Marie Kondo is a professional organizer of international renown as well as a bestselling author and television star, perhaps most famous for asking, Does it spark joy? a question she suggests we pose when deciding whether to keep each object in our homes.

Shes also a mother of three, and it was her youngest child, born in 2021, who seems to have pushed her over the precipice into the land of disarray where most of us raising children permanently reside.

The Washington Post reported that at a recent media webinar and virtual tea ceremony, Kondo said, via interpreter, that she had kind of given up on keeping her own home tidy.

My home is messy, but the way I am spending my time is the right way for me at this time at this stage of my life, she said.

Many parents, women especially, struggle with the idea that good housekeeping is a sign of good parenting. We want, foremost, for our children to grow up well-adjusted and feeling loved. Many of us are also trying to maintain a professional identity and a lifestyle that includes some sleep and self-care. Its impossible to balance all of this, all the time, and tasks languish unfinished: the pile of unfolded laundry on the couch, the layer of gray grime on the baseboards, the half-melted orange popsicle encrusted on the bottom of the freezer.

Intellectually, I know that my worth as a parent and a human isnt calculated with variables like the way I store my childrens socks or the fact that Ive never defrosted the fridge. But when I open the freezer door and am confronted with that orange mess, a wave of disgust rises within me. I feel shame. Is this the sort of home I want for myself and my children? Isnt it my job to make our apartment a calming place we all want to be in, rather than this heap of my failed intentions?

Every woman I know is keenly aware of the fact that if someone is going to be judgmental about the state of your home, its the woman they are going to place that blame on, regardless of how many dads or older children are in that home, says therapist KC Davis, author of How To Keep House While Drowning .

Kondo, she said, has continued to center joy by not elevating tidiness to some moral obligation foisted primarily on women.

While most of us agree that when the mess reaches a certain level it requires some kind of intervention, theres no consensus on where this line should be drawn, and, as Kondos recent admission suggests, it moves over time.

So when our homes dont look the way we wish they did, like the after images in Kondos books and shows, how can we learn to accept that? To find joy amid all the objects be they freezer-burnt popsicles or freakishly doe-eyed LOL dolls that wed rather not have surrounding us?

HuffPost spoke with Davis and several KonMari-certified consultants about embracing the mess and ditching the shame while making a home for your family. Here are some of their thoughts.

Kondos method is about process, not a predetermined endpoint.

While many social media commenters were eager to characterize Kondos confession of messiness as a defeat for her and simultaneously a validation for the rest of us the experts we spoke with viewed the choice to embrace some level of mess as in line with Kondos philosophy.

Marie Kondos priorities have changed, and that itself is part of the KonMari process, Emi Louie , a master KonMari consultant who works with U.S. and Japan-based clients, told HuffPost. (Consultants are professional organizers certified in the KonMari method by Kondos company. A master-level consultant has completed at least 1,500 tidying hours.)

Kondo, said Louie, was never asking us to create perfectly organized spaces. She was asking us to identify the things that truly spark joy to us on a personal level, and to commit to living a more joyful life. Those core principles havent changed.

Helen Youn a master KonMari consultant based in Calgary, Alberta told HuffPost that she found Kondos remarks relatable and refreshing.

Its not like Marie Kondo is saying she has given up on organization altogether but instead, she has given up on keeping her house tidy all the time which I dont think is something she has ever preached.

Kondos messy home, then, doesnt represent a failure of tidiness or organization, but a shift in values. A pile of toys, mounds of play dough or finger-paint smudges can all spark joy, too.

Family homes that are lived in are never going to be tidy all the time, because were busy living in them, Sachiko Kiyooka , an organizing and feng shui consultant based in Montreal, told HuffPost.

Having unrealistic standards is joy-killing, she said.

The KonMari method, Louie explained, isnt only about tidying. What were really doing is shifting our relationship with our belongings, and committing to living with more joy.