There are two firm rules about housework in my family: One is that everyone pitches in on chores to the best of their abilities, and the second is that if I come home from work and my wife is watching one of the Discovery Channel's documentaries on the Duggars with a frazzled look on her face, it's time to step back and re-evaluate how our system's been working. Because no matter how many kids you have, no matter what your family's belief system may be, there's something to be learned from this home-schooling, Bible-quoting, endlessly inspiring family of 19 (and soon-to-be-20) whose matriarch and patriarch just won "Parent of the Year" honors in their home state of Arkansas.
But just how do the Duggars stay organized? Well, the whole system -- which looks as beautifully simple on paper as it probably seems complicated to any parents who are battling outside pressures and interests -- is right their in the family's FAQ; but the Duggars' actual day-to-day scheduling stems from a guidebook put together by another large, Christian home-schooling family, the Maxwells.
In fact, if you're interested in learning from the experts, you can buy your own copy of the Maxwells' Managers of Their Homes: A Practical Guide to Daily Scheduling for Christian Homeschool Families for $25. It probably goes without saying that the ideal reader here isn't an upwardly mobile agnostic hipster whose kids attend a progressive day school, but you don't need to sit at the other end of a social extreme to get something from the lessons. It does, however, help to be home-schooling, as much of the guide is concerned with managing an academic foundation alongside a moral and after-school one.
And now, for the alternative:
Pretty much every other scheduling book you'd care to name is "secular" in nature, but if you're looking for a Duggars-style family schedule and division-of-labor chart without the Biblical roots, Time Too's new Family Tracker Wall Calendar ($29.95) is designed to handle the gnarliest home schedule while making it easy for everyone from Mom and Dad to kids who are just beginning to read to review. Starting at the beginning of the school year for most of us (September), the Family Tracker runs through August of 2009 and gives you enough room to plot out invitations, RSVPs and future action items alongside the ever-growing lists of daily and weekly to-dos.
Obviously, neither of these is the end-all, be-all solution to keeping your family on track during these hectic times. If you've got a solution, book-form or otherwise, that's been working for your family, we'd love to hear about it in the comments.
