In the five years I've lived in my house, there's an entryway bench I've never once sat on. This poor, sweet little bench is always buried underneath piles of coats, orphaned socks whose partners have presumably started new and better lives, and the occasional fossilized Girl Scout cookie . Our coat rack cowers in the corner, assuming the posture of a weeping willow in its final days. Many people with children recognize this tableau as the encroaching entropy of modern family life , where