This week was one for the record books in terms of watching news come across the wires and wondering not once, not twice, but, well…a lot more times than that if we are, in fact, all still living in reality.
The Virginia governor who suggested keeping resuscitated hypothetical newborns comfortable until “doctors and parents” decide whether or not to….what, kill it? Literally we’re discussing after birth abortion now. Aka murder.But massage that language enough and you’ll get fascinating mind benders like “post-birth abortion” and “4th trimester abortion” and “newborn fetus.” Anyway, seems like he was a great guy in high school, too.
But wait, that’s not all! During President Trump’s SOTU address he made a few impassioned pleas for unity around the idea of not killing babies who accidentally survive abortions. Unsurprisingly, by this point in the week, these were not pleas that enjoyed bipartisan support.
But you know, it’s not all bad news. This episode of CNA Newsroom was one of the more beautiful things I’ve listened to in a long time. The comment towards the end of the second segment where the mother speaks about “emotional closure” is a profoundly edifying concept to meditate on, particularly in light of our culture’s desperate, clawing fear of suffering. We’ll do anything to avoid it, crush whatever innocent thing stands in our way, and yet the true path to serenity and long term emotional wellbeing is often found cutting directly down the middle of that suffering.
This is the real poverty of nihilism and atheism: To be alone, to be made to suffer alone and without meaning. For this reason I can think of almost nothing more devastating than abortion, separating mother from child, severing a most fundamental human relationship, and leaving a child to suffer terribly, and alone. Abortion is never the answer. Yes, even when it’s “medically necessary.”
Ashley’s ode to her oldest on his 9th birthday had me thinking how crazy fast things are starting to go. Especially as I did the math and realized I’m half a year away from having my own 9 year old. That’s wild to me. I must be getting older, because those “blink and you’ll miss it” statements used to make my eyes roll. Now they make them water:
“With a blink, it will be gone and ghosts of Lego messes and dance parties past will haunt me with such longing—uncaring that I spent every waking moment with them. It won’t ever be enough..”
Should Catholic politicians who publicly endorse – even clamor for – abortion be excommunicated? Perhaps. But I think it’s unlikely to happen, and even less likely to accomplish anything meaningful in the life of the excommunicated, as per the intention of the censure. Better to withhold and restrict reception of the Holy Eucharist which is the public affirmation we make as Catholics that we are united in practice and in belief with the Catholic Church and all that She professes.
Tearing through this book, “Cozy Minimalist Home” – Myquillen Smith’s follow up to her runaway bestseller “The Nesting Place” – and guys, I AM HERE FOR IT. I rearranged my entire main floor this morning and it looks like I spent a grand at Home Goods. (Husband: I did not. I spent nothing.)
I’m going to hone straight in on sentimental objects in this next installment on minimalism and decluttering, because without a doubt it is the area that trips more people up than perhaps all other categories combined, and also because it turns out a lot of the people who read Mama Needs Coffee are moms (hi, moms!) and moms get a lot of stuff given to them for their precious ones, everything from Christmas gifts to hand me downs from the neighbor kids.
Moms, lean in close today, because I’m going to unload some heavy artillery in the form of what I hope will prove, ultimately, to be self love: you don’t have to keep anything in your house that you don’t like/ doesn’t serve your family.
(insert disclaimer about toddler underwear and your husband’s whatever collection here)
A toy that is super annoying and makes your kids fight like animals: get rid of it.
A dress your best friend in college gifted you in your early twenties (and which fit in your early twenties): bye!
A decorative engraved flask with your husband’s college nickname on it he got as a groomsman gift … in 2007: see ya. (Obviously ask him first. But it couldn’t hurt to gently inquire when the last time he sipped from said flask was.)
A hulking, dark wood bookshelf that doesn’t match your home, is totally not your style, and is mostly just a clutter magnet …but your now-deceased grandmother left it to you when she died? Oy. Tough one, right? But still, goodbye. Before I delve into my explanation for being so hard hearted, I want to take a minute to unpack the meaning of gift giving.
When somebody gives you a gift, there are a couple mechanisms at work. At a fundamental level, a person gives a gift in order to express some kind of affection, appreciation, or commitment.
We give wedding rings on our wedding day to symbolize the covenant we make with our spouse. We give a beautiful necklace or a bouquet of flowers to our moms once a year to commemorate their motherhood. We slip Starbucks gift cards into our teacher’s hands at Christmas time to express our gratitude.
These are all good, beautiful reasons to give gifts.
We give smaller, less significant gifts too, all the time. A scarf for a birthday present. A rosary from a meaningful pilgrimage somewhere, a book you think someone will love, etc. What is really highlighted in these more common gifting occurrences is the intention: you’re essentially saying to someone, “hey, I was thinking of you!” or “I missed you while I was on this trip” or maybe “I hope this helps you take your mind off the difficulty you’re enduring right now.”
Gifts are transactional in nature, at least for human beings.
We give to express some kind of emotion, and in return, we’re usually hoping for joy, a smile during the unwrapping, a warm hug or, at the least, a heartfelt thank you. Even if the gift is given with no strings attached, rare is the giver who isn’t hoping to elicit pleasure from the receiver.
When my mom, for example, gives a gift to one of my children, she is giving them a tangible expression of her love. And that’s what makes it so hard to part with grandma toys, right?
Wrong! Hear me out. That tangible expression of love? It actually happens the moment she hands the gift over.It helps to think of a gift the way you might think of a hug or a kiss: offered, accepted, received, over.
What happens to the item itself after we’ve gone home and assessed whether we have room for it in our life is actually kind of beside the point; my mom was able to communicate her love to her grandchild, and her grandchild, hopefully, acted appropriately grateful in return.
This is an especially important realization to come to when you have someone in your life whose love language is gift giving. I’ve found far more success with graciously accepting the gift and then deciding after the fact whether or not it fits in my life than in trying to reprogram the giver to switch to giving ballet lessons or zoo passes.
You can definitely make those suggestion! Don’t get me wrong. But know that they may not stick, especially if the person you’re dealing with is an avid and enthusiastic shopper.
One of the most frequent criticisms I hear about minimalism is that it’s impossible to maintain with the constant influx of gifts. My first thought is wow, how loved are we to have gifts coming in constantly?! My second thought is (and this is NOT a critique of someone who genuinely expresses love through gift giving) what an incredibly materialistic and consumer-driven society we live in, that people are constantly giving and receiving gifts year round.
Graduation? There’s a gift for that. Wedding season? Off to Bed, Bath and Beyond. New baby? New blanket. Moving houses? I’ve got a vase for you. Made up holiday? Here’s an appropriately themed trinket. And so on.
One super easy way to break the cycle in your family or circle of friends is to start giving only consumable gifts, with rare exception. You’d be hard pressed to name an occasion that can’t be improved upon with a bottle of wine or a bouquet of flowers.
Think of it this way: we’ve all got probably too many coffee mugs in our cupboards and scarves in our closets. Many of us are struggling to find balance and peace in a cluttered house, as evidenced by the massive market for all things minimalist.
And then there’s this: lots of people are struggling to balance their finances, especially around Christmas time, and may actually find it pretty taxing to buy gifts not only for their immediate family, but also for a widening circle of friends and acquaintances.
Giving begets giving, and that’s not always a good thing. Make a pact with like minded friends or family members that you’re letting each other off the hook next year, and make plans to go see a movie or go out for drinks together instead.
Finally, it might be helpful to think like this: the perfect gift is a unicorn. Rarely, if ever, will someone’s vision for what you’d love/appreciate/need/wear/etc line up with the reality of what you actually love/appreciate/need/wear. I have a friend who is uncannily good at picking out earrings for me. I own maybe a dozen pair of earrings total. 3 of the 12 were gifts from her.
My husband, on the other hand, whom I deeply love, has given me exactly zero pairs of earrings which I both love and wear. And that’s not to say he hasn’t tried to give me earrings (love you honey), but just that his taste and mine are imperfectly matched.
I think that’s probably more typical than nailing it, every time. You’re not going to give – or receive – the perfect gift more often than not. Rare are the opportunities when your tastes, budget, and selection match perfectly with the recipient’s interests and style. Don’t expect to find a unicorn every time! And don’t feel bad when you don’t. They’re rare for a reason.
Where I’m going with this is, you only have room in your house for unicorns. If something in your house, a gift or not, is not a unicorn, set it free! No guilt. (And hey, it might be someone else’s unicorn, and how thrilled are they going to be to find it for half price at the Arc?)
So accept gifts graciously, donate or repurpose gifts thoughtfully, and give gifts mindfully.
With this knowledge in mind, remember that a perfect gift that ticks all the boxes is exceedingly rare, and feel new freedom in being able to assess the things you have been given as gifts with clear eyes. Because they have already performed their fundamental purpose, whether or not you actually like or use them. What a relief.
If you do end up giving away something that was a gift, say a little prayer for the person who gave it to you as you bag it up. Think fondly of a memory you have with them, something that you can hang onto long after the gift itself is faded or useless, and release yourself from the unnecessary burden of hanging onto it – or to any guilt.
(First in a series of essays this month on minimalism and its particular relevance to family life.)
(Update 1/14/19: Once I got a few episodes into the show, they introduced storylines involving cohabitation and homosexuality, so consider this your content warning and get ready to skip over a couple episodes. Womp womp.)
I’ve been an armchair minimalist since before minimalism was a buzzword. 8 moves and 5 kids in less than 10 years of marriage means I’ve honed the fine art of “do we really need this?” to a science.
Netflix launched a new series this month, and it’s fantastic: Tidying Up with Marie Kondo (of Life Changing Magic fame) Kondo is warm and gracious and my kids get a kick out of hearing spoken Japanese. The families she works with – at least so far – have been anxious to cooperate with her process and seem genuinely happier at the episode’s conclusion. There is no bootcamp style shaming or furtive confessional-style camerawork: the couples are taught Kondo’s signature method and timeline for tidying, and then seemingly left alone for days at a time to put her methods to work.
The footage of the process and of the interaction between the families has a distinctly different vibethan most reality shows; rather than encouraging strife and plot-driving tension, Kondo reminds the couples to focus on their own possessions rather than haranguing their spouses.
What I most appreciate about the show – and the process of tidying she espouses – is that it is custom fitted for each home, and for each family.
The first episode featured harried millennial parents of young toddlers and the requisite piles of laundry and dishes and toys – and chaos. When they’d completed their month long tidying endeavour, the couple were communicating better (their early scenes did seem a little overwrought with domestic tension, but the dishes! I get it!), enjoying their kids more, and seemingly more content with their already beautiful and perfectly serviceable home.
The next episode featured an older couple who were empty nesters and, frankly, hoarders. Their completed space still produced a mild panic reaction by my standards, but they did a ton of work in only 6 weeks, undoing decades of neglect and recreational shopping habits as they worked together to sort through their belongings.
Both families had clearly different styles and spaces and were in totally different stages of life; both benefited from learning that stuff, however little or much you have, won’t make you happy.
Minimalism, to me, is the idea that less is more, and that stuff can’t make you happy.
That stuff is actually value neutral, and that the space we inhabit and the things we bring into that space should be working together in harmony to increase the value in day to day living, not competing to suck it away.
A bigger family like mine is going to have a greater variation of sizes of clothing, but not necessarily own more clothing overall.
I’d venture to say that our family of 7 owns fewer total items of clothing than the average American family of 4. Because that’s what works for us. I’m the main launderer in the family, and just by the numbers, I can’t keep on top of 15 pairs of pants and 20 shirts for each family member. As our family size has increased, our net number of items of clothing per member has dropped. Seems counterintuitive, until you remember that even with more kids, you still only get 24 hours in a day. Once I figured out that I didn’t have to live normally, i.e. surrounded by mountains of toys and bins and bins of extra clothing, it was a huge relief.
Having more stuff doesn’t increase happiness beyond a certain point. At some point, you hit peak satisfaction. Peak satisfaction is probably closer to sustainability than we realize. Once you have your basic needs for food, shelter and clothing met, happiness actually levels off fairly soon thereafter. A family living in a 4,000 square foot house is not appreciably happier than a family living in 1,200 square feet, at least not in ways that can be directly correlated with square footage.
So what does this look like, practically speaking? But first, a caveat. Minimalism treads on privileged ground. It’s not just for the rich or upper middle class – I believe that almost anyone can benefit from it – but it does presuppose a level of security. Self-reflection is a luxury. I give thanks for the stability that enables me to calmly assess our circumstances and adjust as necessary. Not everybody lives in this kind of privilege. I also want to avoid falling prey to the false morality trap. You know what I’m talking about, right? Organized people are not “better” than disorganized people. Clean and well dressed people are not superior to dirty and disheveled people. People who eat conventionally grown produce are not inferior to people who buy organic. In a society that is becoming increasingly untethered from objective moral values, pseudo values have swept in to fill the vacuum, and they’re pretty whack. And minimalism, while it can compliment your values, is not itself a value.
Minimalism begets time:
I read a lot of books. I also write a lot. I also cook at least two, sometimes three meals each day for seven people. I can’t – I don’t want to – spend hours every day picking up toys and books and throw pillows and dirty underwear. An hour or two of that each day is more than enough for me. As such, we don’t have all that many of any of those items, dirty underwear exempted.
There are five throw pillows in our house. Two on each of our couches and one on a chair. I guess if we have a sixth child we might…I kid, I kid. I don’t know why we have so few. I just know that the ones we have, I mostly like, and I don’t mind picking up five pillows off the floor every day. Five feels like a manageable number of pillows to me.
We have 16 dinner plates. About half that many bowls, because I guess my kids can break anything, even Corelle. We use a dozen mason jars for drinks, have a cupboard of 10 coffee cups, all of which I actually like, and there is a shelf of glass barware for fancier stuff than water. Down below we have a single kid’s drawer: 10 plastic plates, 6 stainless steel cups, 6 water bottles (all missing lids), and 2 of those magic silicone toppers that make any cup a sippy cup. Zelie still drinks bottles, and we have 4 of those, and 4 nipples.
Our kitchen is small, a 70s-style galley layout. I’ve had friends comment on how small, but honestly, I don’t really mind it now. I wish I had more counter space sometimes, but for ordinary life, it’s actually fine.
Obviously if we were hosting dinner parties for the high school track team every Thursday night we’d need to own more dishes, and I’m sure as my kids age, we will! But right now? 16 dinner plates is enough. And it means the sink is never overly full of dishes, and that I have time to do stuff besides dishes. Like pick up dirty underwear.
Minimalism begets contentment:
About that galley kitchen. I don’t love it. When we moved in it was a dark brown cave with mustard linoleum accents. I’d love to blow out and rip down and bust through all the walls and surfaces, but the budget won’t permit it, maybe for twenty years or maybe ever. In the meantime, I’m a domestic engineer who spends 90% of her life working at home, and I want to feel good in my space. So month by month, one $30 can of paint at a time, we’ve changed the way it looks and feels.
Slapping a coat of paint on something isn’t minimalism, per se, but slapping a coat of paint on something in order to make it work better for you rather than trying to shop your way into contentment? Totally. I rarely bring new non-consumables into my kitchen, because there isn’t space for much, but also because I like the way it looks now. A cupboard shelf with matching (and allegedly indestructible) white dishes is actually really attractive, even when the shelf they’re sitting on is dated wood, and the countertops cheap composite.
Don’t misunderstand me here, I’m not saying that you have to have plain white everything in your kitchen, lined up in uniform columns like a control freak (raises hand), just that when you are intentional about what bring into, or keep, in your daily environment, it makes you happier.
You’ll be less tempted by what you see on Instagram or the aisles of wherever, not because you have achieved monastic temporal detachment, but because you are content. It’s easier to forgive my kitchen for its other shortcomings when I’m not opening drawers that are exploding with logo-tatted water bottles from our insurance company or whatever.
And listen, if your closet floor is invisible beneath layers of rejected or dirty or wrong size clothes and there are bent wire hangers crammed on the rods, holding stuff you haven’t worn since college, then of course you’re going to feel like you need – want – to go shopping.
Set yourself up for contentment by only hanging onto what you love. That’s my version of “sparks joy.” And yes, I love our NoseFrida, for reasons that are less aesthetic and more functional.
Minimalism begets domestic tranquility
Marriage – ay, there’s the rub. “But my husband collects x,” or “my wife wants to have a two year supply of y on hand, at all times!” you may be thinking.
Fine, great! An intentional, curated collection of just about anything can be beautiful in its own way. If he has a garage full of ski gear or a shed full of tools, why not line everything up and mount some hooks to store stuff vertically, and make the space look more like a nicely merchandised end cap at REI and not the scary multi-neighbor garage sale? And recycle the old and broken stuff while you’re at it. You are not going to hit the jackpot on antique road show or one day coach an amateur ice hockey team, half the members of which will have nothing to use but your old dirty gear from 1998, so it’s a good thing you held onto it.
Try sitting down with your spouse and making a list of things that you already own that bring you joy. I can imagine for me it really would be a few pairs of Kendra Scott earrings I love that I’ve received as gifts. For Dave, it would probably be camping gear and some of his barware.
There’s nothing wrong with owning stuff, especially when you’re hanging onto it because it serves your family and makes you happy.
But those garbage bags full of used baby clothes that may or may not come in handy down the road? Those aren’t serving your family right now. And they could, in fact, be serving another family at this very moment. Same with old equipment for sports you don’t play anymore. Books you’ve read and don’t plan – realistically – to re-read in the future. Clothes that probably aren’t going to fit again or, if they do, will be aged beyond usefulness or stylishness.
One of the best places to start with a spouse who’s less inclined to letting things go is to start with the positives: what having, say, an emptier garage or basement or unstuffed dresser drawers or kitchen cabinets could help provide for your family. More space to play and grow. Maybe room to carve out a spare sleeping space (in the basement, probably not the garage but YOU DO YOU) for an introverted child who is currently sharing a room or for hosting overnight guests.
(I’m going to cover the marriage dynamic extensively in an entire future post, so stay tuned.)
I’m not going to pretend like this concept is super intuitive for everyone to apply. I really think some people are just born collectors (cough cough my eldest son’s horrifying top bunk), and others are more prone to frequent Goodwill . How you were raised factors in, too. How much money your family makes. Whether or not you travel a lot, move frequently, host regularly, etc.
Kondo, while not preaching minimalism in her method, per se, seems to have a tremendous grasp on how to help different personalities embrace and apply her method (which does tend towards minimalism in its essence, I think, because I think most of us hit our hedonistic threshold with stuff much sooner than our linen closets would have us believe) no matter whether they want to have a whole room stuffed full of crafting supplies and musical instruments or if they prefer to live in more austere quarters.
The biggest sell for our family to start – and keep – living this way for so long has been the time freedom. I can clean my entire house in under an hour, no joke. And by clean I mean stuff is organized, de-loused, and re-homed, not that it’s scrubbed and shined. My floors, baseboards and shower tiles will tell you the real story of how “clean” things really are around here. Tidy, though? Anyone can do tidy, I promise.
Our Italian living room/dining room/guest room/play room. Rome was the true birthplace of my minimalism. I owned 4 dresses, 3 pairs of jeans, 10 shirts, and 4 sweaters. The kids had 2 pairs of shoes each. We had a single canvas bin of toys. It was totally crazy and totally liberating at the same time.
Today marks the beginning of my absolute favorite period of time of the whole year: the O Antiphons. It’s the beginning of the end, the final countdown till Christmas. Advent’s last hurrah.
I have not strictly observed the Advent action items – or inaction items, as it were – which I laid out for myself back in November. I never did quite get up the self discipline to cut off the Christmas tunes in the car, so we’ve been thrilling in hope and wearily rejoicing all these past long weeks. I did limit our options to the Christian station and the 24 hour Christmas station, so we were at least constantly being filled up with positive noise, if indeed we had the radio on at all.
It has been glorious. No toggling between NPR and catchy-yet-slutty pop music that my kids probably don’t understand yet, but that I honestly shouldn’t even be listening to myself. No negativity streaming into my ears from another breaking news world report detailing some heinous atrocity half a world away.
I’ve also been steadfastly abstinent from social media, save for a brief click on Facebook to drop a link to a new piece of writing I’ve published, or to highlight some truly interesting and important bit of information.
I don’t flop down at the end of a long weekday of mothering and writing depleted beyond all recognition, capable only of streaming and scrolling. I’m still very tired, but it’s the normal kind of tired from caring for people and performing the day’s labors. I’m not overstimulated and hyperactive, looking to my teeny screen for my next dopamine hit.
So if I could make any sort of suggestion for you, gentle readers, as we cruise into this last week of Advent and preparation for Christmas day, it would mostly revolve around reducing your screen time.
Leave your phone plugged in on the counter at night. Crawl into bed with a book – electronic or otherwise – and leave the notifications and blue light downstairs/in the kitchen/far from your sleeping quarters.
Turn off the radio in the car, or, if you must drown out the ambient noise of screaming children (and I must) turn it to K-love or pop in a Christmas CD. Matt Maher’s new Advent album is phenomenal. These twotracks in particular.
Take a fast from social media from now until December 26th. Nothing bad will happen. You will not miss anything. Anyone who desperately needs to get ahold of you already knows how to do so, using the numbers connected to that tiny screen in your pocket that you’re going to plug in downstairs tonight.
I have missed literally zero important things in my month and some change fast from Instagram and Twitter. I’m more present to my family, have enjoyed connecting intentionally with friends and neighbors, and have been forced to confront some lazy habits which were preventing me from investing in relationships with people in my immediate physical proximity.
I’ll never abandon Voxer and the digital connection it allows me to enjoy with far flung friends and relatives, but social media is only a one-dimensional substitute for real connection. Anyone who has ever had a heartbreaking conversation with a friend and then experienced the cognitive dissonance of scrolling through their cheery Instagram feed later that day knows exactly what I mean here: social media only tells one side of the story, and a curated side at that.
Pull away from the 24 hour news cycle. If you absolutely must stay up to date for your job’s sake, then pick one or two trusted sources and go directly to their homepages to check the news, once a day. Declutter the dozens of apps and any and all push notifications. You do not need to know when a new related story pops up, or be alerted every time you receive a text message. If someone needs you badly enough, they will call you. Obviously work is work, but the average Joe or Jane probably doesn’t need to be 24/7 available and plugged in. Be honest with yourself in this regard.
Commit to a nightly family rosary/decade/reading of the scriptures associated with that day’s O Antiphonwith your family or roommate(s). The Hallmark movies you haven’t watched yet will still be there when you’re finished. Dim the lights, light some candles, and make space for quiet reflection in defiance of our frenetic culture.
Stop buying stuff. Seriously. You probably have enough gifts for everyone in your life already. Your teachers/principals/service workers/coworkers/neighbors/distant acquaintances don’t need anything from you that you can find on Amazon. If gift giving is your love language and you are horrified by this suggestion, then go to Trader Joe’s and buy some nice dark chocolate and a few mid range bottles of wine and pass them out. Nobody needs another cheap (insert item here) in their home. They just don’t. Give a bottle of wine, a nice chocolate bar, some homemade cookies, a coffee gift card, or a great hug. Let each other off the hook to partake in the frantic consumption cycle. Make a donation to a morally sound and meaningful charity in someone’s honor. Pray a rosary for someone and present them with a beautiful hand-lettered card letting them know about it. It is so good for our hearts to stop shopping before Christmas. (And I’ve never met a teacher who didn’t want a bottle of wine or a gift card for coffee or burritos.)
If you’re still really itching to shop, try a decluttering spree instead. Grab a couple trash bags or discarded Amazon boxes and fill them with broken toys to recycle or toss and gently loved or new toys + clothes to donate. It never ceases to amaze me how similar the surge of happiness is between buying and giving away. It’s the novelty that fires the good feelings, I’m sure of it. Plus you’ll have a beautifully pared down playroom/basement/garage/living room come Christmas morning.
Give something up for this final week of Advent. Maybe it’s chocolate. Maybe it’s wine. Maybe it’s one of the above mentioned practices. Make a little space in the inn of your heart for the baby savior by pushing something aside, even – and maybe especially, a good something. The king is coming. He is coming to personally enter into each of our hearts, and He will come again in glory at the end of time, when we won’t have the luxury of a season of preparation to ready ourselves.
I was going to write one of those perennially popular and always vaguely intriguing “day in the life” posts but there it sits, languishing in my drafts folder, because do you have any idea how much time it takes to assemble one of those bad boys? Especially if there are any pictures, which are kind of crucial to making said piece enjoyable for the reader.
En ee way, I decided that since I’m obviously too busy living my glamorous life as a severely pregnant (don’t worry, I always talk like this for the last 7 weeks or so) woman with 4 kids under the age of reason and a mildly-demanding side hustle involving the written word, it might be helpful to pass along some of my best practices gleaned from 7+ years of parenting and mostly (MOSTLY) pestering older and wiser moms for their wisdom.
I mean, why maintain a robust Facebook following if not to poll the audience with the truly pressing questions about potty training and mini van recommendations?
Why indeed.
Anyway, here are some things that are saving my life lately. Maybe they’ll be helpful to you, or maybe you’ll laugh that these are things I ACTUALLY SPEND TIME THINKING ABOUT.
The dining room table (built by an amazing and talented local friend – post coming soon) must be cleared off between meals because voila, it’s also my home office.
1. The laundry. Oh sweet mercy, the laundry. Just kidding, because I love laundry (really, I do, but don’t click away!) I think because it affords me a real, concrete sense of accomplishment when it’s caught up.
But wait, you might be thinking, it’s never caught up.
Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. Cackle. I have discovered the secret to happiness, and it’s doing laundry every single day. One or two loads (or maybe more, season and family size-necessitating) per day and then (this is clutch) folding it/delivering it as soon as it’s done.
Seems outrageous, but it means I have a couple of dirty things each night in hampers, but overall, the entire laundry situation is perpetually in process, being worn, washed, and delivered back to the respective closets in a beautiful circle of life.
It seems counterintuitive that perpetually processing laundry makes for greater mental freedom, but there you have it. I now see laundry like I see dental hygiene or running the dishwasher. I’d no more let 3 days worth of dirty dishes pile up in the sink than I’d let as many days’ outfits pile up in the hamper. Here’s a big, fat caveat though: if you have unlimited supplies of anything (aside from the strict necessities like socks and undies) you will use them. And their very presence will enable the overwhelm of your laundry system, just like, I imagine, owning 40 sets of forks and knives could prevent you from dishwashing out of necessity. So my kids operate from fairly capsuled-wardrobes, with limitless socks and undies (specific character for each child of same gender to ease sorting + all white socks for boys and colorful socks for girl) and a strictly limited selection of other options.
Each big boy has 5-7 uniform polos, 4 pairs of uniform/Mass pants, 3 pairs of jeans, and about 4 complete sets of jammies. We also have a drawer full of athletic shorts/pants for leisure wear, and they each have 3-4 long sleeve and short sleeve t-shirts in their current rotation. I will pull down new shirts of the current size from time to time and rest other shirts in order to give them some semblance of variety and not miss the window of the item of clothing actually fitting them, but at no point do they have access to their entire Star Wars t-shirt collection, nor are their summer clothes accessible during the colder months. It would (and has, in the past) make for a miserable, endless pile of work for the chief laundry officer of the house.
Once or twice a week I do sheets and bath towels, as necessary. And all our bath towels are white and bleach-able. There are 3 or 4 of higher quietly cotton pile that I secret away in the master bath for parental use, otherwise it’s fair game. I probably buy new towels ever 6-12 months and rotate the old ones out for rags or pet use.
I realized I was more or less making use of this system on my own, but added the additional linens to their own schedule as needed per the recommendation of Lindsay from “My Child, I Love You,” whose mothering skills I tip my proverbial hat to while bowing deeply at the waist. I figure if she can keep empty laundry baskets with 9? 10? kids, I have zero excuses.
I also make the kids deliver their own goods after I wash and fold it all. Because I like doing those parts, and because I don’t feel confident in their nascent sorting abilities. Soon enough though, kids. Soon enough.
2. I pack lunches as soon as we get home from school. Sometimes the kids help, sometimes I do it myself, sometimes it’s a group effort. I call for lunch boxes to exit backpacks upon arrival in the house and be delivered to the counter, where I promptly dump and clean as necessary and then re-pack and return directly to the fridge. I give them a good wash on Fridays before retiring them for their weekend rest. I try to see it like paperwork, and so I only want to touch them once. If it’s on the counter and has to be put somewhere anyway, I may as well fill it with food and put it right back into the fridge. Plus, I hate mornings.
3. Dishes. Now dishes I hate. Dishes will be the domestic duty that gets me to heaven. But. I do have some thoughts. First, I streamlined our kitchen setup down to bare necessities and all one color. Maybe that strikes you as utilitarian, and you’d be absolutely correct in saying so. It’s beautifully, wonderfully, uniformly utilitarian, and my cupboards look like an IKEA display. White and glass and nothing else. Because you know what is colorful enough? Life with 4 kids. Anyway, we have about 12 white Corelle dinner plates, bowls, and small plates, and 2 dozen mason jars for drink ware. I have a little more fun in the barware department, but still only 4 of each type of glass (red wine, white wine, champagne, and whiskey) and they all match. Some are from the Dollar Tree so trust me when I reassure you that this is not an expensive venture. We also have a single drawer with about 8 IKEA poisonous plastic kid’s plates and tumblers, and 3 sippy cups with lids. And that’s it. Oh, wait, tupperware. Again with the IKEA, about 4 matching containers with lids in 4 graduated sizes, plus half a dozen glass 1-cup rubbermaid containers for daddy lunches.
It is so pleasant (well, as pleasant as dishwashing can be) to do dishes when everything matches and is clean and free of scratches or chips. That’s where the utterly boring and utterly serviceable clean white Corelle comes in. When my kids are older and out of the house I can relax my aesthetic of prison minimalist chic, but until then, we’re gonna wash those same 12 white plates every day and we’re gonna like it.
(And when we have parties, we use paper. We’re not partying much these days, so I have zero qualms of the environmental impact of a single sleeve of high quality paper plates purchased on a bi-annual basis. If you are partying more than we are, might i suggest the even greener option of buying a second dozen of the white Corelle beauties and keeping them in the garage?)
The kids load and unload the dishwasher, and they’ve also begun clearing and wiping down the table after meals. Which leads me to my next brilliant revelation:
4. “Yes, as soon as ____”
I’ve been working this system hard all school year, and so far, so good. Here’s a live demo:
“Mom, can we watch Wild Kratts?”
“Yes, as soon as you hang up your backpacks/finish your reading/bring me your lunch box”
“Mom, can we go play baseball till dinnertime?
“Yes, as soon as you pick up the Legos and put them away.”
“Mom, can I go outside and play with Andrew?”
“Yes, as soon as you put on your jacket and make sure there are no shoes on the floor of the front hall closet”
“Mom, can we have hot cocoa?”
“Yes, as soon as you finish your salad/carrots/whatever vegetable I’m pretending we’re eating tonight.”
You get the idea. I found that I was constantly saying no and feeling like I was bargaining with my kids to preempt them to good behavior/good habits, and I’ve realized that by leading with “yes,” we’re all so much happier and feel like we’re winning. Now, I don’t honor every request and I promise, I don’t preface every movement of their lives with a necessary domestic task, but all in all I’d say we’re learning a better balance of helpfulness and permission granted, of give and take. Plus, it makes me feel like a much nicer mom to say yes so many times a day. Power of affirmations, babies.
5. Empty the car.
Don’t know why it took me 7 years to master this one, but we’ve disciplined ourselves into the habit of almost completely emptying the car upon arriving home for the day. No backpacks, shoes, toys, food, or mom-debris left behind. The exceptions are my makeup bag (a girl has to have some time to mascara), 2 emergency pairs of socks in the glove compartment (thanks, mom!) diapers and wipes, of course, and a stash of current library books for in flight entertainment. Additionally, there can usually be found a spare fleece or light jacket in the back in case someone has an accident or it starts snowing out of a 70 degree day, not unheard of for Denver.
As a result, the car looks clean, the kids are actually encouraged to keep it clean, and we are all encouraged forced to put stuff back where it belongs upon arriving home each day. It’s like the mobile version of Marie Kondo, and yes, a healthy stack of spare diapers under the passenger seat spark joy.
This room is a naturally toy-free zone. When I find them there, into a bucket or basket they go until put-back time. (I mean, unless they’re actively being played with. I’m not a monster).
6. Kamikaze clean at night. I’m a little militant about this one (cough, cough, sorry Dave) but I do not go to bed with a dirty house. The kids tidy up the dinner table and their craft area in the kitchen, plus any toys that have remained out from the day’s play. And I finish processing and delivering the laundry and make sure the kitchen is scrubbed down and ready for business the following morning. Mornings are tough enough without waking to a disaster (and more often you will wake to some other disaster, any way) so I like to have a clean slate to start fresh from. Otherwise, I tend to feel like I’m behind the eight ball all day long.
Obviously there are nights where the dishes don’t get done and someone is sick or super needy or one of us is traveling and things fall apart, but on the whole, we go to bed with a clean house 95% of the time. And it makes a big difference.
All your toys are belong to us
7. I promise I’m going to stop. But this one is critical. Limited toys. We have 4 kids – soon to be 5 – and they’re all really little, and we could literally be drowning in toys. But we’re not, because I refuse to live that way. Our kids are not deprived: they each have a bike or plasma car, an armory of Nerf guns and lightsabers, a handful of special stuffed animals, and a few personal trinkets. Other than that we have a small box of Legos, a toy kitchen with cooking instruments, some doll-sized baby care gear for Evie’s growing cat family (don’t ask), and some matchbox cars and a ramp. There is a soccer goal in the backyard, and a stash of baseballs and bats in the garage.
And that’s it.
That’s all the toys we own, pretty much, and we are constantly paring back after birthdays and holidays, swapping out old or broken toys for newer favorites. Our parents are really great about buying thoughtful or small or even non-toy gifts, and I suspect this is one area where larger families can have an advantage, because spending big $$$ on a dozen grandchildren could really add up.
Our kids don’t seem deprived, but if they do complain about not having as much stuff as so-and-so (which to be frank, is very rare) I just point out different families do things differently, and aren’t they lucky to have more siblings? A pet? A bigger yard? etc. than that friend. Accentuate the positive.
Besides, they’re accustomed to our continuous purging of possessions, and they’ve confided to me before that they were grateful “for not having very much to clean up,” because when I give the order to go put the toy corner back together (two IKEA Kallax 4-cube shelves with bins) it can be done easily by even the 3 year old in under 5 minutes.
It forces me to be accountable to my own accumulation of “stuff,” too. I don’t really need a new piece of seasonal decor for my mantle or another candle (okay, maybe another candle…) or a cute mug because the stuff I have, I like, and it’s working well. It’s a good practice of minimalism for the sake of contentment, rather than minimalism for making some kind of philosophical point. We are minimalists by nature because our lives are kind of stuffed to the bursting with relationships, so there’s not a lot of room for much else.
Whew, that was a novella. Hopefully useful? Interesting? Or at least you’re sleeping peacefully now.
May your laundry be manageable, and your dishes unbreakable.
Hi, my name’s Jenny and I’m a compulsive tidier-upper.
My bathrooms might have an easily distinguishable level of grime about them, but rare is the afternoon you’d walk into our home and see toys on the floor and laundry scattered across the family room floor. At least for more than an hour or two.
It’s not that it doesn’t get dirty. It’s filthy under the kitchen table, and the walls are slick with the evidence that we have 4 kids aged 5 and under, none of which are particularly domesticated as of yet. But I’ll be a goat in Joanna Gaines’ shed if my house is going to be untidy.
I think I was a minimalist before Marie Kondo was a glimmer in the NYT Bestseller List’s eye. While she grew up collecting organization magazines, I watched my mom get her A-game on with a garbage bag and full throated promises of one-way tickets to Goodwill.
(And she always delivered.)
Now that I’m grown with babies of my own, like any good country song would have it, I take their same bags of crap and worn out onesies and tchotchke toys to my own local thrift store, feeling a surge of pride as I empty another tailgate full of clutter in the name of “charitable giving” and a handy 20% coupon for my next visit. Dave affectionately refers to the thrifting life cycle as “renting from Saver’s.”
Close enough.
Over the past year, as the kids have morphed into more distinctive personalities and not so much an amorphous mass of basic biological needs (<– not a commentary on their inherent worth or fundamental human dignity, just an observation that small children are colossally inept at pretty much everything…so somebody please explain to me the difference between a fetus and a 1 year old, and why they aren’t equally eligible for handy dismissal for inconvenience. Geography isn’t a terribly compelling argument in my mind. But that seems to be the leading explanation. End tangent.) we’ve seen a growing affinity for keeping Lego creations intact for more than one afternoon, hoarding treasures in surprising places, and attempting to colonize bacterium in the downstairs bathroom in new and scientifically adventurous ways.
In other words, there is crap strewn about that I did not strew, and people mind if I move it.
I think they call this leveling up. So I now have more compassion for friends and readers who’ve said “but I can’t just take their stuff away” to the Kondo-esque advice of ridding the joy sucking detritus from one’s abode. Okay, okay, I get it now.
That being said, as these children grow and develop extensive leaf and rock collections and stuff apple cores and sucker sticks under their pillows, I’m seeing a greater necessity to cultivate the essentials, and let the “would sure be nice-es” fall by the wayside.
For me, as a mom with introverted type A tendencies who works from home and has nobody in school full time yet, that means an almost militant commitment to keeping our common areas open and airy…well, not exactly airy (looks pointedly towards diaper can) … but absent of piles and stacks.
But how?
Practical steps:
1. We’ve had a lot of success with training our otherwise basically feral children to put things away where they belong. Because they’re angels. Because I’m an amazing parent. Because they don’t have very much stuff to begin with, and everything has a home.
We have a single toy basket on our main floor, and a single book basket in the family room. They’re free to trash the family room with both to their heart’s content, and then clean the entire thing in a 2 minute fire drill. The key to this system succeeding is that they actually can clean it up, totally on their own, in 2 minutes.
I learned the hard way that having too many toys and a larger than average family could easily equal a crapped out living space. Because 10 toys out on the floor is messy, but 10 toys per kid out on the floor is like the library in the rich suburb north of us after Tuesday’s 10 o’clock preschool story hour. Looks like FAO Schwarz after a terrorism drill.
So they don’t have a ton of toys, and we rotate them out in a kind of toy library system. The trains and tracks live high up on a shelf and come down whenever they want to play with them, but they don’t live in easy reach. The hot wheels have a specific drawer they sleep in at night, and return there they do with every setting sun. The Legos live on top of the fridge, and I have a catch all spot in the kitchen I dump stragglers into throughout the day so I can rehome them at night. I figure it takes about as much energy to see and resent a Lego on the floor in the bathroom as it does to scoop it up and sequester it.
(They do not keep toys in their bedrooms. Just the stuffed animal lovies and the odd book or race car. But only the animals live there.)
2. The bigger headache has traditionally been books, which seem to be just too overwhelming to reshelve. I don’t really blame them: when I walk into the toy room and see 104 children’s tomes scattered open across the floor, I feel incapable of rectifying the situation myself.
This past winter I stopped shelving them, period, and just started keeping the daily selection upstairs in a basket in the family room and the rest dumped in no particular order into those ubiquitous canvas storage bins which fit neatly on the bookshelf. Suddenly they are able to clean them up, because dumping stuff in bins, as every mother knows, is the absolute easiest way to clean.
I’ve also committed to bringing them to the library every week or so, which has alleviated the guilt of donating unwanted/worn out/twaddly books. Yes, I know, I know … smart, well-adjusted future Nobel laureates all have one thing in common, and it’s an extensive home library. But, as a confirmed dweller of suburbia with 3 excellent children’s libraries within a 2 mile radius of our house, I’ve let myself off the hook. Why not let them hang onto the bulk of our books, and I’ll build up a little collection of true favorites and classics at home?
3. Their wardrobes are continually and scrupulously edited. Is something ill-fitting? Worth saving for a younger sibling? Best donated to our local Gabriel House or a cousin? I have a constant outgoing bag in our front hall closet for donations. I pull something out almost every time I’m doing laundry, and it helps keep their wardrobes manageable for me, the sole launderess. When they are running their own loads of whites and colors one day (soon, I hope!) they can have a dozen t-shirts a piece. But for now, they have like 5.
The other big factor is shoe containment. We’ve perfected a system of 2 pairs up, 2 pairs down for the big boys. They keep their mass shoes and school shoes downstairs in their closet (1 pair of each per kid) and their play shoes and sandals upstairs in the front closet on an IKEA shoe rack. In the winter, the sandals get swapped out for boots. They know where to put their shoes when they come in, and when they forget (which is 90% of the time), there’s relatively low drama when I point to the closet and remind them. The babies’ shoes live in their rooms, and they also own 3-4 pairs apiece. I do not save shoes unless I love them and they’re in great shape, because they’re so cheap at garage sales and thrift stores, and because my kids wear them hard, and generally they’re not in inheritable shape, baby shoes notwithstanding. Also, my kids are barefoot a lot, much to grandma’s dismay.
Finally, I’ve had to relax and admit to myself that nothing bad is going to happen if things look trashed at 1:30 in the afternoon. It is trashed, because 5 people are sharing space and trying to build a life together here during the daylight hours. I’ve tried to relax and look past (waaaaaaaay past, in the case of the bathrooms) the normal wear and tear of daily living.
And knowing that I can pick up the house (with a little help from my little friends) in 20 minutes after dinner, I don’t sweat the messes, the piles, and the puddles that accumulate throughout the day.
We’re in this together, me and these kids, and we’re getting better and better at putting the pieces back together before bedtime, even if the sink is piled real, real high.
Hi, I’m Jenny and I’m a closet real estate junkie. I devour episodes of House Hunters and read shelter magazines like 4 walls and a front door are going out of style. And I regularly nickel and dime our carefully-crafted monthly budget to death with “just one missing piece” or “a quick $11 tweak” to rooms in our house that I desperately want to love but feel hamstrung in so doing, because they are not actually mine.
(The irony of the very title of this post is not lost on me, because no matter whether our housing checks go to first mortgage of wherever or rental company, inc, aint none of us taking it with us. But bear with me.)
I love decorating. I love finding something and giving it new life with a fresh coat of paint or by introducing it to an unlikely partner and achieving style cohesion.
When the Nesting Place dropped a couple years back, I was all over that pretty little tome, even though until this morning, I’d actually only read it in black and white on ye trusty old Kindle. (Kinda ups the game to see her genius laid out in brilliant color. My bad, Myquillin.)
I eagerly incorporated her battle cry of “it doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful!” into every square inch of our cute, if beige, rental house.
This may not be my house, my internal monologue mused, but it’s going to look like it, gosh darn it. Even if I can’t change the wall colors or tear out every inch of (perfectly nice, but still horrifying with small children) carpet, or Joanna Gaines me some decent sight lines between the kitchen and dining room.
So I mixed and I matched. I scoured Saver’s and Goodwill and the clearance racks at Home Goods. I’ve even curb-picked a few gems from our neighbor’s ample front walkway. And over the past two-and-a-half years, I’ve turned this place into our home.
Bringing a couple more babies home into the mix hasn’t hurt to make it feel more official, either.
And yet, every month when I write that rental check, I have to tamp down a little surge of shame, or maybe it’s more like wounded pride.
This isn’t where a thirty-something family of 6 should be. We should be homeowners by now. When will we be grown ups?
Even just writing that out, it looks so ridiculous to me. Because it is ridiculous. We have clean water and secure jobs and healthy babies and 300 days of sunshine per year. And we live in a safe and walkable neighborhood that I have come to love. I can walk to the grocery store, our gym, and, quite recently, a craft brewery which welcomes children and goldfish crackers. Because Denver!
Of course, when I’m throwing my monthly mental pity party as I sign the check, I’m not usually thinking about the choices we’ve willingly made that have gotten us here, choices we would never dream of altering, even if we could. Living in Italy. Traveling abroad. Being open to 4 little souls who are even now mingling Legos and mac and cheese into a builder-grade paste which will cement itself to the side of my (free! hand-stained and refinished by us!) kitchen table.
I wouldn’t trade what we’ve done with our first 6 1/2 years of marriage for anything. And yet there’s still frustration as we crunch the numbers.
God has been so faithful. He continues to be so faithful, even as I question His path for us, frantically searching Redfin and Zillow for new listings as I nurse a sweet baby to sleep. I could be doing spiritual reading, or even staring blankly at a wall, and it would probably be better for my heart and soul than clicking on “just one more” listing, devouring data about square footage and interest rates and HOA fees like an addict.
I’ve some work to do in the contentment department, and I know there needs to be a day of reckoning for my heart which seems to vacillate wildly between “let’s eat rice 11 times a week while we save for a fantastic down payment” and “I just need to spend $75 on some patio furniture for our front porch so this feels more like home.”
Can’t have it both ways, Jenny.
Can’t have that Pinterest-perfect curated space of your dreams, updated as the styles and seasons change, and be hitting those financial goals you set with your patient and probably saintly husband.
So here’s my new missive: waiting. Waiting in joyful hope. Waiting in expectant peace, and believing that one more load of crap from the thrift store or the Target Dollar Spot is not going to make this place more home to us. And waiting on God’s timing and His clear directive that our next step is His next step.
I’m better at doing. But I can’t “do” my way into the kind of patience that grows gratitude. Which is a pity, really, because I’m rather handy with a hammer and spray paint.
One of my most popular posts of all time is the little “how to” I banged out around this time last year about how to hack the KonMari method with a houseful of kids. Except, as a few commenters have pointed out lately, it devolved more into a “why to” then a “how to.” Mea culpa, I guess I got distracted by grandiose visions of whole-family minimalism. (Which is very much my jam, but may not necessarily be yours, so click freely away if the thought of throwing stuff away stresses you out!)
This post aims to remedy that, providing you with some practical steps on how to implement my preferred lifestyle and home esthetic of choice, a movement I’ve dubbed “militant minimalism.”
I’ve little doubt my affinity for scarcity has a lot to do with my identity as a rare female INTJ, but I still firmly believe this homemaking style can work well for families, and in fact works much better than many more popular styles. See “drowning in Dollar Spot crap and permission slips” chic.
We’ve all been there (raises sheepish hand).
Here are some things I’ve learned by gleaning from Marie Kondo’s treatise on tidying (keeping the baby but throwing out the Buddhist bathwater, if you will).
1. “Spark joy” might be unrealistic for some categories. Let’s go with “isn’t paralyzingly irritating.”
When evaluating my children’s myriad possessions, including a mysterious and precious nightstand drawer full of “treasures” including chunks of concrete from the backyard and inexplicable scraps of roof shingles, I have to ask myself clarifying questions that go beyond the aspirational inquiry “does this spark joy?”
throwback pic to when those Duplos did indeed spark joy. But the honeymoon ended and back to Saver’s they went. No shame.
Because what Marie Kondo fails to adequately address, through no fault of her own at the time of writing, is the issue that much, nay, most of the necessary and optional equipment accompanying tiny humans and their care is not inherently joy-sparking.
Stained Hulk Smash t-shirt, disgusting bath flutes, multiple tubes of diaper cream and random drawer of backyard detritus, I’m looking at you.
While it’s true that the usefulness of, well, some of the aforementioned items can and does contribute to their beauty, some things are just important to your children because they are. There’s no logic, and there’s definitely no reasoning with a passionate 4 year old with a ladybug fetish.
I concede that point. And so there are items in our home that are utterly worthless and even irritating to my spartan style, but I don’t live alone, so exist they must. The key here is scalability. So can my kids have a handful of crappy Dollar Tree treasures, a drawer full of random coins and old sticks, and a couple of creepy bathtub toys which are clearly past their prime? Yes. But the key is moderation. Extreme moderation, in this case. I could gather all of the truly offensive items in this category into a single laundry basket and it would’t be full. So yes, your kids will have a small, curated pile of crap that you won’t understand, and that’s fine and normal, so long as it’s limited to small, identifiable areas of your home. So a special drawer in their bedrooms and a ledge along the bathtub? Fine. A pile in every single room in the house and 5 piles in the backyard? Not fine.
2. Ask for help
When you first start out to attempt the purge laid out in “Life Changing Magic,” you will need time. I personally do a lot of my cleaning and decluttering after bedtime or during strategic and well white-noised naps. If your kids aren’t good sleepers, aren’t super young, or your house is too teeny for that to work, you’re going to need back up. Either hire a sitter for 2 6-hour chunks (or 4 3-hour sessions, whatever works better for you) or ask a girlfriend or neighbor to swap childcare with you as you help each other.
I just spent a long weekend with a dear friend and her 4 young children and my 1 lap baby milling about and even though it.was.insane at times, we managed to declutter her kitchen, family room, dining/craft room, walk-in pantry, and part of her master bedroom. In about 2 days. Was everybody wearing pants the entire time? Well, that would be telling. But we did end up with about 20 large cardboard boxes and trash bags FULL of stuff to donate, not counting furniture.
3. “One in, one out”
If your kids are little it might be relatively easy to start working with them to establish a “one in, one out” rule for toys and items of clothing. So deciding on a set number (maybe not a literal number, but a reasonable amount you eyeball and deem appropriate for your family) and then going forward in coaching them to consider what they’d like to donate, dump, or repurpose in order to accept some new gift or sought-after toy.
My kids know that when they get a new pair of shoes or jeans, it’s because the old pair(s) are in need of passing down or retiring permanently. Same goes for toys.
If my kids unexpectedly receive a new toy (neighbors, grandparents, happy meal, exhausted mother at Target) then I’ll make the call (because they’re still little and it’s my house) whether or not it stays, and for how long. I have zero guilt about passing along little tchotchkes and toys to the local thrift shop or doctor’s waiting room (ask first) if my kids have played with them and then basically abandoned them after a couple days or a week. Also up for grabs? Toys that just annoy you. If it makes my kids fight, ends up scattered in pieces everywhere every time it’s used, or is just plain ugly (or inappropriate) then out it goes. This is the mommy version of “sparking joy,” I suppose.
4. Paperwork/junk mail: don’t let it in, but if you must, get it out quickly
This is a huge one for most busy families, I know. I don’t have the perfect solution, but I think it can cut down significantly on piles. First, be extremely on guard about what comes into your house in the first place. I am ruthless with junk mail/solicitations/school paperwork. Our recycling can is right by the entrance to the house from the garage, so 90% of what comes into my mailbox or in school bags gets dumped before it ever crosses our threshold. If I’m not sure about something, I’ll file it immediately into a vertical file on my “office” shelf, and try to take care of it within the week. If it’s a piece of paper that simply contains information I need, like a school calendar or swim lesson schedule, I’ll snap a picture of it with my phone and toss it.
We have a single designated spot for paperwork in our house, and I go through it weekly to fill out/pay bills/return to appropriate venue everything in the pile. That’s part of the glamour of having a stay at home parent: I’m my own (and our entire family’s) admin.
5. Artwork/crafts: your kid’s (probably) not Picasso and you aren’t required to have a daycare’s worth of supplies on hand
I have a confession: a piece of my withered grinch’s heart thaws a little bit every time I hold a preschool masterpiece in my hands. But not enough to keep it. I have about 1 project per kid that makes the cut per semester, and then I try to incorporate it temporarily into our decor, either in their atrium space in the front room, or on the fridge. My kids are ruthless like me, so I’ve yet to see any tears over masterpieces hitting the circular file. We’ll see if that changes when her ladyship reaches a more sentient age.
We have a designated spot for a small collection of craft and coloring supplies. I don’t save broken crayons or dying markers. I buy 2 or 3 packs of high quality crayola stuff at the back to school blow out sales and hold extras in reserve as we go through it during the year. My children are, admittedly, not very into coloring or crafts (and I can’t imagine why not. Cackle.) but having a full set of fat washable markers, 48 sharp crayons, a bottle of glue and a pack of construction paper and regular coloring paper seems to satisfy them. We have a couple coloring books too, but that’s it. And they still manage to express creativity somehow.
Our entire craft and Lego situation. (Alternately titled: what they don’t know won’t hurt them)
6. Have an ongoing “to donate” bag/spot, and pass along what you’re not currently using to friends and family
I hang a big blue IKEA bag in our front hall closet, and I can quickly fill it with old shoes, ripped jeans, rejected toys, outgrown t shirts, stained towels, annoying plastic cups, etc. The kids know it’s there, and it’s become entirely normal for them to see me add something to the pile. They’re not traumatized by it, and since we do most of our clothes shopping at our local thrift store to begin with, they know it’s going to a place where someone who needs it or wants it can buy it. I think we may have an advantage since I’ve been doing this for as long as they can remember, but I imagine older kids could be coached along with a firmly resolved set of parents and some time.
It makes physical space in our home which makes it a more peaceful and enjoyable place to be, and it makes space in our hearts for gratitude for what we do have, and trust that what we need in the future will be provided as and when we need it.
I’ve seen this more clearly in the area of baby gear/clothing than anywhere else. I’ve freely passed along 90% of what’s not currently in use by the resident baby, not because we don’t want or anticipate future pregnancies, but because it seems, to us, silly to hang onto things for 12, 18, 24 or more months between uses when another baby could be using it right now. So while I hope to have another little girl one day, my niece is currently almost exclusively outfitted in Genevieve couture. I save a couple sentimental items from each bebe, but everything else – including baby swings, boppies, exersaucers, bumbo seats – gets passed along or temporarily farmed out during its fallow season.
Baby girls are fun to dress, but not when their closet is crammed. Less is more in toddler couture. And I’d rather do another load of laundry than match dozens of tiny my little pony socks or fold 100 pairs of jeggings.
My kids observe this and they recognize that if God sends another baby, He’ll also send the Fisher Price continuous-motion AC cord adapted swing. (And He has, every time.)
7. Have an ongoing conversation with your kids about needs vs. wants
My kids are normal toddler and preschooler aged kids. They want to keep everything. They’re like magpies with (some) higher reasoning function and immortal souls. But I don’t have to let them stay there. Part of my job is to train them into an appropriate sense of “want” vs. “need,” so they don’t end up with the absolute worst dorm rooms and the most frustrated future fiancées (or seminary rectors) ever.
Of course a 4 year old doesn’t want to part with any of his myriad superhero tees, threadbare though they may be. But I can help teach them “this doesn’t fit/isn’t in good condition anymore,” and show them how curating a smaller, more thoughtful closet makes laundry and cleanup so much easier, and helps keep us grateful for the nice, clean, well-fitting clothing we do own.
If your kids are struggling to clean up their closets/put away toys, it might be that there’s just too much stuff. We saw this in a big way last summer when I blitzed their already (I thought) modest toy collection down to about 80% of it’s former size. After the excess was bagged up and hauled out, my then 4 year old looked at me with relief and said (I kid you not) thank you Mommy, it was too hard to clean up all those toys.
Word.
(And if your kids are developmentally challenged or have behavioral issues? Even more reason to keep your space more spare. I have some close friends with little boys on the spectrum, and it’s immensely helpful to them if their physical surroundings are more serene and, yes, more spartan, to the extent that it’s possible, and that your spouse is on board with helping you maintain it. Goodness knows moms of high needs kids have enough on their plates. But visual clutter really does cause stress, even in little kids.)
8. Gratitude need not equal “we’re keeping that”
This is a big sticking point for people, and I get that. But it’s also the part of the whole KonMari system that I “get” the most intuitively: the gift is an expression of the giver’s love, but is not itself essential. Think of it as “love currency,” whether its a loaf of banana bread or a light up toy police car with a wailing siren: if you’re trying to lose weight, you might accept the loaf with gratitude and serve it to someone who isn’t counting calories.
The affection and thoughtfulness in the heart of the baker is in no way diminished by this!
Same goes with loud, unnecessary, or simply superfluous toys. It is entirely possible to accept the gift graciously and with real gratitude, and then turn around and either regift, repurpose, or rehome said gift. Grandma just wants to express her love to her grandchild, and your child can learn to express gratitude and contentment right back by writing (or scribbling on) that thank you note and then deciding either to give away an existing toy to make room, or deciding maybe they don’t like the new toy enough to do that, and thinking of a new home for it.
You can do that. You’re allowed to do that. It’s your home, and you’re the one (along with your spouse) who gets to decide what comes into it. And it’s so freeing!
If you’re worried about ruffling family feathers or hurting feelings, then take the next mature step and have a conversation about the family culture you’re trying to cultivate, and the simpler lifestyle you’re pursuing. Ask if they’d consider giving gifts of books or clothing or experience gifts like zoo passes or swimming punch cards. And if the barbies and hot wheels keep rolling in anyway? Smile, say thank you from your heart, and pass along what doesn’t work for your family.
9. Make it normal
Eventually this will become second nature. I think that’s where Marie Kondo herself claims “declutter once and never again.” That’s true…sort of. But only if you commit to mindfully curating and periodically culling through your stuff. Because we with families and children to care for are in a constant battle of accumulation and maintenance.
And that’s okay.
Acknowledge that the Dollar Tree exists, that your kids are going to go to birthday parties and on Easter egg hunts, that grandma is going to send a bag of squirt guns and bubbles, and have an automated procedure that kicks in as stuff comes in. As long as you keep if flowing out, (and get picky, where you can control it, over what comes in to begin with) this can totally work for you, even with a houseful of kids.
It’s a good life, I’m telling you.
Now go forth and Kondo your toy room, nursery, and basement storage room. It’s the easiest way to lose 20 lbs without breaking (much of) a sweat.
