
How I made sure all 12 of my kids could pay for college themselves - rohmanhakim
https://qz.com/165716/how-i-made-sure-all-12-of-my-kids-could-pay-for-college-themselves
======
BigJono
"We have helped them with contacts in corporations, but they have to do the
interviews and “earn” the jobs."

What?

I'd bet there's way more "failures" (for whatever reasonable definition) out
there that would have succeeded with a few good contacts than there are
"failures" that would have blown it given the chance.

There's a lot of other red flags in this article too. The section about how
kids got to make their own rules sounds good, but the two examples they gave
really don't sound like rational decisions that would be made by young
children. Maybe they were subtlely encouraged to go in that direction by mum
and dad, or maybe the children _did_ naturally elect to go with those rules.
Hopefully if they did, it was all 12 of them, because all I can think about is
Paul Graham's article on good vs bad procrastination. If only 10 wanted to go
along with it, what would the other 2 have accomplished instead if they didn't
have to clean their room every single night of the first two decades of their
lives? I haven't vacuumed my room in 6 weeks and I bet I earn more than at
least half of these kids, if that's how we're measuring success. Maybe that
half should have spent less time cleaning and more time playing puzzle games
or manipulating the pokemon card market at school.

------
sudosteph
I'm both glad they found a system that worked, and very happy that I was not
one of their kids. I agree with not babying your children (I was staying home
alone after school by 10, and babysitting neighbors by 12), but having large
amounts of unstructured time outside of school was actually incredibly
positive for me overall. I was able to get a lot of introspection time in, and
still got plenty of social time by engaging with the neighborhood kids in
various shenanigans. Plus some people are just not cut out for sports.

FWIW, both me and my sister still grew up to meet this author's definition of
financial independence & education "success", despite being picky eaters,
having divorced parents, and never learning how to camp in the wild over
vacation or take solo airplane trips as children (that stuff is expensive!).

~~~
mixmastamyk
> Plus some people are just not cut out for sports.

Everyone need exercise though. Maybe they didn't have to do team sports.

~~~
docdeek
The author mentions fencing, so can probably conclude that individual sports
were allowed.

------
_hardwaregeek
> All the kids were required to take every Advanced Placement class there was.

This was probably a different time and place, but that'd be physically
impossible at my school, not to mention seriously stressful and probably
useless in the end.

> If children would come home and say that a teacher hated them or was not
> fair, our response was that you need to find a way to get along.

I hope this is simply a simplification or exaggeration, as it makes me a
little sad. Complaining isn't just demanding rectification, but also a request
to be heard and understood. If a kid complains and is immediately told to deal
with it because that's how the world works, that's gonna provide a not great
lesson on their problems being heard.

> Remember, for 15 years, she was either pregnant or just had a baby.

I'm in no place to judge how many kids one should have. But damn, that's
intense.

There's this interesting contrast (I hesitate to use the world hypocrisy)
between the emphasis on self actualization and responsibility and the strict
rules. Like if you're raising a kid to be intellectually driven and curious,
why not let them choose the AP courses? Or why force them to study for 2 hours
every day if you're giving the whole "make mistakes and learn from it" spiel?
How about they fail a test or two and then learn to study?

This ethos of gung-ho strict parenting isn't necessarily bad, but I want to
ask these parents: "what if it didn't turn out alright?" What if one of the
kids got addicted to drugs? What if they became depressed? Would they have
stayed the course? Sure, it didn't happen, but I don't think that's because
the parents made sure kids played sports and forced them to change their own
oil. And I don't think that families where shit did happen were necessarily
doing something wrong. While one can certainly credit the parents for their
children's outcomes, there's an undeniable amount of luck involved.

~~~
xvector
> This was probably a different time and place, but that'd be physically
> impossible at my school, not to mention seriously stressful and probably
> useless in the end.

Can confirm. Took almost 20 AP classes in highschool, alongside some college
classes once I had exhausted the entire highschool AP curriculum. All of my
own accord - which I only mention because it would probably really get this
author going. No one asked me, or even suggested it. I even had to go break
through some bureaucratic tape to make it happen.

When I went to college, I realized it did not make me smarter, or more
capable, or even have a better work ethic than my peers that took 2-4 AP
classes throughout their whole highschool curriculum.

In fact, I found my work ethic was a bit worse - my work ethic was optimized
for passing AP exam after exam rather than absorbing the information in-depth.
I had become a master of heuristics/intuition, but class itself very much
became an "in through one ear, out the other" affair, where I'd retain the
minimum necessary key points and forget these shortly after the semester
concluded.

> What if one of the kids got addicted to drugs? What if they became
> depressed? Would they have stayed the course?

Apparently, they would have:

> "We let them suffer consequences and would not try to mitigate the
> consequences because we saw them suffering. We would cry and be sad, but
> would not do anything to reduce the consequences of their actions."

------
woodruffw
I don't doubt that these parents have the best of intentions (and I'm glad it
worked out for them and their children), but I wonder about the propriety of
encouraging it in general: AFAIK, the strongest indicators of adulthood
success are general familial stability and social class, not militaristic
parenting or forcing your kids to eat their brussels sprout.

Similarly: the value of knowing that you have a place to call home should you
fail in college is incalculable, even if your parents aren't paying your
tuition directly. I know that feeling of safety helped me during times of
stress, and that the absence of such certainty exacerbated similar feelings in
less some of my friends.

------
quickthrower2
I like the idea, but man that is some serious military parenting.

~~~
IceDane
I can't help but agree. There is obviously a need for organization if you have
so many kids you're basically running a kindergarten, but it sounds like these
kids grew up in a military school or something. The best thing my parents ever
did for me was to give me freedom to grow up on my own.

~~~
avinium
Is it fair to assume the author is a Mormon? From my limited understanding,
large families are the norm for Mormons and I'm guessing there's a lot more
structure in that kind of community.

By contrast, my father came from a much laxer 5 child family, and was the only
one who went to university. I can't imagine how anyone would manage with 12.

~~~
xvector
The author does mention he is Mormon[1].

> My wife and I are religious and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of
> Latter Day Saints [...]

> With no religious upbringing, [children] have no way to measure the goodness
> of other organizations, as they have no foundation.

> They participated in the religious activities: we were the parents, they did
> not have a choice.

[1]: [https://qz.com/296701/how-to-keep-your-wealth-from-
ruining-y...](https://qz.com/296701/how-to-keep-your-wealth-from-ruining-your-
children/)

------
sleepyandlazy
It’s not clear to me based on the article how the 12 kids paid for college
themselves in this situation. Did the parents co-sign the loans for student
debt? Did the government offer financial aid? Were the kids forced to work
full time on their own until they could pay for tuition?

------
vezycash
The last two paragraphs are the most important.

>We loved the children regardless of what they did. But would not prevent
consequences of any of their actions. We let them suffer consequences and
would not try to mitigate the consequences because we saw them suffering. We
would cry and be sad, but would not do anything to reduce the consequences of
their actions.

>We were and are not our kids’ best friends. We were their parents.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" We let them suffer consequences and would not try to mitigate the
consequences because we saw them suffering."_

So I guess they wouldn't take their kids to the hospital if they broke their
leg or something?

That sounds like child abuse.

~~~
shijie
Probably not. I don’t think even you believe they wouldn’t take their child to
the hospital. What a pedestrian conclusion.

------
mixmastamyk
Love it. I wanted to do a similar thing with the food for our kid, but the
wife wouldn't support it. And that, as they say, was that.

------
faitswulff
> When the kids turned 16, we bought each a car.

Seems like the key, as usual, is to be rich and come from a rich family.

~~~
burfog
No, not at all. Just don't be really poor.

They had 12 kids in 15 years, so 0.8 kids per year. A new Toyota Yaris Sedan
is 16,000 MSRP. So paying sticker price on a new Toyota, you'll average 12,800
per year.

That is nothing compared to the cost of food, which will be about $48,000 per
year. With careful shopping you might cut the food cost in half, but it is
still about double the cost of the cars. The cars are not the difficulty here.

~~~
faitswulff
In America, at least, 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 expense, let alone
buy 12 cars in 15 years.

~~~
burfog
Yes, there are people who really can't afford $400, but...

For much of that 40%, this is sort of a choice. They can't budget. Some of
those 40% are even very highly paid, earning well over $100,000 per year. We
don't teach home economics much anymore.

The 40th percentile household income is $50,000 in the USA. That $400 is about
2 work days of income. It is less than 1% of yearly income.

Clearly, some people immediately blow their whole paycheck.

With proper budgeting, it seems likely that a person at the 40th percentile
could actually afford all those cars. It'd be a quarter of their income.

What they could not afford would be food. I suppose there is help though.
Perhaps WIC or something would make things possible.

~~~
faitswulff
> Perhaps WIC or something would make things possible

This comment, excuse me, shows your ignorance.

"Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs."

\- John Scalzi [1]

Strongly recommend reading more about this. 40% of the country being poor is
no longer an "individual choice," it's a systemic problem. Furthermore, being
poor disadvantages you to make long term choices. When you can only afford the
$5 boots that break every month instead of the $100 boots that last for years,
you end up spending a lot more just to stay in place.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15041758](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15041758)

~~~
burfog
Earning $50,000 per year is not poor. You can live fine on that. You can even
buy all those cars on that. You can buy a house on that. What you can't do is
feed 12 children on that. Also, don't even think about San Francisco or
Manhattan.

I know this because I've checked the numbers. I haven't needed to check WIC,
so I don't know that one, but I do know that it costs about $48,000 to feed a
family with 12 kids. That is for a mid-range supermarket with modest bargain
hunting. One could try harder, really reducing the food quality, but it won't
be cheap.

It isn't at all normal for any income segment of the population to have 12
kids, and arguably that is a choice. Putting huge families aside, it is clear
that 40% being "poor" is a choice. They aren't all poor. Most of them just
can't budget well.

~~~
faitswulff
Are you really saying that a family should spend 96% of their income on food
alone and also buy each of those children a car? That seems incredibly
detached from a reality of emergency room visits, unexpected damages to house
or vehicles, and childcare / educational expenses.

Regardless, it's obvious from the article that the family in question _is_
from a wealthy family.

~~~
burfog
Of course not:

"nothing compared to the cost of food [...] still about double the cost of the
cars. The cars are not the difficulty here."

"What they could not afford would be food."

"What you can't do is feed 12 children on that."

However they could actually buy the cars. Relative to food, cars are cheap.
There is often help available for food though, so maybe a family of 12 could
actually get by at the 40th percentile income.

More realistically, a family with 4 children can do just fine. That would be
$12,000 on food using my rate, although careful shopping might cut that in
half. THIS IS NOT POVERTY. Poverty is more like that person who posted to
Hacker News last week that they lived on $20,000 per year, in Manhattan of all
places, sharing a kitchen and bathroom with other people. Well, they did have
a roof and a place in a fancy area, so that is the better end of poverty.

Here, a typical budget (from smartasset.com) for the 40th percentile in my
part of the USA, both per-year and per-month, with 2 adults and 3 kids:

    
    
         9192 766 child care
         3948 329 medical
        11580 965 housing
         5952 496 food
         6960 580 transportation
         2724 227 other
         3024 252 savings
         6480 540 taxes
    

It's a bit high for housing due to me being in a fancy beach town with a
median house price of $250,000. The median house price is $150,000 in the
adjacent town, 4 to 6 miles from the beach. According to zillow.com that would
be about $904 per month, or $10,848 per year. This is a mortgage, including
taxes and PMI and other insurance. It'll be a stand-alone 3-bedroom house with
a yard.

For those who are serious about a family, the mother usually stays home. That
cuts income, but it also sets the child care expenses to zero. Numerous
benefits become available and the taxes go way down. Adding in the 4th kid is
quite possible. Nobody will need to starve. I just checked Texas, and this
example family would qualify for $10872 each year in SNAP food benefits. Heck,
that is a profit! More than $400 can be saved every month, so being unable to
cover that kind of expense is a choice.

The family from the article is unlikely to be wealthy. He was a skilled
engineer for a government contractor. I'll guess that there was a salary of
about $150,000 to $250,000 in today's dollars. That is below the typical
Hacker News standard of Facebook, Google, Netflix, Amazon, etc.

~~~
faitswulff
> The family from the article is unlikely to be wealthy.

You argue that $50,000/yr is above the poverty line and therefore "not poor"
and yet you also argue that $150,000 to $250,000 is not wealthy. You also go
from estimating for 12 kids down to 3 kids. That is moving the goalposts. The
author is wealthy, full stop. I think the biggest place where we do not see
eye to eye is that for most of the world, including America, a salary of
$150,000 to $250,000 per year is considered extremely wealthy.

~~~
burfog
Leaving some gaps and being rough...

poor: below $25,000 (below an E-4 in the military)

lower middle: that $50,000

middle: around $70,000

upper middle: $150,000 to $500,000

rich or wealthy: doesn't matter, could be $0 because assets, but probably over
$1,000,000

The poor are way worse off than the 40th percentile family earning $50,000 per
year, and the rich are way better off than the 95th percentile family earning
$250,000 per year.

None of those people in the 40th to 95th percentile range are either rich or
poor. There are not many poor people in America, and there are very few rich
people in America. Most people are in the middle, where they can get by just
fine if they spend wisely and don't hit an abnormal disaster.

It takes about $450,000 to be a 1%er, up at the 99th percentile. Even that
isn't "rich" or "wealthy". It's just the high end of upper middle class. It is
almost certain that the author was at the lower end of upper middle class. At
the low end of the class we find senior engineering talent (like the author),
family doctors, lousy lawyers, experienced actuaries, senior 747 pilots, and
In-N-Out restaurant managers. At the high end of the class we find specialist
doctors, competent lawyers, and many business owners. Nobody in this class is
buying a Gulfstream private jet.

Yes I did change from 12 kids to 4 kids, because 12 would be a little bit nuts
on a lower-middle income. I think that 12 actually can be done. It gets tight.
Skip the child care, add the $10,872 in SNAP food benefits, and I think it
works. This includes home ownership. With that lower-middle income, fancy
colleges are free. The kids can go to Ivy League schools.

------
mrb
« _a 1965 Mustang fastback [...] no car had less than 450 horsepower_ »

That mustang had 200-289 horsepower. I find it hard to believe a teenager
rebuilt it to 450hp.

------
petepete
College must've been an escape for them.

------
cm2012
I'm pretty sure twin research shows that unless you abuse your kids, your
parenting decisions (besides your income) have little effect on their general
life outcomes.

~~~
JohnFen
Indeed. I forget where I heard this, but my experience as a parent and seeing
other parents has led me to think that (in the absence of abuse), this is
true: parents tend to take both too much credit and too much blame for how
their kids turn out.

------
hbogert
I liked most of their rules. I can only hope my spouse will go along with it,
when I introduce the same rules.

------
tomjoht
Nice article, but I missed how the title of the article is supported by the
body of the article. How exactly did you cover tuition for 12 kids, actually
paying for college? There's an implicit assumption that you taught them hard
work and good study habits so they figured out how to pay for tuition
themselves, but you never address that head on. Today tuition costs are around
$30k per student per year, so did they all magically get scholarships, or did
they work while going to school? If you could address the college costs part,
not necessarily the regiment you put them through, that would be nice.
Otherwise, maybe change the article's title.

------
diminoten
You know, I think about how I might go about doing anything remotely like
this, and I realize the biggest challenge would to get my wife on _exactly_
the same page as me. We're not aligned at this level on anything!

It makes me think this was the product of a solo mind, one individual decided
to be this rigid, and the other individual went along with it. I can't see any
other way this could possibly happen/work.

~~~
conanbatt
You need to get this guys wife. She must have hospital coupons at this point.

------
haipothetical
The real question isn’t how he managed to have them pay for their own college
but why the fuck did he have 12 kids in the first place

------
cm2012
Fine parenting, so long as you don't impose your methodology on anyone else.

~~~
Nullabillity
Pretty sure the kids didn't sign up for this, so that's 12 violations already.

~~~
barry-cotter
Antinatalist? Children don’t sign up for anything. They’re born.

~~~
Nullabillity
I don't think it's inherently virtuous to be a parent, or that your children
are property that you can treat however you want.

It's a responsibility, and if you can't/won't take care of them properly then
you shouldn't impose the burden on them or yourself.

~~~
barry-cotter
By what metric did they not take care of them properly? I understand that the
way they raised their children is not acceptable in your subculture but
they’re not in your subculture. Is there some principle here? Getting all
one’s children through college is more than a lot of people with two kids
manage.

------
sleepyandlazy
With the increasing in income inequality, I don’t think a story like this will
have a happy ending in the future. Those kids who will access to financial
support, such as a paid for college education and time to focus on studies
rather than chores will have an edge over those who don’t. Sure, many of those
kids will be spoiled and not learn the value of hard work and flame out, but
enough of them will be able to utilize that advantage that people in this
situation will not be able to compete for the limited number of middle class
jobs available.

~~~
diminoten
The reality is these parents gave their kids _exactly_ what the poorer kids
never get; access to knowledge and to people who've achieved.

College tuition can be covered while you're in school if you're taught how
(and if you're not carrying your parents burdens). Entire careers open up for
those who know what to study and optimize for (how many kids want to grow up
to be in finance or a consultant, unless it's what their parents do?).

Sure, it probably helps to have well developed discipline and a healthy
approach to various aspects of life (if that's even what these kids ended up
with), but the _real_ value comes from the generational knowledge of how to
work through the system to get to the top. After you do it once, it's 10x
easier to guide someone else through it, even without giving them explicit
help in the form of money or influence.

------
uptownfunk
Incredible, how do the parents maintain any semblance of sanity with 12 kids
in this day and age. I’m overwhelmed with the thought of having baby2.

~~~
souprock
I will soon have 12. Perhaps the loss of sanity comes before the kids? It
might be a prerequisite. :-)

The first kid is a huge impact. The second two each have a modest impact.
After that, the food costs slowly climb up but you only really notice an
impact when you outgrow a car. So if you can manage 2 or 3, you might as well
have a dozen.

------
kayoone
I admit this is snarky and not entirely plausible, but you could also move to
a place where good education is free, as it should be.

------
haipothetical
The real question isn’t how he got his kids to pay for college themselves but
why did he have 12 kids in the first place.

------
xvector
I personally find this kind of parenting horrifying. Three year olds cleaning
toilets? What the actual fuck?

~~~
LyndsySimon
What's wrong with either of those things?

A three-year-old isn't going to do a "good job" cleaning a bathroom; the
article even says that. The point is to teach the kids that _someone_ has to
do those things, and to expect them to pull their weight in the household.

As for an eight-year-old doing laundry... why not? It's not like it's
physically demanding.

I have a feeling you'd be either amazed or aghast at what my daughters (five
and ten) do on their own.

~~~
xvector
My comment is in the context of the whole article. In general, I find that the
laundry-list (pun intended) of chores and rules takes away from perhaps the
most precious phase of life from the children. To have to wake up at 5:15 AM,
do chores until you go to school, come back from school, and do chores almost
until you go to sleep?

What time do the kids have left to themselves? There is no room left for the
kids to organically prosper. There's simply no opportunity. The kids grow in
_only_ the direction the parents want them to grow in. There's no ingenuity,
no room to rebel and "break the rules", and restricted room for natural
curiosity to flourish.

I personally think it is almost the right of a child to grow in the way they
want to, especially once they reach a high-school age. By depriving them of
time, support, religious freedom, and the opportunity to learn things by
themselves, you are also depriving your children of room to grow, freedom, and
creativity/ingenuity.

This whole article reads to me as the author trying to turn his children into
little Stormtrooper clones. And the moment they turn 18, they are loosed into
the wild without a care, because the parents have "done their job". To me,
this is antithetical to a concept of a family, or even parents. My personal
belief is that parents exist to love, support, and encourage their child to
grow and prosper. These folks seem to have the "love" part down but nothing
else, which is why I find this family entirely dysfunctional.

------
nitwit005
I gather there was substantial unmentioned help from relatives. Otherwise I
have to wonder how it's possible to have so many kids in a sport, club, and
volunteering, given that one of them would have had to stay home with infants.

~~~
burfog
I highly doubt that, since they lived in 3 different states.

The solution is to drive a 15-passenger van loaded with 3 car seats. (these
days, maybe 6 car seats, depending on local law)

The kids got cars at age 16. Once one kid has a car, the situation becomes
easier.

Kids can be encouraged to do the same activities. There might be several kids
in Boy Scouts, so that is just one trip.

They sound like the sort of family that would encourage kids to walk or
bicycle to places on their own. That could include going to a friend's house,
then getting a ride with the friend.

~~~
nitwit005
Unless everything was in convenient bicycle distance, you'd still need them
all to be basically doing the same activities, which contradicts the assertion
of letting the kids pick whatever they wanted.

I'm not saying it's impossible to do activities with a big family, but what's
suggested in the text seems like it would require help in most US cities and
towns.

------
hbcondo714
This was written in 2014 but still relevant today; maybe add an iPad in there

------
novok
It's too bad this 2hr post was booted off the front page by some people
flagging it, but not flagging it enough to get the 'flagged' tag.

------
johnchristopher
> To this day, our kids are not afraid to try different foods, and have no
> allergies to foods.

Hmmm. That weakens the story.

------
gmoore
Yeah.. that sounds positively horrible...

------
RickJWagner
That's awesome. What a great family.

I especially enjoyed the part about the car being towed in. Fantastic!

------
ykevinator
Poor kids

