my parenting superpower

it's not for everyone

My parenting advice is quite simple, really: Have an extremely high tolerance for mess.

I’ve always been a bit of a slob. “Organized chaos,” I like to call it.

This was of deep concern for my parents when I was growing up. They’d try implementing policies like We have to be able to see 20% of the floor, but nothing could persuade me to put my toys away. Elaborate societies of tiny fuzzy bears and their cities constructed from broken easter eggs and straws stuck in styrofoam and other bits of definitely-not-trash.

Today that mess looks like half-completed canvases and palettes of dry paint, bits of bark and moss for fairy-houses-in-progress, baskets full of yarn and wool for needle-felting, craft supples piled in every corner of my bedroom. And that’s not even mentioning the bins of craft supplies in my basement.

My idea of “clean” is that the pile of clothes on the bench at the foot of my bed has been recently laundered and the stacks of books piled on every surface are not toppling over.

It’s a low bar.

This tolerance for mess has seen me through so many difficult periods. Six months of pregnancy-induced vomiting with a busy two-year-old home full time. Crippling postpartum depression. Debilitating back pain. Cancer.

It has also protected me from the classic trap of heterosexual marriage, which I occasionally witness in my peers and frequently read about online. That uneven division of domestic labor. The mother as default chef, housekeeper, nanny, etc. Couldn’t be me.

Yup, you heard me. I’m gross. It’s wonderful.

We probably have more junk drawers than drawers with a designated purpose. Uncountable baskets containing jumbles of kid toys: wood puzzle pieces without their bases, unstacked stacking cups, rogue blocks and balls and cars and containers of squishy slime. Detritus of broken crayons and beads and stickers line the bottoms of these baskets.

Every six weeks or so I will get a fit of organizational zeal and sort through all the baskets. This one is for art supplies, this one for musical toys, that one for stuffies and one over there for Things That Go. We have too much stuff! I’ll declare, before putting it all back where I found it, or in a neighboring basket.

Usually this organization lasts about 2 hours. Longer if I do it after bedtime, but only slightly. My kids are effective agents of entropy.

You’d better find a place to put this or I’m going to throw it away! I’ll tell my daughter, gesturing broadly at the basket of miscellany that could be described as “Toys that have been left on the counter over the course of the past few weeks.” You need to put this away, I’ll declare with full-throated hypocrisy.

I’m going to bolster the sharing economy and start a toy-rental business, I’ll assert to my husband, justifying my hoarding instinct.

Sometimes toys will be moved to the basement playroom, out of sight for as long as it takes my daughters to gradually migrate them back upstairs one at a time.

Once in a while even my own high tolerance for clutter and mess is exceeded, and we will attempt to implement systems. Throw away all the old rounds of trivia and paid bills and deposited checks and explanations of insurance benefits that pile up in a junk bowl (oh yes, drawers alone are not enough!) on our kitchen island. Oh that’s where that gift card went! I’ll exclaim excitedly. A Christmas of found screws, dimly lit polaroids, and mysterious business cards every time I care to tidy.

For a while Luke and I had a shared note in our iPhones with a list of all the areas we would tackle, one by one. One night a week for one hour. One drawer at a time. Maybe someday we’d work up to a full closet.

I think we did it once.

So now you know my (literally) dirty secret. My house is an absolute tip. And 95% of the time I could not care less.

It’s my parenting superpower.

Lower your standards. Then lower them again.

Someone give me an advice column.