Spring Cleaning Culture: Why Mud Season Is Good Enough

Every spring, you're told to declutter your wardrobe, your goals, your relationships, and your mindset. And if you don't feel the urge? There's a low hum of guilt that says something's wrong with you.

This week on The Scenic Route, we're asking: what if that impulse isn't wisdom, and who actually benefits from the story that your whole life needs a seasonal audit?

For many women in midlife, spring-cleaning pressure hits differently. You're already navigating a season of your own — one that doesn't come with a tidy checklist. The last thing you need is Instagram telling you to declutter your chakras, too.

We trace spring cleaning back to its roots — sacred, communal rituals in traditions around the globe — and follow how it was stripped of that context to become a personal productivity obligation. We look at who the "spring-clean your life" message lands on most heavily (and why that's not a coincidence). And we get into how self-care went from a radical political act — rooted in the work of Audre Lorde — to "buy this candle."

Plus: what my body is actually doing in spring and why the in-between, messy, not-yet-blooming feeling might not be a problem to fix.

You'll come away with: 

• A reframe on why you feel behind every spring
• The cultural and gendered history behind domestic "renewal" pressure
• One small invitation to try spring subtracting instead

If this made you see spring cleaning differently, share it with someone who needs permission to not optimise their way through spring.

References mentioned:
Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light (1988)

Inna Michaeli, "Self-Care: An Act of Political Warfare or a Neoliberal Trap?" (2017)

Laurie Penny, "Life-Hacks of the Poor and Aimless," The Baffler (2016)

Transcript

The Spring Cleaning Myth

Jennifer Walter 0:00

Every spring, you're told to declutter your house, your mind, your relationships, your goals your entire life. And if you do not feel this urge, something is indeed very wrong with you. So let's talk about who benefits from that story.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

There's a different way to think about mental health. And it starts with slowing down. Sometimes the longest way around is the shortest way home. And that's exactly where we're taking the scenic route. Hi, I'm Jennifer Walter, host of the Scenic Route Podcast. Think of me as your sociologist's sister in arms and rebel with many causes. Together, we're blending critical thinking with compassion, mental health with a dash of rebellion, and personal healing with collective change. We're trading perfectionism for possibility and toxic positivity for messy growth. Each week, we're exploring the path to better mental health and social transformation. And yes, by the way, pretty crystals are totally optional. You ready to take the scenic rout? Let's walk this path together.

Productivity Disguised As Self-Care

Sacred Ritual Turned Into Obligation

Why Spring Cleaning Is Gendered

Self-Care Co-Opted By Neoliberalism

Mud Season And Uneven Energy

Spring Subtracting And Invitations

Jennifer Walter 1:12

Welcome back to the scenic route. I mean, picture this, it's AM. We're in bed awake because Perry Manopause is a bitch. And of course we're on Instagram and with Hintry Scrolls. I have like I don't know, influencers, ads, what the hell not tell me to sprinkling my wardrobe, my diet, my goals, my friendships, finances, everything down to my fucking chakras. And I don't know, there's this feeling, this slow hum of guilt. Because I don't know, I haven't done jack shit of that. I don't know about you, but I haven't. Because January, February is not my spring cleaning time. And I am still in winter mode. Like the seats are still under the soil. I'm still tired. I'm still figuring out, I don't know, what we're gonna do with this year because the start has been a shit show. Let alone how to kind of like declutter my way to it. So today I want to ask, what if that impulse to spring clean your life isn't really wisdom that surfaces? What if it's just kind of like a disguised productivity trap wearing a self-care costume? Like many cultures, like the idea of spring cleaning is ancient. Many cultures have some form of spring or new year cleaning ritual. And they were primarily framed spiritual, communal, seasonal, not as like personal productivity hacks, right? We have lots of traditions and practices. Like I know, or I think I know, otherwise tell me I'm wrong. In Jewish tradition, I think there's a lot of cleaning done before Passover. In Celtic Pagean traditions, we have Imwok, like early February was a time for cleansing and purification as kind of like the land started to start and wake up again. And so the kind of like the common thread among these rituals, as said, they were communally, spiritually, seasonal. It was a way of kind of like honoring what was and making space for what's coming. Somehow, and they were not framed as personal inadequacy. Nobody stood like, I don't see anyone standing in their like Irish kitchen back in the day thinking, oh, I really need to get my shit together. They were like just honoring a seasonal turning point together. Oh, between sacred ritual and like married condo, oh that's already like old news. Ring cleaning got stripped of its communal and spiritual context as a fucking everything, like as again, this is kind of like a parable of our life, digital obligation. It stopped being, we prepare for our turning of the season and we honor what was, and became, you should have already done this. And it should be spotless. And crucially it stopped being, I don't know, about the house and the family and the community, and it starts just being about you. Because again, neoliberism awesome. Right? It's kind of like became about you, this the clutter space, your mind, your relationships, your habits. There is something to be said to for to do that, but we need to kind of like see it and a bigger perspective and the shift, which is interesting. It if your entire existence becomes the thing that needs cleaning, we're in a bit of a pickle. Like, here's something that shouldn't still be true in 2026, but it is. For example, we have survey data from the UK that shows women still handle cleaning and laundry meal prep in more than half of households, although they're kind of like are also contributing to household income. And that looks very similar to Switzerland, for example. So attitudes have become have become more egalitarian. People say chores should be shared. Uh like, what behaviors hasn't really caught up all that much. And similar patterns appear across many industrial industrialized countries as well. There have been experimental studies by Thibault colleagues where participants write identical messy rooms labeled as occupied by a man versus occupied by a woman. And the study shows harsher judgment of the messy rooms labelled as women, because of course the ethnicity and feminity are still structurally tethered, and a messy man is easily framed as busy and a messy woman as failing. So it's always nice if we have hard data to back things up. So when Instagram kind of says spring clean your life, what does that message actually land on? Who feels the guilt? Who adds it to their over already overflowing mental load and to-do list? It's not a universal call. Like it's a gendered one, and we need to be very mindful of that and very specific about it. Uh Barbara Welter wrote um about the cult of true womanhood, I think in 1800, like it's ages ago. And the language has changed. Cannoline got a glossy trad wife update, and we're not necessarily saying domesticity is your duty anymore, but we like add hashtag tradwife to it. But the expectation got a rebrand, and it's still basically the same fucking message. So same expectations, kind of like different branding, different packaging, let's upgrade. I don't know. So what we need to know also is self-care in a very honest definition. How very radical wrote Audrey Lorde in 1988 wrote that caring for herself and oneself is not self-indulgent but self-preservation. For her, self-care was about surviving systems that were designed to exhaust and erase her and her the identity of the black woman. It was very much political and communal and an act of refusal. And it kinda has gotten stolen. Uh neoliberalism got hold of it, and the transformation is really breathtaking. Self-care went from preserving yourself against a system that wants you dead to buy this fucking candle. It smells nice. From so we go from collective resistance to individual consumption. And that is mind-boggling and could bring the whole entire thesis on itself. Researcher Um Ana McKelly asked uh in 2017, self-care an active political warfare or a neoliberal trap? And her argument is that the concept has been co-opted to dismantle public welfare and shift the responsibility for care onto individual citizens. So you're tired, self-care, you're burned out, mm, self-care, the system is breaking you. Have you tried like journaling? Have you tried yoga? I mean, you're feeling perimenopause is a bitch to you. Have you tried briefing exercises? And that's again, nothing to do with briefing exercises or journaling, but being an answer to fucking everything and kind of like shifting blame. Of course, the aristocrat Lori Penny also nailed it by saying, like, we're living through the slow collapse of the social contract against a back trap of mania for clean anything, clean eating, clean productivity, clean blah blah blah. Personal productivity, radical self-love, the insistence that we can achieve a meaningful existence by maintaining a positive outlook as the planet fucking burns to ashes. So you could see contemporary spring spring cleaning culture as one seasonal expression of its broader trap. The structural issues repackaged as individual optimization responsibilities. It takes a moment in nature's cycle that's about to emerge. Mod, mess, the first, I don't know, tentative steering of life, and it turns it into you should be purchasing, optimizing, performing, renewal right now, ideally with a lot of expensive products. That's far removed from any kind of spring cleaning idea. It's just kind of a little really fancy self-care costume. And it's kind of like it's so good, right? You're feeling guilty if you're not like participating, if you're not wearing that kind of like fancy costume. And I feel another thing that really not is not talked about enough is spring doesn't really arrive all at once, right? If you I don't know, if you tend to a garden, you know this in nature. April is muddy, sea, the snow is melting, but maybe nothing is blooming yet. It's messy, it's in between, it's raining a lot. The seeds are underground, you can't see them yet. Maybe they're like slowly, you see like the tips. I don't know. I feel even your body knows this. I mean, I'm in no, like, woo-hoo, let's go in January. Like it's still dark. I'm like, no, cannot. So after months of shorter days and winter rhythm, I need recalibrating into early spring. I will mean I will be bouncy, bouncing down the streets like a spring lamb in due time, but not like on the get-go. And energy and like that joy of life, it returns unevenly. Some days you feel awake and ready and spring lamb bouncy, and other days you're just like, no, no, going back to sleep, wake me up and should. Um kind of like the cultural message again is the season is changing, so should so should you. Like immediately, visibly, productively. Um, and then of course, documented on Instagram because otherwise it did not happen. And when you can't match that pace, the gap between what you're being told to do and what your body actually needs, that gap often becomes shame. And uh we have a real interesting um experimental research by Becker and colleagues found that exposure to neoliberal ideas increased feelings of competition and disconnection, leading to greater loneliness across the protein spectrum. So reduced well-being was specifically or especially evidence among liberal participants. So that feeling of everyone is spring cleaning their lives and I'm still in bed, it's not like a personal failing in any sort. On a market-driven culture, there are strong incentives to frame normal struggle as personal failure. Because feeling behind keeps people searching for purchasable solutions. Okay? That's good because then people spend money and on countless solutions and shits and hacks and silver bullets they don't really need. So, what if we went back to the original energy of seasonal change and not like in a way of what should I add to my to-do list? But maybe what can I stop doing? That's also verification for just what can I just drop? And the agent rituals who were about clearing space for what's coming, let's just kind of like go back into it with anticipation and not with us kind of like, I need to clean my house to prove anything, to prove that I earned spring, a new season. That even sounds very weird, but I'm sure we're often cleaning because if this is clean, then I get to play this story in my head that I am whatever I want to think about myself to be true. But we we don't you don't have to qualify for spring or for change or for anything. So my invitation for now, for like March and April now, is instead of spring cleaning your life, try spring subtracting. What's one thing you could stop performing? One expectation you could put down, or one should you just can compost. Oh, should composting. That's nice. I like that. That would be, I don't know. That's a really nice idea. I want to do something with that. Now my ADHD brain gets sidetracked. But going back to Audrey Lorde and her version of self-care, not optimizing, surviving with dignity in a system that wasn't built for her. So if we're going to use the word self-care, let's really mean it. And not productivity with a face mask or a bubble bath, but like a radical act of not performing wellness for other people's comfort. And that also includes not for like my wide ass comfort and yours. So you don't have to spring clean your life. You can just be in the mud season. That's okay. Mud is cool. Unless, like, I saw just another TikTok the other day from this Louisiana guy with the accent that when it's rainy in Louisiana and like from the mud holes in a garden, like they're crop that's coming up. And I'm confused because I always thought those were like living in water. Again, mud season can be lovely. Also, all the living older creatures living in the mud. Just don't want to have them in my house, but that's fair. So the seeds are already underground. They're they're growing, they're sprouting. You don't need to do anything about it. So if this made you see spring cleaning kind of differently, share this episode with someone who needs permission to not optimize their way through like spring and for April. And if you're feeling that in-between space right now, the mud season, come say hi. I feel my life isn't currently my this season of my life is a never-ending fucking mud season. Come say hi. I'm on Instagram and TikTok right there with you. I'm also sharing a lot of mud season content in my monthly newsletter. Soft subscription is in the show notes. It's where I share a lot of in-betweens. A lot of things uh I wish I don't know my therapist told me sooner. Um, and everything that's kind of like helping me through mod season, which I also think this would make great t-shirt. Anyway, I love to see you back on the scenic route next week. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

And just like that, we've reached the end of another journey together on the scenic root podcast. Thank you for spending time with us. Curious for more stories or in search of the resources mentioned in today's episode? Visit us at scenigrootpodcast.com for everything you need. And if you're ready to embrace your scenic root, I have got something special for you. Step off the beaten path with my scenic root affirmation card deck. It's crafted for those moments when you're seeking courage, yearning to trust your inner voice, and eager to carve out a path authentically, unmistakably yours. Pick your scenic root affirmation today and let it support you. Excited about where your journey might lead? I certainly am. Remember, the scenic road is not just about a destination, but the experiences, learnings, and joy we discover along the way. Thank you for being here, and I look forward to seeing you on the scenic route again.