One of our favorite parts of doing this mini-pod has been the immense insight gleaned from our incredible guests. Every time one of us records an ep with a guest, we end up texting the other raving about it. And this episode on minimalism, the necessity of evolution, and our personal histories to STUFF (and the accumulation of stuff) is no exception!
Following Virginia’s edit of the transcript, we had a lengthy text convo about why we’re driven to shop for the stuff we’re driven to shop for, so much so that we’re gonna write an essay about it to accompany next week’s Live Thread because there’s a LOT there.
Can’t wait to share our conversation with the brilliant Christine Platt, and we hope your minds are blown as wide open as ours were when it comes to understanding ourselves, our things, and our own relationships with consumption. Oh and Marie Antoinette might pop into the mix too!
Cult of Perfect Episode 5 Transcript
Sara
Virginia, What do you think of when you hear the word minimalism?
Virginia
I think my main answer is beige. I think beige, neutral, cream tones is a big part of my answer. I also think “something I’m not doing well at.” I have felt a lot of pressure to be more minimalistic in my life and I just am not going to be. I think of the Montessori toy shelves where your kids have one toy per cubby and you rotate them and thats all they play with. Very spare, no clutter ever.
Sara
An absence of stuff.
Virginia
A profound absence of stuff.
In wardrobes, I think about it a lot, too. I think about it as you have the perfect jeans and the perfect white t shirt, which you weren’t eating spaghetti sauce in. I’m wearing a white shirt right now, I just ate lunch. You can’t see me right now, but it is not great.
Sara
Right!
Virginia
It’s having very few possessions and being able to maintain them impeccably.
Sara
It’s also something you can be good at, an aesthetic you can excel at.
Virginia
They’re grading you and not on a curve. You have to meet a lot of benchmarks to achieve Minimalism—capital M in Minimalism.
Sara
The one cashmere sweater you’ll have for the rest of your life. The only pair of black pants you’ll ever need, there is a real fetishization of one’s ability to ideally curate one’s existence when it comes to minimalism.
Virginia
And yet, also be on trend, right? The one black pair of pants are not going to be whatever cut of black pants we were wearing five years ago. They’re somehow going to morph with you. Is it a straight leg? Is it a bootleg?
Sara
I know you’ve written about this before when it comes to capsule wardrobes, but it obviously plays into this idea that your body or your home’s needs (or whatever it is you’re aestheticizing) never changes.
Virginia
I can’t achieve a minimalist wardrobe because I cannot reliably expect to wear the same clothing size from one season to the next—and most women, most people with bodies can’t really! Things just don’t fit the same way that they did six months ago, in any direction. Bodies are changing all the time.
The other piece of it that we didn’t touch on is that Minimalism is very linked to a kind of moral, social responsibility. Cutting down on your consumption because you care about the planet, because you care about not buying things from factories with bad working conditions. There is a lot of guilt. There is both this aesthetic failing and this moral failing when you’re not achieving it.
Sara
You said you feel like it’s something you don’t do well, but do you see yourself adopting Minimalist aesthetics or ideologies in any aspects of your life?
Virginia
I think I’m actually on a Minimalism divestment journey at the moment which I’m excited about. But for sure I’ve been very seduced by it off and on over the years.
For sure experiments with capsule wardrobes, I think also motherhood. I was one of the bougie new moms who was like, “We’re not going to have a lot of plastic. We don’t need a lot of stuff.” And then of course, it’s 2am and your baby won’t stop crying and you’re like, “What can I Amazon Prime here to fix this right away?”
With my first daughter, we didn’t buy a bassinet. We were like, “She’ll just sleep in the crib!” And then the first night we got home from the hospital, it was clear that she was not willing to sleep in the crib right away and we Amazon Prime-d a $150 crappy plastic bassinet that she also would not sleep in. I’m not saying buying the thing solves the thing, because it very often doesn’t. But then there was this triple thing like, I failed because I bought the thing that didn’t work and I shouldn’t have been trying to buy the things and I’m trying not to buy anything.
I also think for a long time, I tried really hard to decorate my house pretty minimally, a lot of neutrals, cream and navy, and not a lot of pops of color. The more I’ve started to embrace pops of color in clothing I wear, the more color I’m bringing into our house. Especially these days, my house is totally under my control decor-wise, which is pretty awesome. It’s me and my two daughters. And we are people who like color and a little bit of whimsy! I’ve been like, Why was I holding back? Why was every throw pillow cream? We have children! That was a bad idea!
Sara
Right.
Virginia
I think I’d been holding back on joy a little bit in the quest for this minimalist aesthetic at times. What about you?
Sara
I’m entranced by the idea that Minimalism will allow space for more living or more joy in sort of like a flip-flop of that idea. Like, the whole idea of clean countertops. There’s something so tantalizing about a completely bare space, particularly in a house populated by children.
Virginia
Because it is work you don’t have to do. It either means you did the work of making the countertops clean or you’re not looking at your countertops thinking, well I have to clean up all that shit.
Sara
Right, like evidence of a to-do list.
I think Minimalism also gets tricky in the desire to have the right beautiful thing in a space. Basically, when there are fewer things in a space, I think the pressure rises to make sure those things are the very best things that things can be.
Virginia
This is how we go down the internet rabbit holes of like the perfect wool sweater, right? It doesn’t actually save you labor. Yes, you’re buying less, but you’re putting the same amount of time you would put into buying six things into buying one thing and still feeling anxious and stressed about whether it’s the perfect thing.
Sara
Do you remember the phenomenon that was Kinfolk by any chance?
Basically Kinfolk was this magazine started by two Mormons—always an interesting little tidbit.
Virginia
I didn’t see that coming for some reason. I feel like Mormons are the anti-Minimalists, you have a million children, you’re trying to procure all this wealth.
Sara
They have since gotten divorced, but that’s neither here nor there. It was this magazine that was very much like, jam jars being used to hold flowers.
Virginia
I did that so much in the early 2000s.
Sara
I mean, I still do! I still do. Mason jars. It was like gingham tablecloths. Very much like “simplicity is king.” It really became huge in the early- to mid-aughts, and I think you can see its influence still in home goods lines at Target.
There’s an article written by Lisa Abend in Vanity Fair taking stock of Kinfolk’s influence on the culture. And I would like you to read a little passage.
Virginia
Kinfolk is famously about intentionality, about a kind of wholesome slow living that exults in deliberately curated moments, carefully selected objects, and, as its twee tagline once read, “small gatherings.” Like all lifestyle magazines, it traffics in aspiration, and if, in the past eight years or so, you have found yourself craving a precisely sliced piece of avocado toast, or a laundry line from which to cunningly hang your linen bedsheets in the sun-dappled afternoon, you probably have Kinfolk to thank for it. But the seductions featured on its pages have always been aimed as much at the soul as the body. Through intention, Kinfolk’s austerely beautiful pages whisper, lies not just a pretty room or a lovely outfit, but a truer expression of the self, something more meaningful, more, as the marketers now put it, authentic.
You had me on the avocado toast.
Sara
I’m really stuck on the linen bedsheets in the sun dappled afternoon.
Virginia
I never fell for that. That just sounds hard. Exhausting. Who’s carrying them in and out? Are you planning your life around the weather for drying? Like, dryers are a gift to humanity. I understand the romance of that, but it just sounds like a lot more domestic labor.
Sara
I will say what really strikes me about this passage is the last line, “a truer expression of the self, something more meaningful,” which sort of harkens back to what I was saying about this idea that if we rid our environments and our bodies of excess, that there will be more room for truer forms of living, if that makes sense. I think it’s a fallacy, but I do think that is what compelled me towards Minimalism in the past.
Virginia
Yet again, it’s like, you have to buy the linen bedsheets to do it, right? There is still this implied consumption in this version of Minimalism. There is such a disconnect there. The lifestyle magazines are not showing you that the stylists had to stand there at the laundry line perfectly hanging the linen bed sheets, steaming them out so that they would hang just so in the sun dappled light.
Sara
Also, why should clutter or stuff rob us of human connection? I think it’s a really flawed equation. It’s strange to me that I just accepted that without really interrogating it because it doesn’t make logical sense.
Virginia
We were just discussing off mic how often parenting children you feel like it’s either like the highest highs or the lows, not a lot in between. But when you’re getting to the highest high part, often things are messy. They’re building a fort or doing something with Paw Patrol characters and you’re embracing it and enjoying it with them. And that’s the connection, that there’s some mess.
I’ve been rethinking my house a little bit because now that I’m the only adult here, it’s this exciting opportunity to redo some things, which is very freeing. But I did realize one of the mistakes I made really early on in that process as I was redoing one corner of our downstairs. I moved the girls’ art table upstairs to one of the bedrooms. I was like, then you won’t have to worry about cleaning it up because you can just leave it messy because it’s in that room. We can close the door. I mean, fast forward six weeks and I was like, Oh, they don’t make art anymore. They never think to go upstairs. They’re downstairs with me. We’re together, we want to be together.
We do still keep like the bigger messier art supplies up there, but I ended up getting a little table for the corner of the dining room where we can have markers and tape. It absolutely does not look as beautifully styled as the dining room looked before I brought back the art table, but it’s obviously better for my children to be able to live in all rooms of their home and not be like, if I wish to make art I should go tuck myself away.
My six year old got really into calling it “our art studio upstairs,” but we weren’t ever using it.
Sara
This whole conversation has been really dominated by the idea of choice, like, are you buying into Minimalist aesthetics or ideals? If you are, how has it impacted you? So I want to take that idea of choice and think more about that. I’ve got a snippet from an essay written by Stephanie Land, the author of Maid and Class. I thought it was just an interesting perspective that we haven’t touched on yet.
Virginia
Okay, so this is from a piece Stephanie wrote for The New York Times. She writes:
I had to downsize severely several years ago when my daughter and I moved into a 400-square-foot studio. I had no usable wall space, and although my boss gave me temporary storage space in her garage over the summer, I had to sort through and get rid of carloads of clothes, my childhood toys, school papers, books, movies and artwork. I couldn’t afford to store all of these items, which had value to me only as a record of my history — including mementos from my parents.
My stuff wasn’t just stuff, but a reminder that I had a foundation of support of people who had loved me growing up: a painting I’d done as a child that my mom had carefully framed and hung in our house, a set of antique Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls my ferret once chewed an eye out of when I was 15, artwork my mom had collected over the decade we lived in Alaska. Things I grew up with that brought me back to a time of living a carefree life.
That’s heartbreaking.
Sara
It’s a reframing of “stuff.”
I think we are probably in a similar bubble, a similar class and race bubble that thinks of stuff with this sort of disdain, like “we should be better than our stuff and our stuff should not control us.” But also, we have the privilege to rid our lives of stuff we don’t want or need. We have the privilege to think about preference in terms of what we’re surrounded with.
Virginia
Oh, 100% .
Sara
I think this perspective is missing in a lot of conversations about Minimalism.
Virginia
Minimalism is almost rich people cosplaying poverty, in a way. There was some book I had, it was like a design inspiration coffee table type of home decor book that I was given years ago when I bought my first house. It was very on the linen, burlap, mason jar aesthetic. And I remember reading through it and on every other page, they kept referring to things as “humble.” This humble breadbasket. This humble apron. I was like, oh, this is so gross. It’s so gross to think because something looks sort of rustic that it’s humble and hardworking and earnest, salt of the earth.
Sara
And morally superior.
Virginia
Yes. When actually Stephanie is writing about a time in her life when she couldn’t afford groceries and school tuition. Probably just having more cash would be great. There’s no morality to that. People need to be able to afford their lives.
Sara
Do you know that Marie Antoinette created basically this whole village scene, this “humble” village, and she had real people populate the village and she and her rich aristocratic friends would dress up like poor people and play poor people in this whole elaborate village that must have cost trillions of dollars to recreate? I just thought of that because I do think there’s this bizarre connection between wealthy people liking rough hewn wood and exposed beams, there’s a lot there.
Virginia
Wow. I mean, it sounds horrific what she did and I mean, of course it was Marie Antoinette, she’s not famous for being a good person. But also that’s not that different from what a lot of like Instagram influencers are doing. It’s not that different from Ballerina Farm with her exposed plaster and lath walls.
As you’re saying this, too, I’m also just thinking how our desire for minimalism, how much does that have to do with genuine environmental sustainability? Arguably, does it benefit the planet at all for Ballerina Farm not to insulate her house? Probably not. How much has to do with this appearance of goodness and caring about these things?
Sara
This is one I consistently struggle with.
We’re recording this a couple of weeks before Christmas. And like, we have a shitload of kid shit in our house. Like, an obscene amount.
Virginia
So many stuffed animals. I think they breed.
Sara
It really stresses me out when I think about it. I’ll do this thing where I collect them and I’ll store them and if nobody asks about them for months or whatever, I get rid them.
Virginia
I have three American Girl dolls in a bag like that in the basement. I feel like I’m hiding a body in my basement. Two bodies.
Sara
Which ones?
Virginia
Neha and one of the Welliewishers. My girls are just not doll girls. They don’t care. They have stuffed animals by the thousands.
But they both at various points begged for these American Girl dolls, and as a former American Girl doll fan, I assumed this was going to be a huge part of their childhood. And they do not give a shit. I finally was like, I am going to donate them. For now, I’m just secretly hiding their bodies to make sure we’re really done because American Girls are expensive. These were like your biggest Christmas gift or birthday or whatever they were.
I’m going to clean them up and donate them
Sara
My point is that I feel all this shame about raising my kids to not value their belongings, raising my kids to not have the opportunity to be bored more often, to foster their creative, imaginative facilities. Raising my kids not to be good environmental stewards.
Virginia
I’m failing on all of that right now, on every front.
Sara
And yet, am I getting fidgets for them? Yes. Yes, I am. So I’ve really struggled with this one because, like, fossil fuels!
Virginia
Another one of the central lures for Minimalism for me and I imagine many parents, mothers specifically, is this idea of control, or at least the illusion of control.
I’m thinking back to that anxious new mom mode of “we don’t want a lot of stuff. Don’t give us a lot of stuff.” I think some of that was trying to control. I feel like I thought if I could make motherhood this aesthetically pleasing experience, it would feel more like me in some way. Less like I was sacrificing who I thought I was, pre-kids. Does that make any sense?
Sara
It does.
Virginia
I didn’t want to be suddenly this Fisher Price covered person. That wasn’t who I was before. I was a lot more eco before I had kids. I really abandoned so much of that. I was very, like, reusable tote bags and farmers markets back then. And I was like, we will still be that way, damn it. And then very quickly, I was like, no cloth diapers are not the way.
I mean, great for other people, but not for me. And it was what it was.
Sara
I think that’s tricky, too, because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to retain our aesthetic identities and wanting to resist the onslaught of Fisher Price ugliness.
Virginia
But there was this very slippery slope between like, “I’m trying to hold on to some shred of who I was before I did this,” and then somehow that got blurred with, “I want to be the perfect Montessori mom who’s raising a preschooler who’s already reading and doing all these advanced things,” and that’s why I’m resisting the Fisher Price crap. Who I was before was apparently on track to become very elitist.
Sara
I get it.
Virginia
So I’m willing to say that rebelling against it, being like “fine, bring on the Calico Critters” has felt good and liberating. Then I have a house full of Squishmallows and Calico Critters, and a couple of American Girl dolls in the basement.
The other piece of this is the way the Minimalist conversation intersects with diet culture. We are told to—all people are told this, but particularly conditioned women— to long for less in so many ways, to take up less space in so many ways. The control piece of this, there’s just a lot where it’s like, you are trying to sort of winnow yourself into this tiny, clean surfaces, very elitist, very Minimalist existence.
Sara
On this subject of control, I wanted to read this from a book called The Longing for Less, which I read as part of Momfluenced research. The author Kyle Chayka writes:
No single English language word quite captures this persistent feeling of being overwhelmed and yet alienated, which is maybe why minimalism has become so widespread. I began thinking of this universal feeling as the longing for less. It’s an abstract, almost nostalgic desire to be pulled towards a different, simpler world, not past nor future, neither utopian nor dystopian. This more authentic world is always just beyond our current existence in a place we can never quite reach.
Virginia
There is so much wrapped up in that longing for less. I can have empathy about the nostalgia and the things we’ve lost feeling. I think that’s something we all struggle with, especially as the world is this increasingly harrowing place. The alienation piece feels important, but then there’s also the absolute impossibility. You’re never going to get there.
Sara
Totally. It also ties very directly to consumerism. Because I think the impossible to achieve minimalism that we’re being sold is that we can only hope to achieve it by buying X, by buying the perfect whatever it may be. It is inextricably linked to capitalism and consumerism in that way.
Virginia
For today’s episode, Sara spoke with Christine Platt, author of The Afrominimalist's Guide to Living with Less and co author of the new novel Rebecca Not Becky, which Sara blurbed, writing, “It’s impossible not to laugh out loud because we all know that mother.” Christine currently serves as the executive director for Jacqueline Woodson’s nonprofit residency for artists of the global majority, Baldwin for the Arts. She’s also a member of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Association of Black Women Historians, and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Christine also serves as an ambassador for Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
I cannot wait to hear this conversation.
Sara
Christine, I’m so psyched to have you today. I wonder if we could start by having you introduce yourself and telling us a little bit about your work?
Christine
I’m so happy to be here. A little bit about me and my work. I am an author, I am an advocate, and I’m also known as the Afrominimalist. I started that journey a while ago and I guess it’s been almost six years now. And about two years ago, I decided to write a book about my journey, and it just became its own animal, it was really special.
I still focus on really trying to encourage people to live with only what they need, use, and love. The Afrominimalist is an extension of the advocacy work that I do in the climate change and sustainability space trying to get people to make those connections between our consumption and the harm that it may have on the environment, aside from our finances and other stuff. Really getting people to understand how it intersects with all these different areas of our lives.
Sara
I love how from the very beginning, you’re talking about the interconnectedness of all of these things because I think a lot of times people view Minimalism as an exercise in perfection, and control. Especially the way it shows up on social media, all white, all beige, no clutter, no mess.
Christine
It’s empty. I love to talk about the aesthetics of Minimalism versus the practice. I think so many of us who live with less, we know so much more now than we did when we started. I mean, I started in the same way, like, “oh, my goodness, these little squares,” whether it was on Pinterest or whatever. These people look so peaceful, right? Their house is so clean, it must be the answer to all of my problems and troubles. I remember trying to mirror that barren aesthetic in my home, white on white on white. And I was like, Oh, my God, this is so miserable. That’s kind of why I became the Afrominimalist. I was like, I have to have some color. I have to have some fabric, I have to have some texture, I have to have some culture.
It was certainly surprising for me to put myself out there as this person and say, “hey, if there’s anyone else who also is struggling with the aesthetics of minimalism, here’s how you can do it with color,” and just have like a flood of folks following and having these conversations. One of the things that I learned on this journey is that the aesthetics of minimalism versus the practice of minimalism are just so entirely different.
The practice of minimalism is conscious consumerism, is having only those things that you need, use, and love—or even those things that spark joy. I don’t know if you saw the recent headline where Marie Kondo was like, “yeah, I’m done with all that. I have three kids, it’s too much,” right? I applaud her for her honesty and authenticity around that, but I think that’s what so many of us practitioners have been saying for for so long, right? For me to try and mirror the aesthetic of someone who doesn’t have a kid in college or for someone else to try and mirror an aesthetic of someone that doesn’t have three kids—it’s just not possible, right? We end up really putting a lot of restrictions and limitations on a practice that is supposed to be about ease.
Sara
Do you have any ideas about why Minimalism as an aesthetic has dominated so many momfluencer spaces? Because it doesn’t make a ton of sense if you think about how life with kids is inherently messy. Clutter abounds! It’s not empty. It’s not quiet. It’s not particularly calm.
Christine
It’s so wild because I don’t know any Minimalist that lives the way that these photographs look. I feel like I know some of the leading Minimalist practitioners with huge followings, the whole nine. I think the reason that those images are so compelling to people is the same way they were compelling to me, which is, Gosh, I am just so overwhelmed. It’s like this idea that if I could just get my house in order, I would have less overwhelm. If I could just get my house in order, I could be more calm.
It becomes this ideal. Gosh, they must not have any stress because they don’t have any clutter. And it’s just not true. It’s also just an unrealistic ideal, I think, and aesthetic to want to ascribe to unless that’s your thing.
There are people who are just like, My parents were hoarders and I can only have like three things in my house. Really three things. It’s a different type of approach and lifestyle choice that folks make based on whether they grew up with scarcity or abundance. I think the average person looking at a photo on Pinterest and saying, you know what, I just want to have three books and do it.
Sara
I guess for me, one of the reasons I think mothers in particular gravitate towards these images is that these images don’t necessarily reflect anybody’s lived reality, is because mothers and caregivers in this country have so little control over really big, systemic things.
And so I feel like, at least for me, there have been times in my life where I’m like, Okay, I can’t control like the lack of universal paid leave. I can’t control the fact that most people can’t find affordable quality childcare, but I can control, like, my countertops, or whatever. You know what I mean?
Christine
Yeah.
Sara
And so in a way I understand and empathize with the aspirational side of the aesthetic. But how do you think aspiring toward an aesthetic versus a practice can sort of set people up to fail?
Christine
Oh, man, it is absolutely a setup. And I say that as someone who was set up, right? You know, I think what happens is, you know, again, like you’re expecting to somehow achieve this promise, right? So whether it is I just have too much, you know, stuff. And I want to have nothing in this room because I want my room to look just like this room on Pinterest. They only have one chair and a desk and a lamp. And my God, this looks so peaceful. Right?
Sara
Yeah.
Christine
And then you do that and you sit in that room at that desk in that chair and that lamp and you’re like, I am absolutely miserable. Right? That is the setup. This happens with planners all the time right? Like the reason mothers in particular, you know, buy so many planners is that they’re just looking for a way to get organized and there’s just so much stuff right? Yeah, but it’s the same thing if you don’t write in the planner, if you don’t use the planner. All the planner’s gonna do is give you a visual representation of what you’re already feeling. But it’s not going to make your life simpler. And so I think it’s kind of the same thing when we ascribe to a certain aesthetic, hoping for some sort of like, physical or emotional outcome. We can be very disappointed when it doesn’t deliver what we thought the promise was.
Sara
And it turns into sort of like a self-blame spiral. Like, I just didn’t do it right.
Christine
I think what also happens is folks try and do it, and then they realize they can’t, and then they feel like, Oh, I failed. I can’t be a minimalist. So I would hear from all people all the time. It just looks too complicated. Oh, it’s too much. The minute I remove the word minimalism and say, Well, can you just try to buy less things? Or Can you try to be a more conscious consumer? Can you just be more mindful of your spending? All of a sudden, people can do it, you know? Or can you let go of one thing a day? Who said you had to let it all go in a weekend? Getting people to understand that we all sort of operate and are motivated by many different things. If you do want to simplify a particular space, you can do it, you just have to do it your way. And on your terms, in order to achieve that satisfaction I think so many people are looking for.
Sara
Can you get really clear on how you define minimalism as a practice versus an aesthetic? Because I think that’s the linchpin to everything that we’re talking about.
Christine
Yeah, I mean, for me, minimalism is truly just living with only those things that I need use and love. Right, and paying it forward with those things that I don’t. There are so many unofficial rules around the practice, because everyone does it differently, right?
Like, I’m going through that now as a new empty-nester, right. There are just certain things that I don’t need anymore. And, you know, What do I do with my daughter’s room? She’s only here, you know, a few times a year now. It’s an evolution. I think we have to allow ourselves some grace and extend grace to those of us who, you know, those practitioners who we follow and allow them to also grow and evolve in their practice and in their work.
Sara
I think mothers in particular get stuck on like, Okay, so my kid goes to a birthday party and comes home with like a goodie bag full of like plastic crap? Like, how, how do you practice letting go of control? And also, you know, like, saying yes to the things you want in your life and saying no to the things you don’t want in your life without getting, like, especially if you’re like, a type A person or you have Type A tendencies, how do you not get into that danger zone? In terms of the practice of minimalism?
Christine
Yeah, I mean, no is a powerful word, right? I mean, what I know is you cannot bring it in the house, you know, the minute you bring it into the house, or you hold onto it for too long, you start to feel the sense of responsibility for it, right? It turns from the bag of like, little knickknacks into Aw those are the party favors from Tommy’s third birthday. And so I think it’s important for us to understand our own unique psychologies of ownership.
So what I mean by that is, if we continue with this example of the party favors, right. I know myself, and my unique psychologies of ownership. I know that if I bring it in the house, it I’m going to end up holding on to it because I feel responsible for it. Now it becomes you know, less of a bag of party favors, and more nostalgic, right? Like, oh, my Gosh, I can’t wait to show him this little dinosaur when he’s 18. Like, really? He’s going to be 18 in 15 years, and you’re gonna hold onto this little dinosaur?
So for me, the party favors don’t come in the house. I also don’t have a lot of dressers and drawers and baskets and bins and things like that. Because one of the things that I discovered again, about my own psychology of ownership, is that those are storage facilities. For me, they are not places of organization. They are things to hide objects in.
It’s so important for us to understand ourselves. And it’s not really about control when we look at it from that angle. It’s more of what works for me and what does not work for me. I know, we talked about Marie Kondo earlier, and you know, her folding technique is like, huge, right? It was a big part of her work. Yeah. And people were dumbfounded when I would say like, Oh, I love Marie Kondo. And they were like, I want to see how much you’ve got, like, let me see the drawer that you folded.
And I was like, I don’t have drawers and I don’t do the whole folding thing. Right. But I love KonMari-ing my closet and they’re like, why don’t you have drawers? And I said, Well, when I went through my whole decluttering process, what I continued to find in drawers were things that I no longer needed, used and loved and just had them out of sight.
Sara
Yeah.
Christine
The definition of hoarding is holding on to anything for future use, I think we think of hoarding as like, Oh, we’re crammed in our house, and we can’t move because there’s so much stuff, but the clinical definition of hoarding is holding on to something for future use use. Whether it’s a plastic dinosaur, right, that you think you’re gonna have at Tommy’s 18th graduation party, right? Or, you know, the stuff in the drawers like, oh, I should probably get rid of this, you know, Marathon t-shirt, right? Oh, but let me just put it in here, I might wear it.
What motivates us to buy certain things and to have certain things? What are things that we’re more prone to have an emotional attachment to? Consumption is not just what we buy. It’s also what we accept and allow into our lives.
Sara
How does race and class figure into not only the psychology of ownership but into an understanding of, you know, our own personal journeys to filling our homes with only what we need and what we use.
Christine
I think it’s less about race and it is more about class, generational habits, right. Like those things seem to weigh heavier, just in terms of the conversations that I’ve had with the hundreds of folks now. You know, it’s really about a lot of our, I would say, even like cultural standards, right, or generationally, what you witnessed, right.
So, for example, one of the things that I’ve talked about in the book is extending grace to our parents. Many of us have parents, who are extreme savers, or extreme spenders, right? Part of that comes from the fact that many of them were born after the Great Depression, and their parents said, You know what, We’re never saving again, we’re going to live for the moment or their parents said, We’re going to save everything, because we don’t know when something like this is going to happen again. So much of who we are is rooted in our childhood. And that is why race is less of a factor and it’s really more about family dynamics. Did we grew up with scarcity or abundance? What were we told or not told about spending? Right, like, even those conversations that you overheard as a child?
Also, another consideration that I like to talk to folks about is thinking of where you are in your familial standing, right. Think about being first generation of anything. You can be the first person in your family to own a house, you can be the first person in your family to earn six figures, there’s this weighted responsibility that comes with some of those things that crosses across all races, nationalities, ethnicities, right? It’s just this overwhelming sense of responsibility to look a certain way, to act a certain way, to own or acquire certain things, even if it’s not what you really want because that is what is expected.
I think that is what is at the root cause of so much of our discomfort when it comes to clutter and having things. We know is too much. That’s why step one, for me, it’s acknowledgement. And then forgive yourself.
And then it’s like this awareness or awakening that happens when we start to dig a little deeper into our psychology of ownership and why we have so much more than we need. Many of those answers stem from our childhoods, and we want to place blame, right? Not only do you have to forgive yourself, you have to forgive anyone who you feel may have been responsible, you know, for some of your habits and behaviors, knowingly or unknowingly. You need to forgive them. And then you can start letting go. Then go get the trash bags.
Sara
My mom would occasionally pick us up from school. She’d call it like a mental health day and we’d go to TJ Maxx and Marshalls or whatever. And even equating like leisure time, and like treat time with what is essentially just aimless consumerism. That’s just one tiny example of how so many of us have so many things locked within our subconscious wrapped up in all of this.
Christine
It’s crazy. I mean, I didn’t even realize it until I, you know, started, like really digging into my own practice. I came across so many things with like, sales tags, or those little red stickers on them. Usually there would be like multiple red stickers, you know? And I was like, Oh, I love scoring a deal. And I realized, Oh, I’m in love with the thrill of the hunt, not necessarily the prize.
Then I’m like, going a little deeper. Why is that? Why? Why is this my sort of mode to find joy, right? And I remember going to the mall with my mother as a child. .
We lived in South Florida, and growing up, I’m pretty sure we were considered poverty stricken. I didn’t know that at the time because my mother, you know, made life so joyous and full. But looking back, I’m like, Oh, we were poor. But on the weekends, we would go to the mall, and we would walk around, and we would get ice cream cones. And I would always get mint chocolate chips, and she would get rum raisin. Occasionally, she would buy herself a lipstick, we would always look at the sales racks, you know, that kind of thing. In my childlike mind, we were shopping every weekend. We were spending imaginary money in my mind. Of course, we were just at the mall because AC was free there and we lived in South Florida. You know what I mean? It’s a place where you can walk around you see your friends, you know, maybe you’ll find a little something.
But my mother is one of the most mindful consumers that I have ever known. And, again, was born, you know, after the Great Depression, but was young enough to remember the stories of what happened.
Sara
Right, right.
Christine
And so, you know, putting the totality of all those circumstances together, I realized, like, oh, in my childlike mind, I associated shopping with being with my mom and the good feelings that we had and the fun time that we had and even realizing that, you know, even as an adult when I would go to the mall and go shopping, I would love to end the day with an ice cream cone. So looking back on that and saying, like, Okay, what was really happening? What was really happening is, she found a wonderful way for us to enjoy our Saturdays not sweltering in the Florida heat. I just think it’s so important to drill down and do that inner work and think through the root causes of some of our consumption habits and behaviors because once we know them, we can recognize them, right?
I am always going to be enticed by a sale. Its always gonna be exciting for me, right? And so I’m not going to the semi-annual sale that happens every month. I’m not going to the sales rack and touching everything right? Like, a big part of you know, why we acquire some of the things that we do is touch. I learned so much about the psychology of ownership, researching for this book I found so much information through marketing and advertising. Understanding how they tap into consumers psychology of ownership.
Sara
Okay, so I’m really glad you brought that up because I am super fascinated by the ads and the marketing campaigns that specifically target mothers, and specifically offer mothers reprieve, a sense of calm, a sense of clarity, simplicity.
So like, there’s this one Instagram ad that came up recently, it was a woman wearing like a two piece set that like kind of looked, it’s sort of looked like pajamas, sort of look like loungewear whatever. And her tagline was, Designing this set that can go from pajamas to you know, the boardroom was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself as a mother of five. And like, as a consumer, I’m like, Oh, I want to do something for myself as a mother! But like spending $250 on these fancy pajama clothes. Like that’s not ultimately changing my experience of mothering and caregiving.
Christine
That’s the promise. Because I know my unique psychology of ownership, like I can look at that ad and I can say, What an unfair promise to these mamas. You know what I mean? Like, They really think they’re gonna look like that when they roll out of bed? Do you know how wrinkled those pajamas would be? You’re not gonna be able to go to the boardroom. It’s just not possible.
Sara
Well, even if they did look like that, that is not making your experience of mothering any different, you know?
Christine
No, you’re just gonna look nice and still feel frazzled. A pause is a big part of this. Pausing and saying, Do I really need this pajama outfit set? How is this pajama outfit set really going to serve me? Where am I going to wear it? What am I going to do? By the time you run down all those questions, you’ve usually lost interest, right? Another thing that I encourage folks to do is to not save your credit card information in your phone or computer. The number of times I have not purchased something simply because I had to go get up and get my credit card? Countless!
Sara
That’s so sobering.
Christine
Because even once you know your psychology of ownership, you’re still going to be tempted. I’m always going to be tempted by a sale. I had to come up with little mantras for myself, and I would say things like, Christine, it’s not a deal if you don’t need it. Or I’ll find myself going to get something, and I’ll say, Christine, What is the why behind the buy? Why are you buying this? Right? Like, because usually, it’s tied to some emotional sort of spending.
And I think remembering too especially as mothers that we are mirroring for our children. I think we tend to think letting go of things will be hard for children, buy it’s really not. My child was able to embrace minimalism far quicker than I did. I mean, because they too feel the overwhelm. It’s a lot for them when we’re like, Clean your room! and even if they don’t have the language, they’re sort of thinking, But you keep bringing stuff in here. How am I supposed to keep it clean?
Sara
Totally. Yep.
Christine
It’s all in the approach. Just tell your kids, like, Hey, you know what, you have so much stuff in your room. You can’t even keep your room clean. I don’t even blame you for not having a clean room! You’re so lucky, you’re so blessed. I bet there are so many kids right here in our community that would love to have some of these things. There are kids in our community that don’t have a single toy or a single book. Can you go through your room, and put some things in this bag that you’d like to give them right and close that door. And I guarantee you within an hour, probably less than that, they’ll be asking for another bag. And it’s so hard for parents to sort of accept that right? It was hard for me the first time I did that with my daughter. My mistake was looking in that bag.
Sara
Oh no.
Christine
All of a sudden, it wasn’t her stuff. It was our stuff. I was like, but we love this Harry Potter sweatshirt! But they don’t have the same emotional attachments to some of these things. So much of that was me giving her everything that I couldn’t have in childhood, right. You’re gonna have all the dolls, you’re gonna have all the books, you ask for anything, I’m gonna get it. And it’s just like, why?
On her ninth birthday, I couldn’t think of a single thing that child needed, right? There wasn’t a single thing that she could even tell me that she wanted for her birthday. And I was like, You know what, we’re gonna have a carnival in the backyard. And all of her friends - (who also don’t need anything, I’m not doing party favors) - everyone who comes to the carnival can bring one canned good for entry. And we’re going to donate the canned goods. So I sent out the invitation. And a night or two before the party, my phone starts going off. And I’m getting all these messages, like, Oh my gosh, our kid is raiding the pantry. I thought they were just supposed to bring one canned good. But Nala had told her friends about the donation and they had gotten really excited.
I mean, we had shopping carts full of food, and she came with me to our local food pantry, and I just had to step aside a little bit to cry. I think we forget about how living with less also impacts community, not just ourselves.
The kids sent a card for the food pantry thanking them for the work they were doing in the community. And they had the best time at that carnival. And to this day, my daughter says that’s her favorite birthday party. She doesn’t even remember some of the other birthday parties where I spent tons of money. And so I think it’s important for parents to remember that our kids don’t have the same level of emotional attachments to things that we think they do. Yeah, a lot of times it is us, projecting our own childhood insecurities, wants unfulfilled needs onto our children.
Sara
Right. Oh, my gosh, I love that story so much. I have one more question. I wondered if you have a situation or past experience or something you’re still working on where you’re still sort of struggling to detach from reaching some sort of impossible perfection?
Christine
Yeah, I’ve kind of let that go!
Sara
That’s awesome.
Christine
I have! I let it go. Because it’s impossible, right? I mean, I think, you know, going through this process, that that’s what it taught me. I remember, Apartment Therapy was the first big name to reach out for me to do an interview. And they were like, Oh, we’d love to feature your home. But take your time, whenever you’re ready. And I was like, Oh no, this is as minimal as this is gonna get. I’m ready. Looking back on those photos five years later, I’m just like, Oh, my Gosh, I still had so much stuff! But back then, I was like, Oh, I have arrived, I have done it, you know, and it just wasn’t the case. One of the things that I leave folks with at the end of the book is to sort of let go of this idea of perfectionism. To let go of this idea that if you embark on this journey to minimalism or living with less, that there is some destination, some prize at the end, because there isn’t. I am not grown. I am growing. I’m not a grown woman. I’m a growing woman. And may I always be growing and evolving.
Sara
I feel like you just blew my mind in terms of perfect being the antithesis of aliveness in a way?
Christine
Yeah, it’s just not possible. And all we do is stress ourselves out. Like, it’s a conversation I have with young mothers all the time. Like there’s so many things that I would have done differently and not been so rigid about.
I’m just thinking of a time when I was literally wrestling with my toddler because she didn’t want to change out of her pajamas before daycare. And I finally wrangle her out, and I was exhausted. It was just this whole thing. And I get to daycare and I’m like, Oh, I’m so sorry. We’re late. She just wanted to wear pajamas and blah, blah, blah. And her teacher was like, Oh, why didn’t you just let her wear her pajamas? And I was like, Because this is how it starts! How she won’t listen to me! And her teacher’s just looking at me like, Not really. But Okay.
Perfection is just a social construct. It is just another social construct. Especially for mothers. There is no perfect mother. She doesn’t exist.
Sara
Thank you so much, Christine. This was a delight. Can you tell us where to find you online and what you’re working on now that people can look forward to?
Christine
I’m on Instagram, and I’m working on a new kid series called Frankie and Friends. Frankie is this cute little reporter who reports on news in her neighborhood she like wants to be a journalist like her mama. And it’s really just this opportunity to talk to children about the importance of journalism and media and you know, asking an open ended question versus asking a closed ended question. And so, you know, she reports on kids news, big and small. She reports on everything from you know, having a loose tooth to the dryer eating the socks to big protests in her community.
Sara
Yay. I can’t wait. Well, thank you so much, Christine.
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Perfect For Us
Sara
So what is your perfect for us this week, Virginia?
Virginia
Okay, so I want to talk about this gallery wall I’m making in my bedroom because I’m so excited about it.
Sara
I was kind of hoping you would.
Virginia
Yeah, Sara was getting texts the other week where I was like doing a video tour of the room. Very fun. I thought I had bought nightstands but I didn’t buy nightstands. It’s a whole thing. So the room is a work in progress. My bedroom has giant ceilings, and it’s had empty white walls for years, which I think happens a lot. Like you work on the rest of your house so it’s either hot mess or just, like, empty.
But it was very much a white box of a room. And our bedding was originally gray and very neutral. And so I bought this beautiful (linen but not gonna be line-dried!) periwinkle duvet cover and bright colored throw pillows and now I’m working on this gallery wall that’s going to be like lots of very, like bright colorful art. And I do feel like I’m breaking a lot of design rules. Like I feel like you’re supposed to make your bedroom very serene, simple, and I don’t know, that’s just not where I am right now. I want a lot of color and joy.
So I can put some links to a couple of Etsy prints I found that were really inexpensive, but are bringing me a lot of joy. (Virginia’s Note: This one made it up on the wall, this one still needs a frame!) Lots of bright flowers. I’m also printing family photos finally - Framebridge is so helpful for this. And I also put up some pictures of my garden, because when I think joy, I think my garden! And now we’re in the dead of winter and winter gardens are beautiful, but I want to see my flowers. So I’m putting up some flower pictures. I mean, obviously, it’s great to be thoughtful about our purchases and all of the things we talked about, but if you are feeling a lack in your life, maybe it is a need for color.
Sara
Yeah, yeah. I love that.
Virginia
What about you, Sara?
Sara
Okay, mine is a pillow. We’ve discussed off-air that I’m a very high maintenance sleeper. I mean, I’m high maintenance in many, many aspects, but I’m a very high maintenance sleeper. Ever since I had my first kid, I’m the lightest sleeper in the world. It’s absolute hell. So like, if Brett makes the slightest noise, I’m like whacking him. It’s bad. So I have earplugs. I have white noise machines. The room needs to be like polar ice cap temperatures and I need like 8 million blankets. But the pillow is by far the most important piece. So much so that I always, always, always, always, no matter where I’m going, always bring it with me if I’m traveling.
Virginia
Wow, like even on an airplane situation.
Sara
Oh, I mean, 100%. Like, I’m not using it ON the airplane to nap or whatever.
Virginia
But you’re going to figure out a way to pack it. Even if it requires checking a bag.
Sara
100%. Like I’ll bring like one outfit to rewear three times as long as I can bring my pillow. It’s not even negotiable. I don’t go to like five star resorts, but if I were, I would still bring my pillow.
Virginia
You would be like, I don’t trust their pillows.
Sara
Correct.
Virginia
And so what is so amazing about it?
Sara
It’s the basic Purple pillow. Purple is the brand. And it’s like latex and it’s almost like, like, you know, Honeycomb cereal? Do you remember honeycomb? It’s not like it feels bumpy or anything. But it’s this delicious, like springy yet solid yet supportive give that is truly truly delicious. And like, you know how most pillows get the lumps and uneven distribution of whatever? This does not and you can tightly kind of wedge it into a suitcase. It’s really great, and I’ve had it for several years. It’s pricey. But again, you’re sleeping on this thing every frickin night.
Virginia
And sleep is important . . . I wonder if this would help my neck stuff.
Sara
Oh, I’m sure it would. It’s currently $159 , which yes, is very expensive for a pillow. But, think of how many hours you’re spending with this thing!
Virginia
Also, you’re a minimalist, you’re only buying one pillow in your whole life.
Sara
Actually, this is the last pillow you’ll ever need.
Virginia
The last pillow you’ll ever buy. You’re gonna die on this pillow. This is your deathbed pillow.
Sara
Yes. So, it’s the Purple harmony pillow for all your deathbed needs.
Virginia
I mean, you’re like half selling me on it.
Sara
Only half?!
Virginia
I mean, only because I feel like I just spent a lot of money on my gallery wall. Otherwise I’d be all the way there. Like, do I also need to replace the pillows? Okay, my important question is how firm is it? Because we did spend some money on some I can’t remember what brand they were - some pillows that had a lot of claims attached to them. And when they arrived they had no give whatsoever.
Sara
Oh, no, no, no. This has really delicious give. Springy is the word I keep coming up with. It’s not like a bed of moss but like you know, when you think of moss, you think of like a nice give? That is what I think of when I think of this pillow.
Virginia
Yeah, that sounds really delicious. Yeah, we had these ones where you could adjust how stiff they were by taking out some of the stuffing. But then I was like, What do I do with this bag of stuffing?
Sara
That sounds kind of like a lot of work.
Virginia
Use it to bury my American Girl dolls I guess.
Sara
Or at least they could have a pillow in their tomb
Virginia
In their garbage bag tomb. It’s fine, this conversation never happened.
Thanks so much for listening to Cult of Perfect!
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The Cult of Perfect podcast is produced and hosted by Sara and Virginia. Follow Sara on Instagram or Twitter; Follow Virginia on Instagram.
Our transcripts are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs@SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.
The Cult of Perfect logo is by Deanna Lowe.
Our theme song is “Good Mom” by Farideh, from her new album, The Mother Load.
And Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.
Thanks for listening!
Let Them Be Beige