What a Family Sized Declutter Really Looks Like
By: Caithlin Palfrey
Tags: Children, Home, Decluttering, Minimalism, Family

What a Family Sized Declutter Really Looks Like

My children remember everything and they are watching

Photo by Edi Libedinsky on Unsplash

If I have two days in a row where I feel like I relocate things more than I interact with my children, it’s time for a change.

There are days when parenting looks a lot like moving things around in our home. That thing goes here, this thing goes there, why are there so many of those?

There’s only so many different ways to organise 250 colouring pens and pencils before you admit defeat. At what point is the colouring pencil too small to reasonably use? Just how many shades of blue colouring pencil are actually necessary? How did this rice cracker end up in here?

It’s so easy to get stuck on the little details, especially if you’re trying to sort out said art supplies whilst changing a baby, prepping lunch and fielding twenty-seven questions about Frozen II.

Tidying. Relocating. Shuffling the organisers until they fit the things. It’s all the same. If I have two days in a row where I feel like I relocate things more than I interact with my children, it’s time for a change. That change usually looks like a big sort out and declutter.

We try to live intentionally and I don’t feel like we are excessive, but we do have three children and we homeschool and we are part of a large family who enjoy sharing gifts to celebrate annual traditions and life’s milestones. There’s an entirely unnecessary teepee in the bedroom and a whole closet dedicated to arts, crafts and projects. It is what it is.

Family-sized complicates things. If you get caught up in the origin, purpose and personal relationship of all of the things five people own, you might not ever make a change that you are happy with.

My children remember everything

Two years ago I threw away a free Happy Meal toy — a Mario Cart water game that leaked glitter wherever it went. My five-year-old still asks where it got to.

Decluttering is not always a popular option in our home. There are five people to consider and five people’s worth of stuff. When I first stumbled across minimalist five years ago, there was a lot of barely-there furniture and open shelves with five items on. I would see content that suggested my children have too many things and that they would not miss six out of ten hair bows, or their third doll.

That is not my personal experience. We tried putting things away in a box and leaving it there until the older girls assumed it was already broken or lost. Actual dialogue in our house;

My daughter: “Where’s that penguin with a bell in it?” Me: “It’s a dog toy and we don’t have a dog. I thought we could send it to someone who could share it with their dog.” My daughter: “I don’t think so. I like it. It’s what I play with when we do explorers, Mama.”

And she runs off to play Antarctica with her sister, the noisy penguin dog toy and a snack disguised as emergency supplies in one of her six bags.

We are still working on this one with our children. We have found that saying thank you to the items or sharing a memory about the item before we pass it on does help give them a little closure. There’s probably a lifestyle change we could make to improve their relationship with their stuff. Ask me again in five years.

It’s not about the stuff. It’s about the space.

It doesn’t matter how much stuff you have. As long as it fits in the space you designated for that stuff.

We have three young children, a homeschool lifestyle and eye for bargains when it comes to project supplies. Our craft cupboard is about the size of a single wardrobe. I consider that large enough. If the supplies outgrow the cupboard, it’s time to look at what we actually use and love and donate, regift or recycle the rest.

As a Mama to two creative, homeschooled children, I also have to be realistic about what needs a home in our house.

There’s a basket in the bottom of the craft cupboard for “ongoing craft projects.” It is wonderful. If it gets full, it’s time to decide to finish or recycle a project. In the meantime, no project or artwork is being stepped on, taking up space on the kitchen counter or getting lost under the sofa.

It doesn’t have to be a perfect fit

Photo by Ash Hayes on Unsplash

Neatly fitted storage boxes sound like an easy to use dream come true when you’re looking for organisation. Everything in every colour in its place.

Do you know what neatly organised rows do? Take up space. Do you know what they don’t do? Encourage young children to tidy up. Give my girls a basket to dump stuff in and they are actually all for it.

Ask them to determine which small square slot belongs to the sharpener and which to the pencil eraser, and you’re going to stand on one homeless sharpener four hours later.

I gave myself permission to dump the art set containers with everything lined up neatly in rows. We don’t have jigsaw boxes. They live in slim zipped folders (with a picture of the completed puzzle of course.) The less fuss involved in putting something away, the more likely it is to actually get put away.

We do colour coordinate our bookshelves though. I don’t know what to say. It works and it looks pretty.

Be holiday ready all year

It is possible to declutter your children’s clothes to suit everyday life and then have to do four loads of laundry on a week-long holiday. I know because I’ve been there. Not cool.

There will always be multiple outfit days to accommodate and times when the laundry isn’t all caught up. Plan accordingly, around what your own family needs, no matter how quaint the fairy light lit laundrette on holiday is.

A family-sized declutter is not always that easy to pull off. It doesn’t often look sleek and white and pretty. In the long run, though, having fewer things to move around buys me time. Time with my children, or my husband, or my hobbies, or myself. So, I persevere.