Children are messy creatures by nature. I love my two mess-makers, but they do leave a trail of dirt and destruction wherever they go. With sympathy for Sisyphus, I find my floor, swept clean only minutes before, covered with new crumbs and food chunks almost immediately. The bed I actually made gets attacked within moments by wild children, disregarding my no-monkeys-jumping-on-the-bed rule. The toilet which I just cleaned becomes the victim of my son's poor aim the next time he needs to use the potty. It makes you wonder why bother cleaning at all!
After reading Marie Kondo's The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up for my book club (yes, I'm in a book club and it is completely fabulous), I felt a renewed desire to tidy my abode. While I'm not obsessively clean, I am fairly organized and do like things at least somewhat orderly. I spend much of each day cleaning up, usually after other people. I do make the children put away all their toys. (This is a big thing for me; I believe strongly kids need to clean up after themselves and that you are encouraging bad habits if you clean up for them. I don't have any statistical data but I would guess that adults who litter or sit back while others clean the table had parents who cleaned up after them.) Anyway, my children do that and they do the limited number of chores that 2 and 4 year olds can (throwing out their napkins, putting paper in the recycling, handing me groceries to put away, etc). But basically I do most of the cleaning. And I often feel like I'm fighting a losing battle - against rather worthy adversaries. Armed with Kondo's reportedly proven strategy, I hoped to finally get my house tidy.
I found I shared many ideas with Kondo, such as always discard items first, tidy by category, and put things in their place as soon as you come home. Like Kondo, I like everything in its place, but children do make that a challenge. Kondo's main rule of what to keep is what sparks joy. So I ruthlessly went through my rather large collection of clothes, discarding any that do not bring joy. I did keep a few for sentimental reasons - the bright yellow tank top I was wearing when I met my husband; it's not stylish and I'll never wear it again, but come on. I kept a few other items that I thought Willa might want one day. That might seem a long shot, but I had fun going through my mom's old 70's clothes when they came back in style in the 90's. I remember daring to wear one of her vintage sweaters to school and having an attractive, popular hippy boy complimenting me on it. Going through her clothes may have even encouraged my love of fashion, a pricey, but thoroughly enjoyable hobby. Still I was able to get three big bags of clothes to give away or attempt to sell (at Buffalo exchange if they'll actually take any). I went through the children's clothes - making one bag to bring to the thrift shop for clothes we received second hand that I was ready to get rid of and another bag to save to pass on to either my nephew or a some potential future child. I tackled papers next and got rid of as many as possible.
All of this discarding certainly helped, but I soon found myself at an impasse. You see, what Kondo addresses fails to address is how to keep your home tidy if every single space is shared. At the time of writing this book, she was a single woman with no children. I am not too impressed that someone in her position was able to keep her space tidy. She does discuss living with family members, suggesting you clean your own space first and others will follow. But firstly, this seems awfully optimistic. And secondly, most married people do not have a space all their own unless they have the luxury of an office or man/mom cave. I do not. I can cut my own possessions in half, even get rid of some toys I know the children don't play with. But I can't get rid of the majority of toys, magazines, and other items in the house without risking a civil war.
I will try to discard more of my own possessions that do not spark joy and I will continue to houseclean with the knowledge that each task will just need to be repeated shortly after complete. But I really look forward to the day the kids are big enough to sweep the floor, vacuum, and wash the dishes. Maybe then I'll finally gain some allies in the battle of tidying up.