by Shonnie | Mar 19, 2013 | Common Challenges, The Needs of Children
Welcome to the March edition of the Simply Living Blog Carnival – Clearing the Clutter cohosted by Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at Authentic Parenting, Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy, and Joella at Fine and Fair. This month our participants wrote about de-cluttering and cleaning up. Please check out the links to their thoughts at the end of this post. Before I decided to have a child, part of what I thought I wouldn’t like about being a parent was having a messy home. Yes, I was a neat-freak and still prefer an orderly space (not spic and span, simply clean-ish and well-organized). What I didn’t realize is that children attract clutter in so many ways that decluttering is an ongoing activity of modern family life. Why children are clutter magnets First, let me clarify that when I say “clutter,” I’m referring to anything that I think is unnecessary or unwanted. It’s the stuff that takes up space — physical and mental — that I’d prefer to leave free or use for other purposes. Whether it is an unsuitable gift from a relative, a trinket that your child is “awarded” at a doctor/dentist visit, some flora or fauna your wee naturalist has collected, bits of partially-eaten food, an “experiment” your budding scientist has started, or an art project your beginning painter has created, children draw stuff to them and leave stuff in their wake as they move through their day. There is no criticism here, just my observation of life with child. Children are clutter magnets because: People love to gift the children they...
