heading toward simplicity: Guilt Be Gone

My sister Jen is quite simply the best mother I have ever known. As someone who has spent most of her baby making years in paralyzed doubt over whether having kids is right and how to have them without saddling all your worst tendencies and neuroses on to them (which they will then push on to their children like some crippling family crest), I am in awe of her incredible maternal acumen.

And then I remind myself that she works hard at it. Physically, mentally and emotionally 16 hours a day — loving and listening to these kids, shaping them and responding to what they need to become the shape they want to be, cleaning and cooking and home schooling and disciplining and respecting and instilling wanderlust and curiosity and compassion and responsibility and playfulness. She reads every book she can get her hands on. She experiments. She studies. She asks for advice. She never stops. And it must be exhausting - but she makes it look so valuable and so rewarding…like there was no other reason she could have been placed on this earth.

However. Raising five kids is complicated and taxing and never ending. And in addition to doing it well, she’d like to do it in a way that doesn’t break her with stress or guilt.

To that end, she has started a really thoughtful, honest and profound new blog. Each month, her family is tackling a new experiment in an effort to cut out the excess that does not matter and in fact detracts from their family’s happiness….and refocus on a simple life that gives them more time for what does matter. Last month’s experiment was around laundry — reducing each family member’s wardrobe to just a couple of changes of clothes (they’re keeping this practice!). This month’s is around dishes — each family member (including the 4 year old and the baby) get one set of dishes and are responsible for cleaning them after every meal.

Even if she wasn’t my beloved sister, I’d encourage you to follow her blog. We don’t agree on everything and our lives have taken very different routes, but I respect her more than anyone and learn from every conversation with her.

Hope you enjoy their experiment on finding peace and simplicity in a society of overabundance.