<p>Jym626 re: working full time and being a full time student. My husband and I worked full time while full time undergrads at Yale. I graduated pregnant with my second. It was tough but manageable, but I wouldn’t wish it on any of my kids.</p>
<p>I know that I could not have worked full time in college. It can be done, but not everyone can do it. Kudos to those who have done it, though. That is pretty amazing. I remember watching a girl trying to survive on four hours of sleep a night in college, because she was so overloaded working full time and trying to do well in school. She wasn’t doing very well. I think she had to drop out – it was too much. </p>
<p>osasmom – I am very impressed. That is amazing to me.</p>
<p>Grad school is different. I had paid traineeships in grad school and worked plenty of hours (dont remember how many). What I found surprising was that in a family of many engineers (who have ridiculous class schedules, labs and lengthy physics problems to solve, not to mention all the other work) its hard to imagine 21 hours of undergraduate classes and a fulltime job.</p>
<p>@jym626, it’s not easy being awesome.</p>
<p>or humble…</p>
<p>"And I really believe the remark above about both parents being on board. My husband has always been much more lenient than I and has not backed me when I wanted to impose chores and stricter rules. And because of schedules, he was able to spend much more time with the children. "</p>
<p>This is very real for many families. And, it’s hard to really figure all of that out prior to having kids.</p>
<p>True. But I bet by number 12 you get it figured out. I know a family of 9 who had the rules in place after the third child. It was pretty much, “Let’s just keep having more and mom does the home and dad works a lot.” Not for me. However, it works for them. And, in small doses it usually looks like fun. No, not always.</p>
<p>I just read through this whole thread. I think it’s great that the Thompson kids joined in for some clarification. If a couple raises 12 well-adjusted, educated kids, contributing citizens, then yes, I’m interested in what worked for them.</p>
<p>An authoritarian, rules-based household, in their case, was 100% successful. It probably would have worked well for my 3 healthy, athletic and reasonably smart kids. For several childhood friends, though, it backfired horribly. They rebelled, got into drugs, and are living angry, spiteful lives on the fringes of society. I would have to assume that the Thompsons had lessons in emotional resilience not explicit in the story.</p>
<p>I try not to make too many personal inferences about the Thompsons based on this one story. I recently read a news article about a man I knew well, a wealthy area businessman who passed away and the short article made him out to be a hardworking family man. He was mean, corrupt, philandering, one of the worst humans ever to walk this earth.</p>
<p>By the way, my sister worked full time, took a full load of classes and was a single mom with two young kids.</p>
<p>We also parented our kids differently as to their needs at the time.</p>
<p>This thread reminds me of this movie.
[Cheaper</a> By The Dozen - (Black-and-white trailer)](<a href=“tw_default - Sign In”>tw_default - Sign In)</p>
<p>Figuring it out doesn’t mean you get what you want. It means you learn to recognize the differences and work with them. Frankly, my husband has some qualities that have been completely beneficial for my children. So while I may be frustrated about housework and such, with his influence, we have two lovely, successful children who have very kind spirits and are respectful of others. I had some influence but so did he. They benefited from both.</p>
<p>Someone from a family 14 kids told me once that these kids tend to be a little different because they spend their young lives fighting for attention. Just an interesting observation from a now successful child of a large family. It’s also really more like a couple of families in terms of dynamics. They literally call themselves the big girls, the little girls, the big boys, and the little boys and all of them are over 50 by now. lol.</p>