Family

Cheaper by the Dozen may be a funny adventure story about the lifestyle of a crazy family of 12 children, an irritable father, and a collected mother, but it is alos much, much more. The story itself was most likely written to illustrate the importance of family in the lives of all human beings. Family is a support system of people who love and care for one another. In a loving family, anyone can go to anyone else for help or support when one is approached with any problem whatsoever. Everything that was once difficult, becomes that much easier when family is there to fall back on. In Cheaper by the Dozen, the crazy family of 14 is held together by such an intense bond, that even the most insanely unpredictable disaster could never tear them apart. Although larger families are more chaotic, they are just as close as smaller families. Because larger families are just as tightly-knit as smaller families, they are stronger overall. Tearing apart any section of a large family, even a family of 14, would cause just as big of a problem as the loss of an only child from a family of 3. In fact, it may even cause more damage, because losing a member of a family of 14 would affect the other 13 members of the family just as powerfully.

In Cheaper by the Dozen there many times during which members of the Gilbreth famaily decide that they would rather have nothing to do with the rest of their family than deal with the chaos and irritation. However, after the specific family member breaks away from the clan, he or she return moments later in the story deciding that he or she needs the family, even if the family is driving him or her absolutely crazy. No matter how hard we all try to run away from our parents or our siblings, we will always need them in our lives. Family is one of the most essential apects in the world. From our family, our values are born, and we choose how we think, talk, walk, and appeal to others. Family is, essentially, the infrastructure on which each and every one of us builds our respective lives.

More Excitement by the Dozen

In Cheaper by the Dozen, Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey depict the significance of family in the lives of every human being. The book provides comic relief to family struggles and difficult times, yet imbues a sense of heartwarming peace in the heart of the reader who picks the book up for enjoyment. It's almost impossible to guess what could happen in a family with 12 kids. Many people assume that chaos would be immeinent. Such an assumption would be correct. But not many people would assume that the mother and father of the 12 children would be able to stand such a way of life. In fast, Cheaper by the Dozen recounts the love and importance of the family bond among the Gilbreths, even in their chaotic household. Mr. Gilbreth, even though he cannot stand the chaos, would never give up any of his sons or daughters for the world, no matter how much they irritate him.



When Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreth got married, they knew they were in for a difficult time. Both spuses came into their relationship with a significant amount of baggage. Mrs. Gilbreth was ready, being a psychologist and an expert at taking care of young children, but Mr. Gilbreth was not as prepared for what was to come. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreth now had 12 children to deal with, combined, thus the title Cheaper by the Dozen. Mr. Gilbreth is far more impatient, and is constantly found hooting and hollering at his children for misbehaving, while Mrs. Gilbreth has her moments, but is, for the most part, calm and collected, considering she is dealing with 12 children. Of which only a few are mature enough to take care of themselves, and more than half are obnoxious troublemakers. On top of their 12 kids, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreth are forced to care for a trouble-making dog named Gunner and their children's equally boistrous friends. Needless to say, every day in the Gilbreth house is an adventure. Sometimes things get so crazy that the parents flip their respective switches, but these explosions of frustration simply add to the pragmatic nature of the story, and supply a strong taste of reality to readers.



Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey (pgs. 1-152)

Don't Stress

Last week was one of the most stressful weeks of my life, and this week has promise to be a close runner-up. Over these couple of rough weeks, I have had trouble handling the stress tha has resulted from the numerous research papers, projects and finals I have been writing, working on and studying for respectively. Saturday morning I was forced to standby register for the SAT at Southside because I didn't realize that the next SAT isn't until October, until it was too late to register for last Saturday's SAT. At the time I felt like the world was coming to an abrupt halt because of all of the work that had led up to that moment of stress release. I couldn't stand all the pressure of performing well on the SAT after receiving a disappointing score on my physics final and stressing about several papers and projects all week long.

I now realize that there was no point for me to do all of that stressing. Stressing is largely superfluous, because it does not change the events that are set to occur. Stressing over a test doesn't make the test go away, just as stressing over turning in a good paper doesn't make you work more efficiently. Stress just slows us down. It causes everyone to perform worse than usual, and it ultimately guarantees unnecessary unhappiness for the time during which one is stressing.

Stressing is not only superfluous, it is damaging. Over the past couple of weeks I have stressed so much that I actually led myself into a kind of brief and shallow depression. Although I am certainly not in any psychological trouble, the stress which I allowed to control me during the time which I was writing my research paper, working on my projects, and studying for finals ate away at my happiness and caused me to think negative thoughts. Stress is what causes me to lose my confidence and my smile. I now realize that hard times would be so much easier if I could just control the stress which I experience, instead of letting it boss me around.

No matter how hard it gets, I'd have to say it's never worth stressing.