sometimes have to save and create multiple things in one controller call.) I understand I can tinker with callbacks myself but this seems to me a fairly basic expectation of the simple feature. Again, if I have to write additional code to make it fully work, it might as well be easier to implement a custom counter. What am I doing/assuming wrong?