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Cheaper by the Dozen (Cheaper by the Dozen, #1)
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Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ | 1234 comments Open discussion of your thoughts about the entire book here. No need to tag spoilers in this thread, but just a reminder that if you discuss spoilers, unclick "Add to my Update Feed."


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Jackie | 658 comments I stated in the first thread what my favorite chapter was and what fun I found the book as a whole, so I hope it's OK to start out here with what is cringe-worthy reading.

the worst is hearing the Chinese cook mocked for his accent and making light of his being burned by Billy. but the Father in the book is pretty casual about corporal punishment and practical "jokes" so I'm not surprised his children don't see it as anything serious.

next, we have Mom's use of the word "Eskimo" to mean "off-color, revolting, or evil-minded". good grief.

and, knowing the history of women's (continuing!) struggle for reproductive rights means I wince when they mock the birth control people.

as fertile a couple as they are, how did they manage to stop at exactly 12 children, was there any reliable birth control at the time? did they just stop having sex?

and to lighten up: don't bother searching google images for a "deprecating moue" because it's not worth it. but do search on just "moue". ;-)

now, what is your favorite chapter? Mine was Visiting Mrs. Murphy but Nantucket is a close second.


Kavan | 85 comments I think the parents supposedly always wanted 12 kids. That's the number they decided.

It’s fun to read about the chaos and adjustments of a family this big, but I do wonder how kids in big families feel about having so many others around.

I read a JFK biography a few months ago and he was rather scathing in terms of his feelings about big families. Something along the lines of institutional tyranny.

And you really to a degree see this here. I was particularly struck at how the older siblings had a young sibling to help get dressed, and ready for any trip, whereas the mother just handled the babies. It went along with the section about car trips where the kids always switched out who got to sit in the front-because with so many of them none of them felt they could ever get enough time with their parents. It did seem like the mom was probably more involved with the babies than the older kids. The Gilbreths did seem pretty modern as parents though, and the kids seemingly had no fear about speaking out. The family meetings are hoots.


Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ | 1234 comments So I just finished, and this is one that hasn’t aged as well as I’d expected. The stories are usually amusing, but they’re kind of strung together. The whole book is more anecdotal than I remembered.

And yes, there’s much more casual racism than I’d recalled. Besides the Chinese cook and Eskimo comments, I was especially struck by the wince-worthy description of impromptu minstrel shows in Chapter 16. I give this book somewhat of a pass on this, though, because it’s at least a semi-true life account of a bygone time, plus it was written in 1943.

On the plus side, it’s a great snapshot of life in an unusual family a hundred years ago. I liked the affection and teasing between them. And it was really interesting to see the social changes that the 1920’s brought.


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Jackie | 658 comments looking back, I am amazed I could read it as a child without even noticing the racism - even the cook being burned I just took the way it was written: as though it was all in good fun.
I much preferred the earlier parts when the kids were all little, but yes the start of the age of "flappers" and such drastic changes in fashion, hair, etc was interesting.
Did you have a favorite chapter? Mine was Visiting Mrs. Murphy but a close second was Nantucket and the sailing one. Although Dad was especially violent in that chapter with using a rope!
that's another thing I didn't notice as a child: all the corporal punishment.


Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ | 1234 comments I'm not sure about favorite chapters, but I definitely have favorite stories. I especially enjoyed the stories about learning to touch-type, the math memorization ... so maybe you could say that Chapter 6 is one of my favorites, since they're both there. :) The tonsils story was pretty funny, as was the traveling "orphanage" with the girls' dusters. Chapter 18 has the great story about Motorcycle Mac, the peeping Tom "skunk" in the tree, and the 3-part harmony song about "Dearest Ernestine."

I don't hold the corporal punishment stories against them - even my own dad's ideas about spanking in the 60's and early 70's would get a huge eyebrow raise now - and got a pretty good laugh at the kids all leaping overboard when their dad picked up the merrie rope to inflict merrie mass punishment.


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Jackie | 658 comments I liked the sailing chapter third best!


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