I’m perplexed by this. She’s an academic so wouldn’t the pinnacle of success be to become a professor at a major university? According to Wikipedia she’s now a “Senior Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School” so seems to be well on her way.
But that’s not going to make her famous like writing a popular book has done (which was essentially an accidental source of fame). How many famous professors of religious history are there? After all hardly anyone has heard of her supervisor David Runciman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Runciman) who is head of the department in Cambridge and absolutely at the top of his profession.
I would not put many people on the same level as a Lillian — she was stellar by pretty much every measure I can think of. It sounds like she lead a fulfilling and happy life. Tara is still very young and other than getting away glom a horrific family environment and get PhD and her popular book is still in the beginning of her journey. I give Tara kudos for getting where she got so far, but will wait to see if she does anything further.
I think HImom (post #61) clarified what I meant better that I did. Tara Westover is young and off to a great start, but she’s got a long way to go yet. Maybe her academic career will fall short of expectation; it’s too early to tell. Her claim to fame right now is Educated on which she obviously spent time and effort. She’s still doing so promoting her book. Maybe the wording “pinnacle of success” isn’t quite right but, for all we know, in 50 years it may be all Westover is known for - in academia and beyond.
I’m not a fan of the book but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish success for Westover, both personally and professionally.
I’m finally able to join the discussion! After all my worrying about not getting Educated in time, it was ironic to have that issue with Cheaper by the Dozen.
Our library system has one copy of the book and one person has had it since early December. I was the first person on the waitlist but our library just removed fines for overdue books so ?♀️
I finally got the book from the Open Library this weekend.
I think I enjoyed the combination of the 2 books a lot more than I thought I would.
Rereading Educated wasn’t easy. I disliked most of the characters in the book and especially didn’t enjoy reading about a mentally unstable patriarchal figure who dominated his family and whose religious fervor subjected them to some horrific abuse. I also was quite angry to find out that the family business has taken off and doing so well that this crazy man can continue spreading his damaging lies and beliefs to a wider audience.
The severity of the abuse may or may not be accurately portrayed - we all have our special lenses that we view the past through. I think Tara Westover wrote her story as honestly as she was able to and that parts of it are colored by later events. That her brothers remember events and interaction with their parents differently may support the theory that some of the book is fictionalized.
I do believe that Westover was abused by Shawn and to some extent by her parents. While I find it remarkable that she was able to get out of that environment and build a new life for herself, it seemed odd that she wasn’t bitter about what her family did to her, and actually wanted to be accepted back into the heart of the family even though she wouldn’t be safe in close proximity to them. It makes it difficult to dismiss the idea that she is either deluding herself about the effects of the abuse on her or the abuse wasn’t as awful as presented in the book. However that may be, I’m sure that she is damaged by growing up with a sadistic father and brother, and her future is hardly going to be easy, but what she has achieved so far is admirable.
Cheaper by the Dozen was an easy read. I enjoyed the book. Some of it was quite inspiring, especially Lillian’s story. Frank Gilbreth is a dominating patriarchal figure and I’m not partial to those. Still, from the light reminiscences of the authors, it appears as if he was a larger than life personality but not a sadist. I found some of the home lessons quite enjoyable and he had to surely put in hours of work to teach his children. The Morse Code educational campaign is a good example. Of course, the book isn’t very detailed in a lot of areas and is probably an edited account of their life growing up. Partially fictionalized, and a little sanitized.
Still, as you read it you can’t doubt that there was love there, for the children from the parents and for the parents from their children. Unlike in Educated
As for the book not talking about the death of Mary, while keeping the tag line of a dozen children was understandable. Cheaper by the dozen has a cachet to it that would be desirable and it was the Gilbreths’ plan to have a dozen kids, 6 girls and 6 boys. Since this book is largely about the Gilbreth efficiency theories of rearing a large family, it makes sense.
I must say that I didn’t catch till much later that they were one girl short in many anecdotes.
How people deal with talking about a dead child varies; my grandmother, who lost a girl older than my mother, would always count her in the numbers while my mother who never knew her sister doesn’t.
Yes, exactly! The (apparent) lack of bitterness was on display in the Ellen interview I posted upthread. Near the end, Ellen praises Tara for her efforts to return to the family fold and keep the family together despite all that had transpired. I didn’t agree with Ellen, but with someone who posted in the comments:
That’s three of us now who have posted that our parents had siblings who died as children. So sad to think how common that once was.
I think part of this is semantics. My daughter earned a PhD, and although it was an accomplishment, it was not a feat, as it was for Tara Westover. So Tara is a marvel in that regard, and if she never publishes another word, she’s earned her Wikipedia page. But, as @ignatius pointed out, the word “trailblazer” doesn’t apply, not in the way it does for Lillian. Tara was not paving the way for hordes of uneducated children from cult-like families (at least I don’t think so!), but Lillian did pave the way for generations of women.
Maybe it skips a generation – Lillian’s daughters say, “My mom was always leaving us to fly all over the world and run the business; I’m going to stay home with my kids.” And then Lillian’s granddaughters say, “Grandma was amazing! I want to be just like her!”
I had a sister who died at three weeks - heart defect. I was six and rarely remember my parents actually had four children, not three. And like the Gilbraiths they had another child after my sister died so there were never four kids. I have a friend who had a miscarriage and always calls the baby she lost by name and counts the child as one of the family. It’s always seemed a little weird to me.
I can see that if you had Lillian for a mother being a stay-at-home Mom might seem like a good idea. I think it was also, very hard to fight the 1950s. (Think The Feminine Mystique.)
I spent a year at Utah State university 1978, obtaining an additional degree in elementary education, and my husband completed an MBA degree.
Utah State University, is about 40 miles from Tara’s Idaho home, and mentioned in the book.
We are not Mormon, so living in Utah, and out West, was an enlightening experience, ‘A stranger in a strange land’.Living in Logan, Salt Lake Billings and Missoula, Montana was an exciting Adventure.
Perhaps, I related more to the story, with sympathy for Tara because of my time in Utah.
Tara’s father, a mentally ill man, wrapped in religious, survivalist ,anti government, anger was not alone in the Wild West of that era. Ruby Ridge sent shockwaves waves through those renegade types.
To be raised cloistered in that nonsense, is abusive.
Tara is exceptional, maybe not a trailblazer, but to have emerged, from that world, into the most hallowed academic halls in the world, Cambridge and Harvard, is extraordinary.
Tara isn’t a “trailblazer”, in the way Lillian was, but she is “exceptional and extraordinary”, if she does nothing more with her life.
Regarding, the Mormon influence in her life, The kind Bishop proved to be a real father figure for Tara.It was the Bishop who recognized her genius, who truly protected her, and changed her life.
From article in Irish times, about her relationship with father figures, and of course, Shawn.
One more reason, Tara May shows more sympathy to her “abusers” than we think she should.
She constantly “explained/ justified” the people around her by recognizing their impairments.
Her father was mentally ill, bi- polar disease.
Shawn had concussions, effecting him.
My mother had a benign brain tumor In 1992. We had to excuse a lot of her behavior knowing it was “tumor related”,
If you have a friend or family member, suffering from Alzheimer’s, you are constantly forgiving them for what they say or do.
So I forgive Tara for not harboring more anger towards her abusers.
She even recognizes her mother, not mentally ill, is constrained by the fundamentalist Mormon mentality. The Mormon faith puts such emphasis on the family, I understand why Tara still maintains a relationship with her mother. It’s complicated, and will be interesting to see how Tara’s life unfolds.
We spent at least a year being angry with my MIL before we finally realized it was early onset dementia that was preventing her from listening to us. And don’t even get me started on my FIL, who was stuck in his role of agree with her, no matter how nutty she got. So I get that. And I think it was a great relief to Tara figure out that her Dad might be bi-polar (and it sounded like he also had SAAD.) It was the actions that she took that put herself in danger that I found hard to reconcile.
Hearing Tara Westover speak so gently about her family had made me see her as almost delusional, but I take your point: It could be that she is not delusional, but exceptional – with an extraordinary ability to forgive and a deep understanding of the complexities of mental illness and the power of religious beliefs.
Re Frank Gilbreth, here’s a comment that followed the “Cheaper by Eleven?” article:
Now personally, I think that’s harsh. Monster? Hardly. However, it did get me to thinking about what Frank (and Lillian) did for a living, and I found this interesting New Yorker article about scientific management: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/12/not-so-fast
As for “therbligs,” during the Glibreth craze, “Life published a cartoon about the fifteen unnecessary motions of a kiss.” Also, this part of the article gave me a chuckle:
About “extract as much labor out of every worker as humanly possible” —There’s a very good book that touches on the topic, “On the Clock” by Emily Guendelsberger. The author worked low-wage jobs at an Amazon warehouse, a call center and a McDonald’s restaurant and she describes the experience. I read it, but don’t own the book, so I can’t look, but the author discussed the history of maximizing human labor and I wonder if any of that history included Frank Gilbreth. Amazon has taken the concept to a level that seems inhumane in their warehouses.
The whole issue of motion-study is interesting. Some of the things he suggested made things not just more efficient, but safer - for example having nurses in the operating theater keeping track of organized utensils, or not having to bend so much when you were building a brick wall. No doubt though, that you can go overboard, as in this classic scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y0nsN4px10
My father in law, got an Industrial Engineering degree from Georgia Tech in the mid 1950s. I, also, wonder if he would have studied the Gilbreth’s theories. He worked for International companies, hopefully, improving working conditions,
I am late to this discussion. I really liked both books. I will say that they could only work as nonfiction. I don’t think either would have been as successful as fiction, especially Educated. Nobody would have thought it was close to reality.
Two of my bridge friends have finished Educated. They both loved it and were horrified by it. My friend Joy kept saying, “I can’t believe people live like that”.
It is hard to judge Lillian Gilbreth’s position in the family. I think the book was definitely written to focus on the father and children. I can’t imagine how many time she must have rolled her eyes at his antics. I did get a bit tired of it about page 170, but I pushed through. I will have to try to read “Bell on their Toes” sometime after I read Middlemarch. If I ever finish reading Middlemarch.
With 12 children and that husband, Lillian must have had a great sense of humor, right? That doesn’t really come across though. She looks stern in many of those family photos (but I know a genuine smile was hard to catch in early photography). I think her survival tactic was dignity, always dignity – an an oasis of calm amid the shenanigans. Maybe that’s why she gave up on learning to swim. Hijinks in the water held absolutely no appeal for her and took her out of her “unflappable and in control” comfort zone.