Home Management Plain And Simple is an updated version of Large Family Logistics, by Kim Brennamen. It’s got all the good stuff everyone loved from LFL but it’s got some additional help since the author has gained more experience since writing the book-for example she’s got older kids that have left home.
If you are not familiar with Large Family Logistics, it is a home management book initially written for homeschooling mothers of large families, but so many people with small families -even people who didn’t have kids- read the book and found tremendous help from it, so the author rewrote and renamed the book to be helpful to any sized family-even childless families. She went on to include sections for large families and a section for homeschool families.
Lately I’ve entered a new phase of our homeschool, big family life, and so I put Large Family Logistics on my New Year’s reading list because ever since our move and developing an auto immune disease I’ve been struggling with managing the spinning plates. I started reading LFL again, so figured I should tell you all about it, that’s when I discovered the book had been re-written as Home Management Plain And Simple, which I purchased and have been reading.
I’ve been talking about it on my YouTube channel, and so after reading the book I wanted to do a full review. If you’d prefer to watch my YT video review you can find it HERE or watch it below.
What I Love About This Book
There are so many great and practical idea’s in this book on managing a home, and managing a home with kids in it! There is seriously an avalanche of wisdom and tips!
The author tells some stories about her own struggles in the beginning of her homemaking, mothering journey and how she overcame them, and she deserves an award for her problem solving abilities, IMO! You can tell based off of her tips and advice that as a homeschooling mom of 9, she has experienced all of the frustrating and difficult circumstances most of us face, yet she figured out how to overcome them.
I love the very practical advice this book offers, and especially the systems. As a person who did not grow up in a big family I was at a complete loss as to big family ongoings and how to manage a large family when my husband and I set out to have one. I read the first rendition (Large Family Logistics) very early in my home management/homeschooling journey even though my family was still small at the time. I can honestly tell you the practical advice in the book ended up serving me and my family well and blessed our home.
The additional information, insight and tips that have been added to the new revision that were not in the first book are very helpful. The author addresses some real wrenches that get thrown into a family home that has older, high school, and younger kids-and just like in LFL she tells how to get around them. There were parts that had me going, “Wait a minute….it’s not just my family that deals with ____!?!”. And just like in LFL her advice has me thinking, “Why didn’t I think of that!”
This book is an IMMENSE resource that you can just keep coming back to!
The book is helping me once again to re-establish systems that help life go so much more smoothly.
Things you might want to know about Home Management Plain And Simple Before You Get It
There are just a few things about Home Management Plain And Simple that you might want to know before you buy it.
The first thing you should know is that although the book is titled Home Management Plain and Simple and has innovative and practical advice, especially for family women, the title is a little misleading as the book is very heavily faith based, and what I would call a character training book. The authors purpose in combining character and faith based content so heavily in the book is outlined in the chapter, “Reality”.
No matter our living circumstances, our living space is a place of ministry to family and friends. The attitude we have in keeping our home, in how we relate to our family and friends, and in caring for others reflects God’s love to us. When we take care of our spiritual health and seek wisdom from God’s Word in how to love others, that outpouring of love appears in our homes.”
Kim Brennemen, Home Management Plain and Simple
The second thing to know is; each chapter contains not only practical advice-but every chapter also includes faith based character advice.
I’ve learned that both books (Large Family Logistics and Home Management Plain and Simple) were initially written over time by Kim as blog posts and then later turned into the books, and I didn’t notice it in Large Family Logistics but I definitely noticed in Home Management Plain and Simple that there is more of a blog post feel. As you are reading the book some chapters and parts of some chapters can feel repetitive-as is often the case when blog posts are turned into a book.
This leads me to another thing you should know about this book. Remember when I said “This book is an IMMENSE resource that you can just keep coming back to” above? It’s actually an avalanche of information! Honestly, the book could be used as more of a training course, that’s how detailed and thorough it is.
The Biggest Things I Did Not Like
First of all, I want to express how I deeply appreciate the author and the work she has done in this book, and I know her heart is sincere. This book has blessed my family and I do believe it can bless yours too. There were some things about this book that I did not agree with. Here are the issues I found with some of the things written.
The name Home Management Plain and Simple is a little misleading for the reason above, but also because some of the faith based character advice given in the book isn’t simple to do. I’ve been at this gig for almost 18 years and let me tell ya, it’s not easy.
The book is packed with practical advice, but it’s also packed with advice that there simply are not enough hours in the day to actually do, so you will have to pick and choose.
The character training in this book is presented without many personal examples, and therefore may come across as legalistic and even “preachy”. It would have been helpful if the author had not left out the ugly, and given us more real life examples of how she came to and carried out the the character advice she is giving. But the book kind of leaves you feeling like the author was/is and encourages others to be the epitome of perfect, which I really don’t think she meant to do.
As a 40+ mom with an auto immune disease who’s starting to go through “the change”, both of which pull the rug out from under me at random times, I have to admit this book was more helpful to me when I was in my 20’s and early 30’s and had more energy, this could just be because it isn’t possible for me to do quite a bit of the advice given because of my health issues.
There are some places that seemed a bit out of touch with most peoples reality. For example, some of the advice given would not even be possible for a lot of people, like when the authors writes to hire someone to come into your home to help out if you aren’t able to keep up with everything. Personally, I’ve been praying for that for some time but that’s so far out of my budget and I know I’m not alone in that!
There was another chapter entitled “The Lords Day”. Many people will disagree with me on this, but I’ve always found it strange that on the day God tells us to rest, that mothers of faith are forced to work as hard as they do the rest of the day’s of the week. To me this seems wrong and a massive oversight on religious men’s parts of century’s past. As a 40 plus woman and mother of 6 from teens to tot, and since I have an auto immune disease and am going through early pre menopause and homeschooling, following the advice in this chapter would cause me so much unnecessary stress and work that it would take me a day or two to recover plus remove the one day I have to plan and prepare for the week ahead. My take is that running a Christian home and homeschool is a ministry, one I’m giving everything I’ve got to give. I personally don’t believe there should be so much emphasis on Christian, big family, homeschooling women to be in church every Sunday if they need rest. They are already doing so much and home church counts too.
Lastly, the book makes some references to how our grandmothers did things….this is the biggest thing I disagreed with.
Women of our grandmothers generation were not homeschooling, and until the 1960’s they were sending their (on average 2) kids to public school and spending their days making their homes pristine and managing homemaking responsibilities. On average, they most assuredly were not having large families, pregnant and nursing for years on end and dealing with the hormonal and emotional swings that come with that. And yet it is common knowledge that our grandmothers generation was over prescribed Meprobamate and Valium as they tried to keep up with home and the kids and then moving into the 60’s a job.
A homeschool mom in the 22nd century who’s spinning the homeschool plates for multiple kids, while managing the home, while keeping food on the table shouldn’t be held to mid century homemaker standards, it’s not a fair or practical comparison.
Tips for Using This Book
If you are in an overwhelmed season, I suggest starting this book by reading Appendix A and B, where the author talks about coping while exhausted and overwhelmed, and moving beyond survival mode.
Don’t listen to this book via kindle through Alexa. It makes the book come across as heartless and VERY pious, whereas you are able to capture more of the authors heart and meaning when actually reading it. I’m hoping that there will be a narration version soon for audible because I would love to hear Kim’s voice and sincerity as I’m reading this book.
I mentioned this book is not a quick fix, sure you can read it in a week, but I suggest putting the systems and methods in the book into practice slowly. Think of it as more of a new lifestyle you are implementing.
If there are parts that rub you wrong don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, the practical tips given are EXCELLENT and will help things around the home run more smoothly. The author wrote large portions of the book for busy mom’s so you can just skip to chapters in the book you need, which I love.
I highly suggest keeping in mind as you read the book is that each family is unique and will have bad days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years. The book doesn’t seem to account for those very effectively and Home Management Plan & Simple might make you feel like you must achieve an impossible standard of “Perfection” if you are not really careful. You will need to remind yourself the practices in the book are meant to be a tool to help and encourage you not just keep up but enjoy your home and not run you into the ground!
Lastly, if you try to put something into practice in this book and it doesn’t work at first, but you know it would be much better for your home and family if it did…don’t give up! Like I said, this book may take time to implement and could overwhelm an already overwhelmed mama, so I recommend PACING YOURSELF as you begin to build the systems in this book. Don’t expect to do all the tips in this book overnight!
Conclusion
I recommend the book. I would say the book is geared toward homemaking mothers, but could be helpful to others for the practical tips. I’m exceedingly grateful to Kim for taking the time to put all of the wisdom that she has into this resource, I recognize that it was a sacrifice for her to do this all while managing her home and large family.
I do think the book would be more consumer friendly and mentally digestible if it were split into two books. One with the home management advice because the book is called Home Management Plain and Simple, and that a second book with the character and faith based information for homemakers may have been better, or perhaps even just the character and faith based information narrowed down to one chapter.
Use this book like you would matches, by that I mean carefully. It has the power to strengthen you, but also the power to make you feel defeated if you are dealing with difficult life issues. If you are in a really hard place, I suggest taking this book in baby steps, and to remember to view the faith based advice as a loving pep talk from an older mother who loves Christ, family, and who’s been there, done that, doesn’t want to share too many details but who truly does have a loving heart to help other Christian family women-especially mothers- by sharing the strategies she used to survive and even thrive!
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