<p>If they attended BYU & were LDS, current costs run about $15,000, including room & board.
If they had sufficient AP credits combined with savings, they might be able to reduce that to something doable with Direct loans and a part time job.
I wonder if BYU offers private loans?</p>
<p>Wow! The hostility here toward large families took me by surprise. My husband and I have seven kids, twenty years apart. Yup, I nursed for twenty years and I am fit and young for my age! We started our family while still undergrads at the Ivy League school where we met. We are not an LDS family. I agree with many (not all!) of the childrearing values espoused in the OP regardless of family size, and can relate to some of the organizational details of keeping a big household running happily. We both juggled rewarding careers and I am now retired and enjoying the last two high schoolers at home plus several nearby grandchildren. So far we have shared the college expenses with each of the five kids we have sent off so far (some have graduated, some are still in college or grad school). They worked hard at jobs through high school and college but we helped them as much as we could. We have an Ivy League tuition coming up this fall for our sixth. We were not perfect parents. We did not raise perfect kids. We’ve had more than our share of teenage angst, seen many struggles amid the triumphs of emerging adulthood. But they were all very high academic achievers who are now successful in their careers and contributing to their communities as artists, environmentalists, scientists, teachers and more. And when these wonderful kids get together, our house is overflowing with love, laughter, drama, chaos, and fun. They look out for each other. They support each other. They still wrestle in our living room! They have met loving partners and are raising beautiful kids. When my husband and I have the resources, we take great pleasure in helping them with houses, or weddings or tuition. They feel grateful, not entitled. Sure, our family is leaving a bigger “footprint” than most these days despite our Eco responsible lifestyle. But I think growing up in a big family is a large part of the reason my kids are such fine people.</p>
<p>This is the perhaps the most unusual article I’ve ever read on parenting. Your kids had to learn it the “hard way” didn’t they?
I agree with some of the responses, I would have not liked to be part of this family but then the story has a lot of positives as well. All kids were taught to fend for themselves, so they will never rely on others for self-preservation.
I wonder what it is that you intend to do with your estate when you pass away? I take it that you’re wealthy, have you written a Will or something and do you intend to distribute your wealth amongst your kids or give it to some charity or something?</p>
<p>I think parents can decide on their family size- and sometimes it is a result of circumstances. I’ve seen great families of all sizes.
The title is misleading though. It doesn’t give any information about how the children paid for college or where they went. Did they all live at home and attend a local one? Did they get financial aid?
I think the article would have been more helpful to families looking for how to pay for college if it had been more informative. Also expecting every child to take every AP class may not be possible for some families. Kids have different interests and aptitudes.</p>
<p>Parts of this article are not quite believable, but memories are funny things. </p>
<p>A three year old can certainly swish a toilet brush around the bowl. It will be messy, but it is possible. That isn’t the same thing as a good cleaning as an adult would do. The artilce is very vague about the details.</p>
<p>I agree that I’d like to hear from the mother.</p>
<p>As an aside, I don’t believe that the fact that they all haven’t been together in one place at the same time since the oldest was 22 is indicative of much of anything. My husband is the oldest of six, with another three step brothers. It is a large, loving, blended, drama free family. But we live all over the country, with different jobs, schedules, kids of our own, etc, and I can’t remember the last time every one of us was together. Even for family weddings and family reunions scheduled a year ahead of time there have been one or two missing from every photo. Life happens. The fact that several people couldn’t make it to the wedding or reunion doesn’t mean there is an issue with family dynamics.</p>
<p>The Double Standard:
Large families of adoptive and foster children. Accepted.
Large families of biological children. Looked down upon. If not considered “inferior” to raising kids not your own. </p>
<p>Families of any size, dependent not on who was born from who, that are successfully raised and supportive by the parents should be glorified, accepted, tolerated. </p>
<p>That is the double standard. </p>
<p>Signifying that a mother who chooses to spend two decades as a cow because she chose to have a larger amount of kids is crude. Are all parents not “cows”. Essentially being milked by ALL their children, biological or not, for affection, resources, opinions, time, knowledge, help, etc.?</p>
<p>That is where I see a double standard, emerald. You can believe all you want, it’s not my place to tell you your opinion about something, but just know by shining a pleasant light on those who adopt and foster while looking quizzically at those who have many of their own kids is what doesn’t “make any sense”.</p>
<p>In response to those posters who have large families of their own, I come from a large family although my direct family is not large. My best friend has many siblings. It’s hectic. It’s annoying at times. But it’s filled with so much love, care, and affection. This is what I enjoy about a large family. There’s always someone around. Always someone in the house. Multiple people to talk to and share your thoughts with. Even more people to look after you! I wouldn’t mind having 4+. A family member always jokes about how he “expects the most out of me”. He just might be right. :)</p>
<p>I also come from a large family. My parents had six children and they have 18 grandchildren spread across the country. We have definitely all been in the same place at the same in the last 16 years. Most recently for my son’s wedding. Families are important enough to us to make the effort.</p>
<p>In spite of the fact that their kids can rebuild an engine, build a computer, play a sport and take AP classes, if my kids had no interest in being together as a family for 16 years, I would consider myself a failure as a parent.</p>
<p>I also don’t understand how you can require a child to volunteer, play a sport, take APs and be so inflexible that dinner is at 5:30 followed by a mandatory two hour study time. When did they attend their sporting events? I don’t think this guy is telling the truth.</p>
<p>OP here.</p>
<p>I posted the article without reading it all the way through. I assumed the article eventually talked about how the kids paid for college, but – nope. Misleading title, for sure.</p>
<p>I found this article on my LinkedIn home page. I just went back to look at it, and there is a comment from someone who claims to be Child #8. </p>
<p>This reminds me of the Duggars, but without the kindness.</p>
<p>I don’t much care what others do, but no, I don’t see the appeal of large families at all. Just seems like a lot of chaos. I don’t see one thing that’s appealing to me, nor do I see anything I think I’ve missed out on by not being part of one or not having had one. What some of you think is “great, all those people around” makes me want to hide in bed and pull the covers over my head. (I’m one of two, I have two, my sister has one. Lots of only children in our family, and I have only 2 first cousins, whom I barely know.)</p>
<p>“My best friend has many siblings. It’s hectic. It’s annoying at times. But it’s filled with so much love, care, and affection.”</p>
<p>See, I think that’s obnoxious. What, my sister and I don’t share as much love as if we were from a family of 8? Is that like saying there’s more love around if you have more kids?</p>
<p>My hat goes off to this family. It took a lot of work and discipline to keep to the rules all of those years for all of those kids. That they have a 100% success rate is fantastic, as that would not be the case over a larger populations. But clearly for them it worked very well. I don’t know too many people who could stick to that sort of a plan. I could not.</p>
<p>My neighbor where we once lived was raising 9 kids and a friend of mine has 8. Most of theirs are doing well, but there were some serious bumps in the road. The fact of the matter is that with more members, the more chances of all sorts of things happening. And sometimes bad things happen, no matter how good the plans are and how well it nearly always works. We watched one family disintegrate when a child was dxed with cancer, a large family that always seemed to have it together, and we would have all sworn would get through this well. It was the start of a downhill slide, instead for them. Hard to say what works best. </p>
<p>The time of consistency required to do what this featured family has done, is likely beyond me, as I have not , did not respond so well to challenges in our lives. So kudos, to them.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is a big deal if a middle class family in the developed world has >2 kids, since as someone up thread said, so many people never have children.</p>
<p>As a curiosity, in one branch of my own family, my great grand parents had five, then only four grand kids, and today have seven great great grand kids vs the 16 that ‘replacement’ would have provided. </p>
<p>But anyway, I retread the title and Dad says that the kids ‘could’ pay for college themselves.</p>
<p>
I guess it depends on how you define success. It didn’t sound much like a warm, loving family to me. It sounded like a dictator gloating over what he defined as success that I would have defined as a horrible experiment.</p>
<p>I have nothing against large families as long as you can support and love them. Doesn’t sound much like he did either.</p>
<p>“I also come from a large family. My parents had six children and they have 18 grandchildren spread across the country. We have definitely all been in the same place at the same in the last 16 years. Most recently for my son’s wedding. Families are important enough to us to make the effort.”</p>
<p>3bm103, clearly you do not have any family members who are in the military, or who have age or medical issues that preclude them from traveling, or you all live close to one another. </p>
<p>Right now my husband is on a 9 month deployment in Afghanistan. He might be able to swing a quick emergency trip home if an immediate family member died or had a medical emergency, but he’d be missing any family wedding. Not because he doesn’t care enough, and not because the family member having the wedding doesn’t care enough, but because life is sometimes like that. </p>
<p>My mother missed the last family wedding before she died because she refused to travel ouside of her little town. She didn’t feel quite up to it in those last couple of years. So shame on our family for not managing to get everyone to that wedding?</p>
<p>Try not to make huge judgements about other families, and their abilities to all get together at the same time.</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem in the least with large families, or small families, or families that are childless by choice. More power to you, and peace be with you all! My difficulty is when anyone, be it this guy or Amy Chua, brashly or smugly espouses their parenting style as the bomb, the be all and end all for all families. I had all kinds of ideals of things I was and wasn’t going to do as a parent…before I had kids. Then real life happened. A husband that was supporting a growing family, out of the house from 5:30am to 8:30pm on a good day, one son on the autistic spectrum, and another who was pretty sick as a little guy eventually needing a series of cardiothorasiac surgeries. For me there came a tipping point where it was often more important to sit and read together with my kids then for them to get their beds made and organize Legos daily. I wanted to sit by the creek with them and didn’t care if we had oatmeal for dinner. </p>
<p>The sheer inflexibility is what strikes me as so foreign because it’s a common denominator in all parents I know of large, small, highly organized, and notsomuch families. Sticking to the program at the detriment of the ability to do something really creative or interesting, in the moment, with your kids is counterproductive at the very least. No one remembers the routine, they remember the exceptions, the days you have breakfast for dinner, ice cream first, stay in pjs all day, ditch chores and go to the creek to look for tadpoles. There’s nothing wrong with order, routine, responsibility. Teaching kids flexibility is also important. </p>
<p>osasmom, your post is vastly different to me (and I obviously speak only for myself) then what is being portrayed in the article. Although you identify with many things you clearly admit your family is not perfect (what family is?!), and I appreciate and respect this reality check from anyone sharing how their family operates. It’s that lack of perspective that makes one bristle. Your description of your family is far more universal and approachable, no matter the size of the family. As I said earlier in my post, I get my dander up at anyone espousing family rearing magic formulas, values, or otherwise, that see their way as the only way and in recounting their family, large or small, show no chink in the armor. They lack sincerity, honesty, and credibility IMO.</p>
<p>It’s too easy to judge based on an article. All families have problems and this family is likely no different. More people = more problems.</p>
<p>Absolutely stellar post 95, blueiguana.</p>
<p>I’m glad these folks are pleased with themselves and their child rearing practices. The tone of the article (I could be wrong) suggests they they don’t think it’s possible to foster the same values (hard work, perseverance, healthy diet, the importance of education and learning, etc) in one’s kids using methods other than those they used (rigid, military-like rules and requirements). </p>
<p>What strikes me most about this father is that there’s a definite lack of humility/thankfulness on his part. Parents can create all sorts of rules and requirements and systems; sometimes, in spite of a parent’s best intentions, kids go off the path. The father doesn’t seem to have any sense of how lucky he and his wife were. I guess no one rebelled/acted out. He’s also lucky that none of the kids had special needs or other health issues. If misbehavior happened, the father isn’t acknowledging it other than to say that he and his wife made the kids aware they would be responsible for the consequences of their actions. What does that mean? </p>
<p>The father has given lots of advice on organizing the easy stuff (daily family living/life), but he’s short on specifics for dealing with the hard stuff of parenting. And, he’s definitely short on specifics when it comes to finances. How did the kids pay for their college education–scholarships, loans, working to save up tuition money, etc. etc. What are the rental units/equity he tells the kids about to help them get the money they need?</p>
<p>I will give credit where it’s due and say it seems this is probably a good family, but I don’t buy that there’s only one way to get to that outcome.</p>
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<p>Do people with big families think that other people envy them, or something?</p>
<p>Blueiguana- great post. I agree that flexibility is a great attribute. One size does not fit all when it comes to raising any number of kids.
Yes, it is easy to judge from a brief article. We don’t know the whole story but it looks as if the kids turned out fine. What struck me as sad was the focus on “I didn’t pay a dime” . From the title I was hoping for “how I raised 12 college educated kids on a small budget”
The part about not paying for the weddings strikes me as sad as well. I think that paying a lot for a wedding is beyond many budgets, but it is possible to have a warm celebration without spending a lot. I would like to think that there is a memory somewhere about the great cake mom baked, the beautiful hand made invitations, or wearing grandmas’ wedding dress. Perhaps this is not the focus of the article, and it was written from the dad’s point of view, but I would like to have seen more of “how we did it inexpensively but with a lot of love”</p>