Children Are Washable, But Somebody Still Has to Do the Washing
Messy play at my house was never a free for all. The rules are the reason it kept happening
There’s a phrase trending right now that I love (sort of): children are washable. Paint and mud come off, even the glitter mostly comes off eventually.
And also? Children are washable does not mean messy play should be a free for all.
Not having rules doesn’t make you the chill mom or the artsy mom. It makes messy play a one hit wonder at your house, because things can get out of control fast, and then messy play becomes one and done. The next time they ask to paint, you hear yourself saying maybe this weekend, and thinking, maybe not at all…
When my house is a mess, I feel like my life is a mess. Clutter throws me for a loop. I’ve usually vacuumed twice by ten am. I have friends who can step over the play dough ground into the rug and go on with their day, and I envy them, but I’m not one of them.
And, still, I love messy play. Wet, slimy, grey river clay. Playdough, oobleck, shaving cream. I have watched with a satisfied grin as my kids filled buckets with mud and sat down in them like a drawn bath.
I get to be both of those people because of a handful of firm rules and a setup that takes less than ten minutes. Years in the nursery school classroom, plus raising three kids of my own, turned into a messy play system that makes me giddy to host little nieces and nephews and break out the paint.
If you’ve ever stood there with the paint in your hand, doing the math on your rug, and put it back in the cabinet? This one is for you.
I was chatting with a mom friend at the beach the other day. She has an eight month old, a toddler, and a brand new kindergartener, and as her baby slept on her chest, and her husband chased the other two kids by the breaking waves, we got to talking about the messaging that gets aimed at moms online.
“I know children are washable,” she said, and I could hear the air quotes. “Everybody keeps telling me. They’re only little once. One day I’ll miss the mess. I know.”
I half-smiled, half-flinched, praying my page never makes anyone feel that way, and she continued, “But I’m the one washing them. And the floor. And the tub after the tub. So most days I just say not today… And then at night, when they are all three finally asleep, I feel so guilty about it.”
Oh, I’ve been there. And she’s right about the washing. Nobody puts the kitchen floor on the cute graphic, but the kitchen floor doesn’t wash itself and neither do the kids. When every yes costs you an hour of scrubbing and you’re the only grownup on cleanup duty, of course you’re rationing the yeses.
“We do messy stuff outside sometimes,” she said. “But then they still have to come back inside and then what?”
Right?? Outside works great until it’s over, and now there are two kids on the back step, mud from their eyebrows to the spaces between their toes, and the only route to the bathtub runs straight through the kitchen and up the carpeted stairs. So… now what?
I told her about the time that my now 16yo was a sassy, self-possessed three year old who was obsessed with the color teal. One day after a particularly messy painting session (ONLY TEAL), I carried her toward the running tub upstairs, and on the way she smeared one tiny teal finger all the way up the wall, so satisfied to have made a mark without my noticing. My husband noticed it later. After it had dried. It wasn’t fun. But it did make me think it through, and the system I nailed down is the same one I still set up when my nieces and nephews come over: the kids get mostly clean BEFORE they come back in the house.
After the day of the teal line up the stairs, I recreated my strategy for messy play, and I told her to steal it.
Behind the paywall:
How to use a physical boundary to show kids where messy play can and can’t go, and how to manage when they test it
How to keep the mess outside without trailing it in
What to do when things get out of control
The five things I set up before we start
The rest is for my paid subs.
