Tidying Up with Marie Kondo: Ep 3

[nanila]

This was the episode that forced me to face the fact that I am VERY JUDGY AND ANGRY about USELESS DADS. With CAPSLOCK.

Ep 3: The Mersier family

Couple with two pre-teen children who moved from a big 4-bed house in Michigan to a two-bed flat in LA, so Mum could take advantage of an unspecified job opportunity (something in hair styling). All of them are sweet, energetic, and expressive. And apart from the mum, horribly disorganised. It becomes clear pretty quickly that not only is she the main breadwinner, she also does the bulk of the housework. A low simmer of rage begins bubbling inside me.

The kitchen is very packed. Husband: “This is my favourite room not to be in.” This is where we find out he doesn’t do any of the cooking. Son, talking about his preferred method of finding things: “I just spam [Mom’s] phone until she answers.” OOOOOERRRR. *glares*

The kids’ room is cluttered. Daughter: “There’s no space. It’s hard for me to feel like this is an actual home.” Wife starts crying. Everybody cuddles her. Well done guys but also, maybe try addressing the actual problem that’s driving her to tears. So. Much. Rage.

Wife: “I feel like I’m to blame...Mom is the one who’s supposed to cook and clean and make home home...I feel like I’m failing in that area.” GIRL NO MAKE THAT LAZY S.O.B PULL HIS WEIGHT. Ahem. And the kids too, but it’s not so much their fault especially if they’re watching the dad adopt exactly the same coping strategies (e.g. rely completely on the mom).

These lot let MK do her house-greeting ritual on their own. I mean, they have a moment but it’s more about all of them being together. I like these guys. It’s not just me who’s really not into the mystical house connection thing!

Time to make the clothing mountains.

Wife: “I feel like I’m not setting her up to succeed at life. He’s twelve, she’s eleven; I should have been doing this since age five, just like you.” MK, warmly: “It’s never too late to start.” This is good counselling.

The family start on their homework going through their clothes. Brother: “Why did I do that to these shoes too?” *bends sole away from shoe* Sister: “Broooo, oh no! But those are such good shoes.”

MK returns to give a folding lesson. The fitted sheet folding instructions are quite useful but MK’s teaching persona freaks me out a bit. Something about the deliberate blinking.

MK queries Wife about whether she thinks some of the burden of tidying will be lifted from her through this process. Wife: “I’ll be able to guide them and it won’t just be me doing it.” YES YES well done you have graduated to management level.

Wife begins the process of teaching the family how to organise “for the sake of having a home and not just a house.” WILD APPLAUSE.

I get the feeling that this family (okay, the wife/mum) is taking on board the philosophy of the KonMari method more explicitly and obviously than the people in the previous episodes. You get the sense that there will be a long-lasting impact. Much as I liked the Akiyama couple, I got the sense they needed to go through the decluttering process once and then could easily let it lapse without much in the way of consequences, simply because they have a massive house. This family need to integrate everything about the tidying process into their daily lives, simply through lack of space.

Husband: “I never realised the pressure of doing having to do everything until I actually did it.” *long hard stare* *slow clap*

Wife: “My kids know how to take care of their resources!...This house is finally a home.” I’m so happy for you, lady. You deserve this.

All of them seem to have come to an awareness of collective effort that will be needed to keep it up. Even the husband. I just hope for Her sake that they all hold on to that realisation. *narrowed eyes*

Comments

[recessional]

I was surprised how much I didn't have that reaction to this guy, mostly because I . . .recognized in the wife what certain female members of my own family do?

Which is that it was very clear to me that up until this (and sometimes even through it, in a couple of cases) things needed to be how she intended to the point where she did in fact go into the middle of her kids doing the work and start cleaning up their stuff without them present.

And I know why that is, but the side effect of it is that it's actually very hard and hostile and stressful for the other members of the family to build any of their own habits that way? And it's easier just to . . . not, because "not" means you're not getting constant "no do this instead, no I'm doing X with that you're messing it up, no that needs to go there" - because part of the motivation is the sense that the state of the home/etc is a reflection on her as a person, there's a huge OWNERSHIP that she very clearly does take?

And I was really pleased that she did grasp that she had to let the kids have ownership as much as she needed to get them to do the work, because that was . . . a battle . . . in our house.

And it can be very hard to bring that issue around and address it, because it absolutely does end up with the person who's doing that doing a hugely unfair amount of the work, and it also means that work is benefitting the people who aren't doing it? But if you don't address the ownership and investment and letting go of control you can't actually fix it (at least not without it becoming . . . unfortunate . . . in its dynamics in a whole new way).

[ankaret]

I resemble this remark! I lived in an unnecessarily makeshift and studenty way well into my forties because it felt like if I asserted any ownership over anything my mother would pop up out of the past and guilt me for making extra work for her by failing to read her mind about how things needed to be done. (And my mother was the daughter of two huge personalities who had huge operatic plate-throwing fights and dealt with clutter by buying a new cupboard and moving the old, full one into the back yard, so I can see why she felt like one unshelved book was one step away from screaming chaos everywhere, but still. Eventually someone had to get therapy, and that was me)

[recessional]

Yeah like I love my mother and totally understand WHY she ended up with the....quirks? She had? But we still have occasional clashes of "if you want me to 'take initiative/assess the situation and do what needs doing ' you get to deal with my perceptions of this and my priorities; if you want things done exactly the way and in the order you want, you have to take on the effort of organizing; you cannot actually have it both ways."

And the straight up speed with which the dad started doing things and also his awareness that it wasn't entirely fair to start with kinda confirmed to me that there was at least some of that going on, along with her initial habit of taking over the organizing that the kids were doing, and that it seemed very....revelatory? When Marie walked get through the idea of "maybe explicitly teach them how you want things and then make it their responsibility."

[ankaret]

Yes! I will tackle pretty much anything if I get to factor how I personally work into how I plan it, and I am grateful for advice that comes with a why or even advice that comes with a 'I can't explain it to you but please just trust me on this one point' but being expected to colour inside someone else's arbitrary lines and then micromanaged drives me potty.

[recessional]

If the other person wants to take on the whole responsibility and emotional labour (hahah) of Actually Running Everything I can even handle being a certain amount of micromanaged (assuming I care enough about the project/outcome/reward I'm getting), honestly?

What I cannot. and. will. not tolerate is the one where someone goes:

- A thing needs to be done!
- I am overwhelmed and overworked by doing all the things! (<--it literally doesn't matter if this is true or not: it may be! It may be VERY VALID! That's besides the point.)
- I do not want to ASK for help!
- I do not want to EXPLAIN and TELL people what I want!
- Instead of doing either of those things I will just do all the things!
- BUT I WILL RESENT IT!!!!
- BECAUSE I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DO ALL THE THINGS!!!!!
- Other people should TAKE INITIATIVE. And THINK FOR THEMSELVES. And DO THINGS.
- Exactly the way I want them to.
- When I want them to do it.
- Without me having to take action to make this happen in any way.
- If other people do not do this, they are useless/evil/bad/lazy/don't love me.

That's where I hit fuuuuuuck off.

But it's also, ironically, where a lot of feminine socialization and crap . . . ends up putting women I deal with! (I am a woman, to just note.) Because they're not allowed to ask for help because that's Inconvenient, and since they intuitively know What The Right Way To Do Things Is so should everyone else it's Just Common Sense, so clearly if anyone really loved them or cared about them, other people would chip in to help.

And the help would be EXACTLY the same way they would do things.


Which like: I am willing to make a good faith effort to cooperate on shared tasks and communicate different needs but I am not a fucking mind-reader so if you WANT that much control over how I do things you need to PUT THAT MUCH EFFORT into telling me how you want them done, and otherwise we are not going to get along.

[silveradept]

Oh dear.

I had a previous relationship where that ownership was very important, and the criticism was quick about not doing it the right way, but also the other person had executive function and fatigue problems, and so things would not get done because she had to be the one to do it, but she rarely felt able to do it (unless I was there to play gopher and otherwise sustain the energy through the task.)

[nanila]

I see what you mean. I have to fight the instinct to micromanage the process of, for instance, folding laundry, when I'm trying to teach the children how to look after their things.

It was so lovely watching the mum in this episode understand how she had to change her own views and habits in order to help the family do the same. She did so well, and because of all the love and support between the family members, which I fear rather got lost in me being a bit ranty about USELESS DADS, she succeeded and so did they.

[recessional]

I guess to me he came off much less as "useless" and much more as "under-utilized". And I'm kinda hyper-sensitive to that difference because of the above-mentioned conflicts and being on the receiving end of it (and witnessing much uglier versions).

MMV, natch, but yeah.