Notes From This Episode:

Background

• Young women are buying into the false notion that you cannot have a clean home and love your children and take care of your children all at the same time.

The Messy Mom Syndrome

• “It’s all messy.  My hair, the house, kids, life.”
• “Good moms have sticky floors, messy kitchens, laundry piles, dirty ovens, and happy kids.”
• “Messy hair, don’t care.  Actually, I do, it’s just that motherhood has forced me to lower my standards, like a lot.”
• “Dirty dishes prove I feed my family.  A full trash can means I clean up after them.  Messy floors mean I let my child have fun.  Piles of unfolded laundry mean I keep my family in clean clothes.”

Debunking the Myth of Messy Mom

• I am not suggesting that we need to have a perfect home.  In fact, you will not have a perfect home, and order is relative according to the circumstances that you are living with.
• We must get away from this idea that the messy mom is not only okay, but almost a badge of honor.

The Perception of Mothers

• We have lost the value of caring for and nurturing our family in a humane way.
• We have lost the sense of honor and service to our family, and I believe the feminist movement has stripped away our God-given feminine genius in favor of seeking to be equal in every way to man.
• We have given up our maternity as we are shamed into embracing masculinity, and so we do not take pride in the things of a woman in the home.
• We have lost the sense of a healthy pride in our home and of our surroundings – so much that we accept the lowest form of living.
  • Even many animals cannot abide a cluttered or dirty living space.

Why is This Perception Okay?

• When we were told that, as women, we needed to do everything this perception began to take root.  And when you do everything, you take responsibility for everyone else except yourself and the things that you should take responsibility for as the mother.
• We were meant to live our motherhood call with honor and dignity, and when we show up unshowered, our hair not brushed, and in yoga pants all day, we are not showing up the way we are called to.
• If Jesus walked into your life, into your home today, what do you think he would think?
• Do we really have to sacrifice honor, dignity, and a positive human tone in order to be a mom?

What Happens in Chaotic Homes?

• The research shows that disorganization and clutter have an accumulative effect on our brains.
  • It affects our anxiety levels, our sleep, and our ability to focus.
• The chaos reduces our ability to focus and increases cognitive overload and can reduce our working memory.
• A chaotic home affects the way we show up, if affects our emotions and our ability to regulate our emotions, and it influences the relationships we have with others.
• Clutter can also make us less productive and trigger coping and avoidance strategies that make us more likely to snack on junk food, sit and watch Netflix, or waste time scrolling on the internet.
• Finally, a chronically cluttered home environment can lead to a constant low grade fight or flight response where we are always on edge.
  • When you don’t have order in your home, you don’t have order in your brain.

How Does a Messy Home Affect Our Children?

• Another study found that kids living in more disorganized homes had more trouble regulating their emotions and often have a lack or order and significantly more challenges than kids who do not.
  • This may mean they are more prone to outbursts and have difficulty ordering their thoughts and score lower on tests of cognitive ability and self-regulatory capabilities.
• Visual clutter creates mental clutter, and then children feel they cannot change the environment around them to make things better for themselves, so they stop trying when things are difficult.
  • Instead of feeling confident, they give up.

Positive Reasons to Teach Our Children Order

• We are teaching our children to think in an orderly fashion.
  • This will carry over into their personal hygiene practices and schoolwork.
• When you have chores in the home for the children, they realize they are not the center of the universe and they have to serve others.
• As our children get older, they have order in when they get up, when they go to bed, and when they get their work done.
  • When they are adults and working, they understand the order of things.

Your Challenge

• You are a bright woman who is being challenged to respond to a situation that may be new to you with curiosity, focus, determination, and fortitude.
• See yourself as the professional that you are – with self-respect – where you show up for the day, put together, ready to go.  You are the mom and are a billboard for motherhood in anybody and everybody you meet.
• Remember, we do not do it because we care about what other people think of us, but we do it for the glory of God and to show other women that, yes, this is a beautiful vocation and look how happy we are.

A Matter of Discipline and Systems

• Please do not seek to live the lowest common denominator in your life.
• A consistently messy house usually speaks of a lack of discipline and procrastination.
  • This is not an argument that you do not already have a lot to do.
  • Rather, it is the argument to make the decision to have the discipline to not procrastinate, to put in order the habits, routines, and systems you need in order to make your home run smoothly.
• Once you get a system in place, once you have a plan, once you schedule your day, you will be able to keep your home with a much smaller amount of effort.
• Identify four or five things that you really need to get done in case someone walks into your home and can then see the sanctification of your daily work by having a clean, well-ordered home.

Don’t Wait for Motivation

• We cannot wait for motivation to help us become the woman and mother we want to be.
• Rarely are we motivated to do much of anything, but you do it anyway because there is a certain human dignity involved.
  • Teaching our children the value of human dignity by creating an environment that is a reflection of the dignity of every human person that lives in your home is the best teaching of all.

The Importance of Instilling Virtues in Your Children

• What do you want your children to remember about their childhood?  Do you want them to remember their house was a mess?
• What kind of adults do you want to raise?  Adults with virtue?
• Raising adults with virtue involves teaching your children to contribute to the home management system.
  • You do a huge disservice to your children when you do not give them responsibilities in the care of the home.
  • You do not teach your children to respect themselves, their things, and the home you provide.

Final Thoughts

• Let’s adopt some new thoughts beyond the “messy mom” lifestyle.
• What about the thoughts of, “I’m learning to keep my home” or “I honor myself when I learn a system that works” or “Our surroundings should be worthy of God’s creation”.
• These are just some ideas that you can be thinking about to change your mindset, rather than, “I can’t control this”.
• Being a mother is learning about strengths we didn’t know we had.