Let’s get this out there in the open for anyone who doesn’t have kids.
So if you show up and the house is clean and presentable, it’s because those in charge of wrangling the chaos just finished doing that before you showed up. Now, this may not be the case for all parents, for the vast majority of them, this will hold true. Plus, this really needs to be said for other parents too- we stand in solidarity, in our messy homes. The reason becomes very clear when you consider the following:
Babies and toddlers are basically puppies with thumbs.
So for now on, before you judge a tired parent or their home, mentally replace their spawn with adorable labs pups with thumbs. They run around, knock things over, bite and chew on things, climb on the furniture, and now that they have thumbs, grab things off the counter, climb chairs and tables, and occasionally scale dad and mom mountain.
With that out of the way, here’s the secret for parents struggling to maintain a clean home. Here’s the big secret, so I hope you are ready:
You don’t have to keep it clean. Keep it Clean Enough.
That’s it. Stop obsessing over the sheen of the windows and the clutter free image of your home in your dreams. The goal now is Clean Enough- Clean Enough you can move around and your kids won’t find something icky to stuff in their face. Clean Enough that if a close friend comes by, they won’t be appalled. Clean Enough that if you look at it at the right angle, you can tell yourself this is OK. You are totally OK with the current state. This is fine.
I know some of you might be disappointed by this secret. You wanted some special technique that lets you maintain a perfectly clean home, turn your little ones into obedient automatons on command, and summons a stiff drink right into your hand. But those secrets do not exist, and if they did, they would be common knowledge. Besides, kids shouldn’t ever be obedient automatons until we start making robobabies. If you need something a bit more concrete, you can have a bonus tip:
Kids love helping, and throwing things. Buy a treasure chest AKA storage bin.
If you make space for this box and tell your kids to throw their toys in it, they will leap at the opportunity to throw things. Open that box up, make a special game of “how fast can you get all the toys back in the treasure chest”, and maybe tell a nice story about how toys get stolen by Nega-Santa if they are left out, and all of a sudden, your kids are doing half the work!
Even though it might not have been the great occult tip that lets you keep a magic spotless home, it will save you a few moments a day that you can spend working on what you really want to be doing, and that is really what this series is all about. So now that you don't have an excuse, go write the next hot steemit post!
