^ @ignatius, that would be so difficult. I can see being torn between not wanting to deny the existence of a beloved child and not wanting to mention that child and then be forced to deal with follow-up questions.
My mom never knew the sister who died before she was born, so never knew her name or much about her, other than she had died after being struck by a car. I’m sure losing any child is heart wrenching. The parents in each of the books seemed genuinely fond of their kids though they certainly showed it in different ways.
I found the “joke” about honking the horn when someone was looking at the engine to be cruel and inappropriate by the father and was amused that Bill repaid him in kind.
Lillian sure had a lot of confidence in her kids that they could fend for themselves, pack themselves up and meet her at the beach house so soon after Frank died. It really seemed like quite an undertaking and ambitious.
I had a hard time reading Educated. I still think most is true, but seen thru the author’s eyes. Learning thru college and grad school seemed rushed and far fetched.
Whenever I read a memoir, I’m struck by the fact that the childhood memories are well developed, well thought through, thoughtfully articulated, while the “memories” that are more recent are less so and seem more “reporting” than “memoir.” (Think Michelle Obama’s memoir, for example.) The person writing the memoir is still living the last part of the book and so hasn’t had time to reflect or digest.
I’m always amazed that people remember so much of their childhood. Anna Quindlen captured my amazement perfectly in this essay: http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/97/05/11/bookend/bookend.html Of course Tara had her journals to fall back on, but she admits that she (sometimes? often?) distorted the truth in them. (As does Madeleine L’Engle interestingly enough, who in one of her memoirs says she did not talk about some fears in her journal because she feared that would give them too much reality.)
The stories in Cheaper by the Dozen strike me as family lore - stories that have been told so many times they have been honed to perfection. I too was struck by the mean-spiritedness of some of Dad’s humor and was glad he got his comeuppance in the case of the horn.
I read Educated a while ago and was fascinated, but did feel like it read like a fiction book. I don’t mean that I didn’t believe It, but that it had a plot and characters that could have been fictional, and that the writing style did not seem non-fiction.
It seemed to be written honestly, and whether the memories were filtered by the author’s mind is not something easily determined. Drew Meachem wrote a review of the book on Amazon and disputes the question of factual inaccuracy. He says
Considering the essential oil business, the family is certainly much more part of society than I would have imagined.
Re Cheaper by the Dozen, for the first few chapters, I felt that I understood why it would be paired with Educated. I read it aeons ago and had a memory of a light hearted family memoir. But now I was reading it through a current era filter and saw signs of child abuse, both physical and mental. Also perhaps stalking, with the father’s courtship of the mother? And the patriarchal figure trope. But I felt that less as the book continued on. It certainly didn’t seem like the children had lasting resentment from all the embarrassment their father caused them.
And my dad never knew the sister who died before he was born (SIDS, although there was no name for it then). And he had a younger brother he was close to, who died of cancer in his early 20’s. Of course, losing a child / sibling was more common 80-100 years ago (my dad was born in 1922). It’s great that eleven Gilbreth children lived to adulthood (most to old age).
And in the case of the dinner guest, whom Jack–following his father’s “humor”-- blamed for his dinner table burp. What goes around, comes around. 
Agreed. I think it was in part because the children were given some leeway to give as good as they got. They successfully played him more than once, e.g., voting for the dog, staying late at the movies, etc. He was full of bluster, but they were not afraid of him – and more importantly, neither was their mother. That was not the case in Educated. Genuine, deep-seated fear seemed to be ever present in that household.
@mathmom, I really enjoyed that essay by Anna Quindlen.
Educated certainly appeared like fiction to me. Entertaining, irritating, light on details.
@Mary13 I can’t believe that the essay has stuck with me for 13 years!
I thought Educated had plenty of details, but not the ones I wanted.
^ @mathmom, 23 years! It’s from 1997. But timeless.
Even more amazing! (And you gotta wonder why I dubbed myself mathmom.) 
But I always think of that essay when someone tells me I must have had an interesting childhood. I did! But I can’t remember it!
If I had read Cheaper by the Dozen alone, I might have been appalled at some of Frank Gilbreth’s behavior, but reading it directly after Educated put his actions in a much more benign light. God forbid if Tara Westover’s father had taken it into his head to prove that an infant has a natural instinct to swim. That would have been a terrifying chapter.
By the way, Frank Gilbreth’s experiment with Anne in that regard may have been a failure, but he was ahead of his time. There are lots of “aquatots” programs out there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_swimming
Lillian was amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9RlfBdLvE8
In Cheaper By the Dozen there were times I was uncomfortable with the treatment of the children by Frank. Sometimes his pursuit of the science of motion felt a little abusive and singleminded. Despite questioning some of his motives, I always felt there was a huge amount of love in the family. Frank would put his children first when when they needed him. In Educated I didn’t feel love at all for Tara from her dad, Gene. His abusiveness was scary and dangerous. Gene parented by fear and he loved his version of God more than his children. I would like to believe he had some love for them, but I don’t feel it.
In general, I don’t believe child rearing in the early 1900s was as warm and nurturing as today, and in that light, I think the Gilbreth children were well treated and undoubtedly loved.
I enjoyed the video in post 52. Lillian was truly amazing. Here’s something that surprises me — She had six daughters. Mary died, but of the remaining five, only one had a career (Ernestine as a writer). The remaining four were stay at home moms who volunteered in their communities. Lillian was such a pioneer, but it didn’t pass to the next generation. Maybe she was too ahead of her times.
@mary13 I hope everyone watches your “you tube”Link, because Lillian Gilbreth was astounding, a pioneer in her field, renown.
I loved this book pairing. “ Educated” was a riveting read, “ cheaper by the Dozen” felt like a sanitized story, as Mathmom mentioned before, like the retelling of “family” tales.
What I will take away from these books, is that Tara and Lillian are exceptional women, who led extraordinary lives.
In today’s world one of Frank Gibreth’s children could write a very different biography,depicting many of their childhood experiences as abusive. I felt I was reading a story designed to portray a charming, heartwarming tale which would uphold their image. “No Mommy dearest” moments from The gilbreth household.
In fact, I actually felt sorry for Lillian, pregnant for more than a decade, until I read her wiki bio, and was simply astounded by her accomplishments. I feared she was a 1920s. Version of the “Duggar mother- 19 kids and counting fame”.
How were her professional accomplishments not highlighted- for instance she obtained a PhD, as a mother of 5 kids!
Tara’s story is one of abuse, as @mary13 linked to great psychology today article explaining the dynamics and dysfunction.
On Tara’s twitter feed, many women posted comments that “she told their story, they felt less alone” - not unlike the #metoo movement.
I understand the issue of Tara’s credibility. On her twitter feed she quoted and linked to Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nobel prize acceptance speech. For many readers, they may say “mis lit” or those things couldn’t have happened. But, the “essence” of her story rings as true.
I think both Educated and Cheaper, very different, but alike because they connected to the audiences. The traditional 1950s picket fence readers, and The 2010 modern day audience.
From Ishiguro’s acceptance speech ———
https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/ishiguro-lecture_en.pdf
Even though “Educated” was difficult to read and maybe not totally accurate, I found it to be extremely thought provoking. I volunteered in a low income elementary school teaching reading. I would come home so depressed because I had so little hope for the futures of the students I worked with. They were academically so far behind and they had so little general knowledge of the world. Then I read a book about a girl who doesn’t set foot in a classroom until 17, yet she obtains a PhD, has an impressive pedigree of universities, and she authors a book. I’ve spent hours wondering what was the difference between her and the kids I was seeing. Was it a naturally high IQ or a desperation to escape her circumstances? I’ve seen statistics that 40% of students who start college don’t earn a degree. What made her stick it out when initially it was such a struggle? I really liked the book. I’m amazed someone from that kind of background can be as successful academically as she and two of her brothers.
Fun fact - She was a Gates Scholar and Bill Gates didn’t know it until he read it in her book.
@mathmom you did have an interesting background and I love that your father housed
Viet nam protesters !
I think she stuck it out because that is the one thing her family taught her. You can do anything, you can work through pain, both psychological and physical. But I think she also came from good genes and learned a bit more at home than she lets on - even if there were big holes in her self-education. She also was lucky to have mentors who saw the spark in her and encouraged her.
There are regularly stories about kids who make it past their inadequate schooling. One of my favorites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hope_in_the_Unseen.
Feeling fussy here - I guess. I don’t agree. If and when Tara makes a name for herself in the future beyond Educated, then yeah. As for now, she has overcome odds to become “educated” at the best schools but beyond that … Let’s just say that she’s not “blazing a trail for women” in any which way. Gilbreth lived a lifetime of trailblazing. For all we know now, Westover’s Educated may be her pinnacle of success. It will be interesting to see where she goes from here.