The instant New York Times bestseller! Emily Oster dives into the data on parenting issues
cuts through the clutter and gives families the bottom line to help them make better
decisions. -Good Morning America A targeted mini-MBA program designed to help moms and dads
establish best practices for day-to-day operations. -The Washington Post From the bestselling
author of Expecting Better and Cribsheet the next step in data driven parenting from economist
Emily Oster. In The Family Firm Brown professor of economics and mom of two Emily Oster offers
a classic business school framework for data-driven parents to think more deliberately about
the key issues of the elementary years: school health extracurricular activities and more.
Unlike the hourly challenges of infant parenting the big questions in this age come up less
frequently. But we live with the consequences of our decisions for much longer. What's the
right kind of school and at what age should a particular kid start? How do you encourage a
healthy diet? Should kids play a sport and how seriously? How do you think smartly about
encouraging children's independence? Along with these bigger questions Oster investigates how
to navigate the complexity of day-to-day family logistics. Making these decisions is less about
finding the specific answer and more about taking the right approach. Parents of this age are
often still working in baby mode which is to say under stress and on the fly. That is a
classic management problem and Oster takes a page from her time as a business school professor
at the University of Chicago to show us that thoughtful business process can help smooth out
tough family decisions. The Family Firm is a smart and winning guide to how to think
clearly--and with less ambient stress--about the key decisions of the elementary school years.
Parenting is a full-time job. It's time we start treating it like one.
