I’ve seen a lot of posts recently encouraging parents to disregard their feelings about household mess (not to mention a host of other less-than-ideal realities), by using the rationale that ‘it’s not my time.’
‘It’s not my time to have a tidy house.’
‘It’s not my time to have time to myself’
‘It’s not my time to enjoy slow mornings’
Etcetera, etcetera…
The sentiment of these messages is, I’ve no doubt, reasonably well meaning.
However, I do worry that there is maybe a problem with imploring parents not just to tolerate mess, but almost to be ‘grateful’ for it. Grateful, especially, because of all the things-to-be-thankful-for that it represents (mess, after all, is a precious hallmark of the fleeting ‘golden years’ of young family life.)
Yes, there will come a day for all of us when the carpets are suddenly devoid of LEGO, and the tablecloth is absent of paint stains, and a pang of longing for what was will bristle beneath the surface of all that new-found tidiness.
That said, this foresight does little to diffuse the in-the-moment mental impact of a home in constant, unrelenting disarray.
It’s stressful, to say the least, and to suggest that imbibing a daily dose of ‘it’s not my time’ can make one immune to the science of ‘tidy house, tidy mind’ is nonsense at best, and detrimental to parental wellbeing at worst.
After all, the mental impact of mess is profound, no matter how resigned to its inevitability (and finitude) one is.
The reason, is because it feeds into the already-significant over-stimulation of parenting.
It contributes to the ‘drip, drip’ effect of caring for young children, thereby chip-chipping away at the patience and calm that is an overarching goal of raising small people well.
That said, recognising this does little to make the job of keeping on top of said mess any easier, and this begs the important question, that if blithely accepting the chaos doesn’t work, and remedying the chaos is futile… what IS the solution?
Answers on a postcard please.
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