Interesting article "How I made sure all 12 of my kids could pay for college themselves"

[gardenmom5]

We’ve flipped six houses and have never had trouble. It’s not for everyone. It takes a lot of work. We have to subcontract some things but have found a lot of people willing to explain things to us. And the internet is wonderful. ;) An electrician just talked Dh through electrical repairs for free over the phone. We were even talked step by step through asbestos removal at one point by the government agency that oversees that.

 

I don’t think that there is some kind of teen cutoff on learning these skills. My FIL didn’t even know how to mow a lawn when he came to this country as an adult but he learned by going to the library and reading books . Dh taught me how to operate a jigsaw two nights ago. I have chronic pain but I know how to change the oil in my car. Some skills do require physical strength but many don’t with the right tools.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I'm sorry I wasn't clear - I was trying to say, for some houses - a bank will not loan money for an investment quality property and the buyer must pay cash for the house.  e.g. autions where you must show your cash to be able to bid.  (especially for houses that aren't legally habitable at the time of title transfer.)

 

I know it still happens because just this month I found an "investor opportunity" house while I was looking for a house for my brother.  It had been heavily damaged by fire - but it was on one of the smaller lakes north of here. (I can't find it, or I'd link it.) It was stipulated in the listing - cash or alternative financing.  it would have been a nicer house in its day.

 

 it really depends upon the condition of the property.   houses that just need updating and are legally habitable, you can get a loan - but you're also paying more upfront. 

 

first and foremost - banks want to know they're getting their money back on a house if the owner defaults.

[MBM]

And my question is why? Why would any college-bound teen need to learn "a ton of hands-on construction skills" or the skills to rebuild old muscle cars or the skills to build their own computer. Why? Some teens may have a special interest in that area and that's wonderful, but why would you make your kids do that? If you have the money to buy an extra house or a BMW, put that money in a college account to earn interest and use your upper-class connections to find your kid a real job working with someone besides daddy. Or, better yet, your kid could go out and find a job all by themselves at the local fast food restaurant or delivering pizzas or mopping the floor at Wal-mart.

 

Because I don't think this idea of fixing cars or fixing houses is helping privileged kids develop the kind of character skills their parents think. Maybe if they got a job at an actual auto-body shop or a real construction site and met some real working-class people. But what's being described here? I really don't see it.

Building and repairing teach many skills that can be used throughout life: problem solving, persevering, resourcefulness and patience for starters. Years later, the experience can help an individual assess the ability and honesty of tradespeople they might hire. It can teach a person the difficulties some jobs truly entail as well. If anything, these skills should be taught to more youngsters. It’s a shame so many schools have cut them back.

[katilac]

  And since DH can't pass along construction skills to DS, our future DIL is going to resent it as well.

 

:confused1:

 

Or maybe DIL will be the handy half of the couple. Fixing stuff around the house was never an exclusively  male thing. My parents are 80, and my mom was 100% the fixer-upper! My dad does not have the handy gene, if it can't be fixed with a staple gun or duct tape, he can't fix it. My mom did everything remotely handy, including clearing a water line of tree roots with an ax every year or so. I really find it hard to imagine that his hypothetical spouse is going to resent his lack of fix-it skills. Besides, if he has that innate ability and interest, he can learn anything from youtube. 

 

 

Even in the 70s the schools had games with other schools in the evening when parents could attend. It would seem strange to have your kid in a sport and never watch them play.

 

Not even just watching the games - I went to school in the 70s and first half of the 80s, and clubs/sports were most definitely not restricted to during and right after school. No transportation was provided. I'm guessing it has more to do with your particular school district rather than now vs then. Although I've never heard of any halfway serious sports teams whose practices only last an hour or so. 

[Guest]

I’m late contributing to this thread, but add me to the readers who thought this article had a sanctimonious tone. Very similar to Tigar Mom, but Tiger Mom did eventually realize she could not continue to do what she was doing and have a good relationship with her kids.

 

I will say I am very attracted to parenting that doesn’t offer up a boatload of excuses, so in one sense, I do like parents who set high standards and don’t apologize for doing so. BUT! This guy is either extremely over-the-top or he is full of kaka. All three of my kids have participated in at least two seasons of sports per year since they were 3-4 yo, AND I am a big promoter of having a daily family dinner made from nutritious, healthy and predominantly homemade food. However, there is NO WAY those two facts could have existed had I rigidly adhered to a specific dinnertime (forget breakfast!) every day, year after year. We nearly always eat dinner a good bit later than most Americans, and there have been seasons and individual days when we did not eat dinner until 9:00pm-ish, because there was no other way to have everyone together on a regular basis. Besides which, I personally do not like to eat dinner early anytime I can help it, because it just makes me feel noshy all evening long.

 

How anyone could claim that all 12 kids were in a sport and a club and ate dinner every night at 5:30, no exceptions is just extremely difficult to believe. Unless he means, no matter who was where besides home, mom always made dinner and served it at 5:30 with whatever assortment of people were home right then...even this would never have worked for our family because I do like to actually SEE my child perform in a play or score a goal or whatever. It sounds like mom was locked inside the house (or tent), keeping the schedule the same. Whoopee.

 

I think it is terrific to have kids do high-competency things like build computers and cars; my DH actually built his first car with his dad and it was also a Mustang. I think that is cool. But I agree this comes from a place of privildege the author does not even seem slightly aware of. He doesn’t even appear to be aware of the priviledge inherant in having the option to send your Kindergartner on a European vacation “with relatives.â€

 

I believe in high standards, but I do not like to run kids ragged or push them to be hyper-acheivers. I am superpleased with the grades and conduct my DD displays in college, and I’m happy she is a hard worker when she is on break, but I would NOT want her to attempt to work FT and also attend college FT. I mean, sure, if we were penniless. But not to prove a point. There are already enough kids who are pressured to be all things.

 

Finally, just - what a stupid title. I, too, wanted to read about actual logistics.

[LMD]

I agree Quill. I hate the idea that hyper-productive = success. Life is about more than working and money. I want time to actually enjoy my kids. I'm sure that some people thrive on that kind of schedule but I would curl up and die...

[Corraleno]

How anyone could claim that all 12 kids were in a sport and a club and ate dinner every night at 5:30, no exceptions is just extremely difficult to believe. Unless he means, no matter who was where besides home, mom always made dinner and served it at 5:30 with whatever assortment of people were home right then...even this would never have worked for our family because I do like to actually SEE my child perform in a play or score a goal or whatever. It sounds like mom was locked inside the house (or tent), keeping the schedule the same. Whoopee.

 

I'd bet that 5:30 was when he got home from work, and he insisted on eating immediately whether everyone was home or not. My stepfather was like that — he'd walk in the door at 5:30, take off his coat, wash his hands, sit down at the table, and expect a plate of food to instantly appear in front of him. If dinner was not ready the minute he walked in the door, he was cranky. Any kids who were not home at 5:30 ate cold food or had to heat it up themselves (and we did not have a microwave).

[Carol in Cal.]

 

I'd bet that 5:30 was when he got home from work, and he insisted on eating immediately whether everyone was home or not. My stepfather was like that — he'd walk in the door at 5:30, take off his coat, wash his hands, sit down at the table, and expect a plate of food to instantly appear in front of him. If dinner was not ready the minute he walked in the door, he was cranky. Any kids who were not home at 5:30 ate cold food or had to heat it up themselves (and we did not have a microwave).

It's pretty common for people to eat at set times.

I don't, but my inlaws do.  And pretty much my FOO did.  My dad had his lunch break at 11:30, and that was it until dinner.  He took a streetcar and then a 2 mile uphill walk home, and then exercised, had a quick drink and a slice of cheese, and a shower, and then we ate.  Dinner was at a set time, and that was true of a lot of folks in those days, because everything else was on a schedule, too.

[La Condessa]

Sorry, wrong thread

Edited December 24, 2017 by La Condessa

[catz]

I'd love to hear what the mom in this situation would write.  LOL.  Sometimes parental perception and memories can be different of what actually went down and what actually was worth doing.  My own DH sometimes does this. 

 

I also am not a fan of the tone that has a one size fits all, my way or the highway feel to child raising.  Glad it worked for their 12 kids.  I suspect they didn't have any like mine.  LOL.  And repeating - it is clear as mud how his kids paid for college.  I suspect they paid like most other kids.  Even kids that didn't rebuild a hot rod.

 

On the sports and clubs.  I was in many sports and clubs in public high school.  Yes, practices would be done in time for dinner.  But games, matches, theater stuff, performances, etc were often later or traveling.  It was not an easily predictable schedule unless they had some sort of rec leagues.  My kids each do 2-3 activities and breakfast and lunch are our meals together since we homeschool. 

[OneStepAtATime]

I'd love to hear what the mom in this situation would write.  LOL.  Sometimes parental perception and memories can be different of what actually went down and what actually was worth doing.  My own DH sometimes does this. 

 

I also am not a fan of the tone that has a one size fits all, my way or the highway feel to child raising.  Glad it worked for their 12 kids.  I suspect they didn't have any like mine.  LOL.  And repeating - it is clear as mud how his kids paid for college.  I suspect they paid like most other kids.  Even kids that didn't rebuild a hot rod.

 

On the sports and clubs.  I was in many sports and clubs in public high school.  Yes, practices would be done in time for dinner.  But games, matches, theater stuff, performances, etc were often later or traveling.  It was not an easily predictable schedule unless they had some sort of rec leagues.  My kids each do 2-3 activities and breakfast and lunch are our meals together since we homeschool. 

This made me chuckle.  It really is all in your perspective and I do wonder if the kids and the wife were being totally honest what their own article would say.

 

One weekend while I was out of town handling some family business for my mom DH was taking care of our kids.  Every time I talked to him I got glowing reports, life was grand, everything was hunky dory.  Well, when I got home I found out that one of the animals had been injured, one of the kids and DH had gotten into a horrific fight over riding a bicycle,  the dog got out and ran off (thankfully relocated within a few hours), DH had accidentally flooded the laundry room trying to do laundry, and so on.  From DH's perspective, since none of these things resulted in something permanently bad happening things were still "fine".  From the kids' perspective the weekend was a total disaster.   :lol:

[SereneHome]

This still comes from such a privileged mindset. The parent must have the money to purchase the house, the skills & tools & time & money to work with the teen to remodel the house, and live in an economically viable enough area to actually make money by the time you flip it. 

 

I knew a guy who made money in high school and college by fixing up BMW's. As in, his rich-lawyer daddy would buy an older BMW, and then teen son would use daddy's tools in daddy's ginormous garage at the family mansion to fix the cars up before reselling them to other wealthy people in their wealthy community. And the son patted himself on the back for working so hard to pay his own living expenses through college. And rich daddy patted himself on the back for teaching his son hard work and car-building skills. He probably said more stupid, clueless, judgmental things about "poor" people (ahem, middle-class working families) than anyone I have ever known. 

 

And my question is why? Why would any college-bound teen need to learn "a ton of hands-on construction skills" or the skills to rebuild old muscle cars or the skills to build their own computer. Why? Some teens may have a special interest in that area and that's wonderful, but why would you make your kids do that? If you have the money to buy an extra house or a BMW, put that money in a college account to earn interest and use your upper-class connections to find your kid a real job working with someone besides daddy. Or, better yet, your kid could go out and find a job all by themselves at the local fast food restaurant or delivering pizzas or mopping the floor at Wal-mart.

 

Because I don't think this idea of fixing cars or fixing houses is helping privileged kids develop the kind of character skills their parents think. Maybe if they got a job at an actual auto-body shop or a real construction site and met some real working-class people. But what's being described here? I really don't see it.

 

Oh my goodness.

 

What a judgmental and hypocritical post.  So, if the kid got a brand new BMW, that would be a bad thing.   And kid getting an old BMW and fixing it and selling is also a bad thing bc he had his daddy's garage to fix it?

 

Is there anything the rich kid can do right?  Not get a car at all?  Find a place to fix it somewhere in a ghetto?  Does everyone has to be poor to develop character??

 

And learning construction skills, car-fixing skills, computer skills are excellent for anyone.  You NEVER know what life will throw at you.

 

And it's also good to know for purely practical reasons.  Even if we can afford to hire someone to do things, I love the fact that my husband actually truly understands what repair men tell us, so there is less chance that we get taken or spend needless money.

 

 

 

[Garga]

I wonder if all 12 were in activities all at the same time.

 

Perhaps when you were in elementary or middle school you did a club, and in high school you did a sport.  Or maybe, you only did a club and sport in high school, and there were only 4 kids in high school at a time.  And if they're Mormons and the school was designed to get kids home for dinner, it would work.  

 

The only part that confuses me is when they'd have games.  My kids don't do sports, so I'm not sure when games are played.  Are they played on weeknights, or weekends?

 

The car building could have been done in the summer, because if you're doing school, club, sport, dinner, and study time each night, there's no physical time for car building, so that could be in the summer before you turn 16.  And there would only be one kid turning 16 each year or so, so one summer per kid to build the car.

 

I can see it sort of working.  We're imagining all 12 kids fixing up cars at the same time, and all 12 kids in clubs at the same time, and all 12 kids in sports.  But if the mom was pregnant for 15 years, then the babies and toddlers and preschoolers and elementary kids were not all in those activities at the same time.

 

And it sounded like for the food stuff, that you ate what you didn't like first and if you got hungry before the next meal, that's all there was to eat.  But at the next meal, it started over with something new.  You weren't given your breakfast over again. Instead, you started over with lunch food.

 

The part I don't get is the flights to Europe.  How did those get paid for?  But wait...maybe I do get it.  I'll bet it wasn't all 12 of them on the plane together.  By the time the youngest was 8-10 or so and ready to go on the trip without mom and dad, the oldest would be 23-25 and out of the house.

 

While they seem like they all have WAY more energy than me (I'm pretty sedentary), if you consider that they weren't doing all these things all at the very same time, then it is more realistic.  Couple that with having an entire school system that supported your family time, and it could work.

 

The title of the article was wrong.  It should have been, "How I Taught My Kids Self-Reliance Because I Knew They'd Have to Figure Out How to Pay for College on Their Own."

Edited December 24, 2017 by Garga

[gardenmom5]

This made me chuckle.  It really is all in your perspective and I do wonder if the kids and the wife were being totally honest what their own article would say.

 

One weekend while I was out of town handling some family business for my mom DH was taking care of our kids.  Every time I talked to him I got glowing reports, life was grand, everything was hunky dory.  Well, when I got home I found out that one of the animals had been injured, one of the kids and DH had gotten into a horrific fight over riding a bicycle,  the dog got out and ran off (thankfully relocated within a few hours), DH had accidentally flooded the laundry room trying to do laundry, and so on.  From DH's perspective, since none of these things resulted in something permanently bad happening things were still "fine".  From the kids' perspective the weekend was a total disaster.   :lol:

 

this reminds me of the best mother's day talk ever.  

mom went out of town, and the child giving a youth talk gave a litany of things that had gone wrong because mom wasn't there.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I think that if you homeschool, the whole “everyone eats dinner together “ thing is less important. I mean, it’s not like we don’t see each other and don’t talk to each other during the day. (I realize that this family didn’t homeschool).

 

 

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[Garga]

I think that if you homeschool, the whole “everyone eats dinner together “ thing is less important. I mean, it’s not like we don’t see each other and don’t talk to each other during the day. (I realize that this family didn’t homeschool).

 

 

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This is soooo true.  For our dinners, we each get a tv tray and we sit on the couch/chairs in the living room and watch tv together.  By the time dinner hits, we still love each other, but are kinda done with talking, talking, talking to each other all day.  And DH is totally burned out when he comes home from work.  Chilling in front of the TV together for an hour is how we roll.

 

It would be completely different if dinner time was the first time we'd all been together since the morning.

[frogger]

I think that if you homeschool, the whole “everyone eats dinner together “ thing is less important. I mean, it’s not like we don’t see each other and don’t talk to each other during the day. (I realize that this family didn’t homeschool).

 

 

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This is why family dinner time is usually only important if my husband is home. The kids and I do just about everything together but my husband is at work all day.

[Jean in Newcastle]

This is why family dinner time is usually only important if my husband is home. The kids and I do just about everything together but my husband is at work all day.

 

Yes, when my kids were little, dinner was part of their Daddy time.  It was also a time when we taught them the niceties of casual family dining.  Now my teens tend to value working out with Dad more than eating dinner together.  I don't think it is wrong when families do it differently but I dislike it when people talk about these choices like they are somehow moral ones instead of ones that fit their particular family culture. 

[Guest]

I wonder if all 12 were in activities all at the same time.

 

Perhaps when you were in elementary or middle school you did a club, and in high school you did a sport. Or maybe, you only did a club and sport in high school, and there were only 4 kids in high school at a time. And if they're Mormons and the school was designed to get kids home for dinner, it would work.

 

The only part that confuses me is when they'd have games. My kids don't do sports, so I'm not sure when games are played. Are they played on weeknights, or weekends?

 

The car building could have been done in the summer, because if you're doing school, club, sport, dinner, and study time each night, there's no physical time for car building, so that could be in the summer before you turn 16. And there would only be one kid turning 16 each year or so, so one summer per kid to build the car.

 

I can see it sort of working. We're imagining all 12 kids fixing up cars at the same time, and all 12 kids in clubs at the same time, and all 12 kids in sports. But if the mom was pregnant for 15 years, then the babies and toddlers and preschoolers and elementary kids were not all in those activities at the same time.

 

And it sounded like for the food stuff, that you ate what you didn't like first and if you got hungry before the next meal, that's all there was to eat. But at the next meal, it started over with something new. You weren't given your breakfast over again. Instead, you started over with lunch food.

 

The part I don't get is the flights to Europe. How did those get paid for? But wait...maybe I do get it. I'll bet it wasn't all 12 of them on the plane together. By the time the youngest was 8-10 or so and ready to go on the trip without mom and dad, the oldest would be 23-25 and out of the house.

 

While they seem like they all have WAY more energy than me (I'm pretty sedentary), if you consider that they weren't doing all these things all at the very same time, then it is more realistic. Couple that with having an entire school system that supported your family time, and it could work.

 

The title of the article was wrong. It should have been, "How I Taught My Kids Self-Reliance Because I Knew They'd Have to Figure Out How to Pay for College on Their Own."

Well, it’s nice of you to give them the benefit of a doubt, but I am not imagining that happening all at once. What I am saying is even with *three* kids who, for several years, were all simultaneously in sports (and various kids also did other things like music instruction, chorus, youth activities), there was no possible way we could have kept such a rigid schedule of dinner at 5:30, study time 6-8. There was one period of time when all three of my kids were in soccer and even just getting three kids to practices and games took some interesting logistics and the assistence of both parents. Sometimes we relied on other parents at the field to supervise Child #1 while we dashed over to a nearby, but not immediately adjacent field, for Child #2 or #3. For a few seasons, one child was on a Division #1 team and every game was at least 45 minutes away and often farther. Once the older two were in high school, it was easier in one sense because there was school transportation to and from games. But, of course we, as the parents, do want to see at least some of them. And even had we never personally attended any game, the kid in that sport would not always, or even usually, be home from games by 5:30. From practice, yes, but not games.

 

Also, with the kids building a car: even one kid building one car each summer is no small use of resources. And then the car must be insured for the kid to drive it - that alone would make me steer away from a “cool†car with a massive engine. Then, there is the risk of handing a look-how-invincible-I-am teen a cool car with a giant engine. It would not sit well with me. (And I say that even though this is precisely what my DH and his siblings did for their first cars...however, they all also had some terrific accidents in those cool cars because they were Young And Dumb.) I only have two teens who are close-ish in age (2 1/2 yrs), but just the insurance difference to have two teen drivers driving old beaters on our policy is no small matter. I am relieved my youngest is 5 years younger!

 

The flights to Europe, he says began when the kids were FIVE, because he mentions how you have to make special arrangements for a Kindergartner to fly unaccompanied to a foreign country. Even if only ONE kid per year went to Europe (which is not how it sounds in the article, because he says they “started†traveling as Kindergatners), that is many thousands of dollars on flights alone over years and years and years. Presumably, even if the kid(s) stayed with relatives, the parents still also provided some spending money as well. Don’t get me wrong - if I had relatives in Europe and we could vacation there annually, I would be happy to have that perk. BUT I wouldn’t write smug articles about how my kids turned out so great because I “simply†made sure they were well-cultured and travelled from an early age.

[Guest]

And PS, about game times: of course, it may be different where the author lived, but before high school, my kids’ games were always on the weekends. Practices were one weeknight (for team sports). The time of that practice is entirely up to the coach, who is a volunteer and has a “day job.†So, they hardly ever start before 5:30 or 6. Once in high school, practices are every day after school for that season, but games are usually two nights a week for that season. My high schoolers got home from practices by about 5:30-6; away games are always later. High school games are not normally played on the weekend, though tournaments are.

 

It also definitey depends on the sport. Wrestling had long, late practices and the boys MUST shower once home to prevent ringworm and other cooties. We never ate dinner before 9 when my boys wrestled. Tournaments were on weekends and consumed the whole freakin day. Gymnastics was like this too.

[Guest]

Reminds me of the HS family whose kids all went to college by age 12:

 

https://www.today.com/news/meet-family-who-sent-six-kids-college-age-12-1C9316706

Too bad nobody explained how it would be stupid to repeat half of their first daughter’s name in every subsequent daughter’s name. 😑

 

Also, their website has a typo/grammar error in the first paragraph. Maybe the kid who is majoring in English should fix that for them.

[fairfarmhand]

I was listening to a podcast this weekend

 

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/18/571181050/never-go-to-vegas-and-other-unspoken-rules-of-being-an-a-lister

 

And I was struck by the second half of the show. They talked about how many social networks insulate people, to where they get forget that their "privilege" is a privilege. The lady being interviewed talked about how she breastfed her babies and everyone she knew breastfed their babies, so she was under this impression that "this is just what people do. Why wouldn't you?" Eventually she came to realize that breastfeeding was something of a social privilege based upon maternity leave, which was based upon a quality job, a supportive partner, etc. 

 

My point is that this guy is under the impression that he created opportunities for his kids because of the awesome dad that he was. Some of their opportunities were due social privileges. 

 

And I do agree that it's a good idea to learn car repair and home repair, for no other reason than a crooked mechanic or repairman can't as easily take advantage of you.