Marie Kondo Gives Up

https://gizmodo.com/marie-kondo-minimalist-house-cleaning-sparks-joy-1850041011

by Brajeshwar • 3 years ago

77 67 3 years ago

I’m sure whatever Marie Kondo’s definition of giving up is, it’s much different from your own. For example in her latest book, she describes leaving housework such as the dishes for the next day (probably morning) because she is too tired.

This does not mean you can continue being a messy unorganized American who waits a week to do the dishes.

rjh292• 3 years ago

She just had her third kid too. Sounds like her need for tidiness in the face of having three kids was taking up a lot of time/energy and she realised spending time with her family was more important.

10729287• 3 years ago

Or she just want to launch a new trend as she milked as much as she can the former and it's now dried out ?

sparky_z• 3 years ago

Sure I can.

unsupp0rted2• 3 years ago

I’ve heard people in other countries are starting to emulate the American concept of being reluctant to do the dishes

Gigachad• 3 years ago

Do Americans not have dishwashers? They are almost standard in my country and completely eliminate this problem. Not having one feels like not having a washing machine for your clothes.

I'll admit if I have a dinner party that goes till late, I'll often leave the dishes on the table but then move them to the dishwasher first thing in the morning.

djur2• 3 years ago

Marie Kondo's lifestyle has no effect on what I can and cannot do in my own life, nor would she ever claim it does.

1659447091• 3 years ago

This does not mean you can continue being a messy unorganized American who waits a week to do the dishes.

True. It is much easier to just throw away the dirty dishes (they did not spark joy). But that starts to get expensive and it was much easier to just eat out of the can, or these days - thankfully - the grocery store makes complete ready to cook healthy whole food single meals oven ready. Only need to own utensils and a coffee cup now

Seriously (I mean that did happen, but) I am guessing whatever her 'giving up' is, is better than all of my best efforts combined.

watwut• 3 years ago

I am pretty sure people who leave dishes out for a week will be unaffected by her leaving them out for a day. They will be able to leave them put as before.

Turing_Machine2• 3 years ago

This does not mean you can continue being a messy unorganized American who waits a week to do the dishes.

Being an American means that random people don't get to tell you what you're allowed to do.

courgette2• 3 years ago

Unless those random people are banks, and you own them money for your education or your health.

hgsgm3• 3 years ago

Chauvinism is not called-for and embarrasses you in public.

dctoedt2• 3 years ago

Related WaPo article (gift link): https://wapo.st/40d5TNv

thenerdhead3• 3 years ago

What sparks joy for me is not reading pieces of junk that defame a person's character because they are now vulnerable. Imagine having a new kid under 2 and you mention in a random interview your life is a little messy right now. The media then takes this idea of a huge contradiction of a public figure a little too much to heart and starts writing slander pieces.

Envy is such a terrible human trait.

MR4D2• 3 years ago

Envy is such a terrible human trait.

There’s a reason it’s one of the 7 Deadly Sins.

bigbluedots2• 3 years ago

Yes, in a series of made up tales about faeries in the garden

nmz2• 3 years ago

How is this envy?

CommieBobDole• 3 years ago

I read your comment before reading the article, and expected to find some sneering torrent of vitriol seething with hatred for Marie Kondo and everything she stands for.

Instead it was a bubbly little wisp of a human interest piece with a joke at the end about the rest of us now being free to stew in our own slop. It seems to be poking the mildest of fun at Kondo's admission that having kids doesn't leave her a lot of time to tidy up to the same standards she used to.

And I assume we both read the same linked article. I guess this just shows how one's own experiences and resulting preconceptions affect perception of the same material; and that applies to both of us.

jstarfish2• 3 years ago

It's unflattering and serves no purpose other than to discredit her as an ideology.

Even the title prefix "Relatable:" betrays this. Our role models aren't supposed to be relatable, they're supposed to be better than us.

Showing us that they aren't is just the adult equivalent of telling kids Santa isn't real. It doesn't spark Joy, it crushes Hope. Trolling masquerading as journalism.

(FFS, people are still trying to find dirt on Fred Rogers. Leave the man alone and let the rest of us believe that not everyone and everything on this rock needs to be awful 24/7.)

thenerdhead3• 3 years ago

Yes agreed that perceptions can be significantly different.

Another perspective is these types of articles are designed by media manipulators to be polarizing so they generate more clicks. There's plenty published in the last 24 hours on her in this vein that will show you what I'm talking about.

I mean she did just release a new book and this tactic isn't unheard of for best sellers to climb.

The most powerful predictor of what spreads online is anger. Monetizing on humiliation is common too.

paulddraper• 3 years ago

The content of the article is good. The title is clickbait. (But what isn't nowadays?)

ChrisClark• 3 years ago

Well, you should actually read this one then. It's is full support of her and thinks it is a good idea.

Reading comments from people who did not read the article does not spark joy for me.

commoner2• 3 years ago

Did you read the original Washington Post article that TFA is referencing?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2023/01/26/marie-kondo-k...

Marie Kondo released a new book last November (Kurashi at Home) which describes her change in direction. This publicity for her book is in no way unflattering to her, and I expect that she would enjoy the sales gained from the extra attention.

thenerdhead3• 3 years ago

Yes thanks for pointing it out, I just wrote a comment above regarding how this is likely just the media manipulating public opinion and a typical tactic used for best sellers.

iLoveOncall• 3 years ago

What sparks joy for me is calling out people that didn't read the article before commenting.

It has literally nothing defamatory, on the contrary.

anderspitman• 3 years ago

To which Gizmodo says: good for her!

bigbluedots2• 3 years ago

The article is very supportive of her! There is no slander in it at all. What the hell is wrong with people

happytoexplain• 3 years ago

This description is in a different universe from the actual article. This is an enormously negative criticism of something that this isn't an instance of, and since your criticism is about the negativity of the author, it seems pretty hypocritical.

karmakaze• 3 years ago

I read the picture caption text "I'm so excited because I love mess." That doesn't indicate any kind of giving up, merely a change in priorities/values.

I didn't sense any envy or negativity in the post at all.

"To which Gizmodo says: good for her!"

b3lvedere• 3 years ago

I sure hope people can understand that no human with a specific gimmick/expertise/expert "thing" is always 100% aligned with that specific thing. No developer is 100% developing. No professional gamer is 100% gaming professionally, etc. Like the universe around us we are moving constantly changing (evolving?) creatures. We are not our profession constantly. There's too much hyperfocus these days. I hope she made good money out of all that stuff and can focus on what she wants to focus on without being judged for it.

Overtonwindow• 3 years ago

It was a brief fad movement, perhaps. She had a good idea, wrote a successful book, made plenty of money and then reality sort of set in when she had kids. Life moves on, things change.

hgsgm3• 3 years ago

She wrote a new book. OP is an ad.

Shank• 3 years ago

Kondo gave birth to her third child in 2021

I don't have children, but all parents I've talked to have indicated that you can compare having a child to having a hurricane in your house, in terms of stability, organization, chaos, etc. A third child in 2021? Yeah, I'm not surprised.

“Now I realize what is important to me is enjoying spending time with my children at home.” To her, focusing on family over folding is time spent “the right way for me at this time, at this stage of my life.”

Would anyone fault any parent for wanting to spend more time with their children, especially really young ones, after they're born? This piece comes off as really brash to me. She isn't giving up -- she's living life.

iambateman• 3 years ago

I have two children and there was the syrup from a mandarin orange snack cup flying through the air about an hour ago.

Mercifully, it’s nap time.

Hurricane is such a good term.

smugma• 3 years ago

I have three kids and enjoyed the article, and forwarded to the few other parents I know (except one, who still keeps her house crazy clean because she has lots of professional help) with three kids.

The spirit was “Even Marie Kondo can’t keep a clean house with three kids!”

rayiner2• 3 years ago

I have three kids and a maid that comes every week and the house is still a disaster except for 6-7 hours after the maid comes.

dicriseg• 3 years ago

Yep, that's a good description. And unless you're paying someone to come clean and straighten up (cleaning, organizing, and ongoing maintenance are all different concerns!), there is a large amount of time that you need to trade off in order to do that yourself. Your kids will only be kids for so long, so fuck the constant organizing routine and spend your time with them. Be reactive and just clean up when you need to, and shove things into a closet when people come over or whatever. My kid is almost 11 now, and the worst realization is that I'm way past the half way mark in the time that I have with them at home as my kid. I'll have plenty of time to put my shit away when I'm missing them while they're away at college and then building their own life.

My spouse is a professional organizer. It's a cool field, with a mix of helping people maintain a high end appearance, and also helping others who are literally trying to dig their lives out from the living room. Our home doesn't look like a completed job, though. There will (hopefully) be time for that later.

dragonwriter• 3 years ago

The response to the change on her part is framed by the cultural craze around her earlier advice, and the demographic within which it was influential.

Its not really about her, per se.

mr3martinis• 3 years ago

My personal experience is that her book's process and tips are really helpful for living in small spaces and when you want to refresh your home. That's true even if you don't follow it to a T - you just need to use what works for you.

What I got from the philosophy is being more deliberate about what I own and how I maintain things, and an awareness of the subtle effects of clutter.

This isn't a great piece of journalism, but I hope that she shares more about adapting her principles to different situations and stages of life.

fatfox• 3 years ago

Nobody will regret having spent less time tidying and more time with their kids.

Being a parent is stressful, but you’ll never get that time back. And as cheesy as it sounds: observe them, listen to them and play with them and you’ll see the world from a whole new perspective.

hgsgm3• 3 years ago

Tidying makes time with kids more comfortable.

karaterobot• 3 years ago

She's just saying that with three kids, she's given up on keeping her home clean at all times. That makes sense, anything else would be insane. She's not saying "give up, live in a pig sty."

kevinventullo• 3 years ago

The last two paragraphs seem to have missed the point. She’s not doing this because she “deserves a break” or wants to “stew in her own slop”. It is a conscious decision to trade time spent tidying for time spent with kids. I imagine the latter is probably more exhausting!

Existenceblinks• 3 years ago

People seem to have expectation that it needs to be 100% nice and clean arrangement. Just like clean code, it's fine as long as you can find stuff, add more stuff to it and all are still easily to find and add.

AussieWog93• 3 years ago

That's a really good analogy.

ex3xu• 3 years ago

I found KC Davis's 2022 book How to Keep House While Drowning to be a nice complementary update to Kondo's techniques.

On a practical level Davis focuses on accumulated mess as 5 things: (1) trash, (2) dishes, (3) laundry, (4) things that have a place and are not in their place, and (5) things that do not have a place.

The book adds some interesting psychological framing which I found helpful -- treating care tasks as morally neutral, for example. Her techniques target ADHD-types as well as people undergoing life changes (like Marie Kondo starting a family) or otherwise have strict time/energy constraints. Her Struggle Care website [0] has a pretty detailed primer on her philosophy.

[0] https://www.strugglecare.com/struggle-care

rayiner2• 3 years ago

Priorities change after you have kids (especially 3). News at 11. The only thing surprising about this is that anyone is surprised.

tibbydudeza• 3 years ago

I can sympathize with Marie Kondo - when the kids came it was just chaos - the mess in the lounge was referred to as their "playroom".

ogoparootbbo• 3 years ago

I guess that goes to show no ideology scales well either over time or space/resource

steve19772• 3 years ago

Kids can have a dramatic impact on your expectations regarding tidiness.

bradgessler• 3 years ago

I built https://www.thingybase.com/ so that I could barcode everything with QR code labels that I print from my thermal printer. When I need to find something I search for it on my phone and it tells me where I put it.

DimitriPetrova• 3 years ago

I feel as though her self-evaluation of "messy" is probably more organized and cleaner than 99% of people

djmips• 3 years ago

I know people who are very neat and when they apologize and say their place is messy when I visit, I might have to strain my eyes to see what they are seeing. So.. I really doubt Marie Kondo's place is 'messy'.

Marie Kondo Gives Up

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