OK, now this is for all of the
moms out there being a mom
and keeping it all together.
It's hard, I know.
But how we talk about tackling
motherhood also matters.
Allie Casazza is the author of
declutter like a mother and she's
got some great food for thought on
how we can think about parenting.
There is
this idea of this hot mess mom
who is stressed out most likely
has her hair done messy top bun,
which is me a lot of the time.
But you have thoughts on
this hot mess mom culture.
Yeah, I think it's not so much having messy
days and you know being a normal human
it's more about the messaging behind it.
I mean think about movies about motherhood.
The villain is always the woman that
you know takes care of herself and
you know isn't a disaster and is
feeling good about where things are.
Of course she's usually, you know,
a jerk that is part of it,
but you know it's it's this kind of.
Faux camaraderie in motherhood.
Culture that comes from you know
everyone simultaneously being a
constant disaster and subscribing to
the idea that this is just motherhood.
It just is what it is and you're
only in our circle.
If you're also a mess,
which I think the the danger in
that is like I said,
everyone is subscribing to that identity,
that to be a mom is to be a mess all the
time and you're not a person anymore.
You're just a mom and I think that.
When we identify ourselves in that way,
it's there's no room for growth like
let's expand each other and and be
more positive and encourage each other
and everyone has their junkie days.
But let's not decide that we're
going to stay there in that day.
Yeah, I mean, I'm OK,
I get what you're saying.
OK, so you're overwhelmed.
I'm sure at times exhausted
with motherhood, but you said
you found another way. How
at the time that this part of my story began,
I had three young kids all under 3.
And of course it was overwhelming.
But my problem was that I was talking
to other people and it was like,
yeah no, that's it like it.
Just wait till their teens like
it's gonna just get worse.
So I was just really wanting to
solve my own problem and not not
decide on that and stay there.
And I mean I'm shortening this by a lot
of months, but what I really saw was
everything was very logical and physical.
A lot of what I was doing was just reacting.
To you know, my kids reacting to oh, shoot,
you know we don't have any clean underwear.
I gotta spend the whole
day doing laundry shoot.
I forgot to, you know,
get groceries that we need.
So I gotta run and do that
and it's just stress stress,
stress, react, react,
react and there was just mess all
the time in my home and in my life.
And so I started super practically by
just simplifying the actual physical
space we were living in simplifying
our home and just figured like well
if all I'm doing is cleaning up,
what if there was just less 'cause we
don't even need half this stuff that
I'm touching when I'm cleaning up.
So like did you like get rid of
a bunch of stuff like a bunch
of 'cause we have just
toys everywhere? Did you throw
away toys like secretly?
The kids were at school,
my kids were asleep when I
did this because they were so
little and I was so desperate.
I was at rock bottom and depressed.
I'm not doing well.
This is not the motherhood.
This is not the life I want and
what The thing is is they had all
these toys like you're saying and
for what to wander in there in
2 seconds later come out bored
like their playroom wasn't even
doing what it was supposed to do.
And now I know they were over stimulated.
Kids don't do well with that many
decisions to make and choices and options,
and especially at that young age.
So yeah, I simplified.
I got rid of so many toys that just
didn't feel like they were worth the space.
And then I did the same thing and
everything in our whole house.
I mean,
our whole family shifted and in
the best way possible.
That's
good, that's interesting.
I mean, it is true I yesterday I'm full
time working mom working from home.
Also trying to like clean up 'cause
I'm tripping over toys. You're right,
like they don't need all this stuff.
You talk about setting in
tents for your kids childhood.
Let's talk about that.
It's not about the toys,
it's about the life you want to see,
and you actually even setting
it to intent for each room.
Is that right?
Yeah, I think we have to.
I mean, I call it setting the intent,
but it's really just
getting intentional about,
like pull back from the stuff back from.
And it's not about minimalism.
It's not about having as little
amount of possible anywhere.
I mean, I just don't like that because
it's less stuff for the sake of less stuff.
This is about less stuff for the sake
of more of what really matters to you.
So set the intention for what
kind of childhood you want your
kids to be experiencing and then
what you have in your home,
how you spend your time will
be based off of that setting.
The intention in each room is about what
do I want to feel when I'm in here.
How do I want guests to feel?
How do I want this room to serve
me and my family in this home?
More pain for yeah?
And really stepping back and getting big.
Picture will help you make kind of
like minute decisions as you go.
Interesting perspective.