
How I made sure all 12 of my kids could pay for college themselves - apurvadave
https://qz.com/165716/how-i-made-sure-all-12-of-my-kids-could-pay-for-college-themselves/
======
closeparen
The headline is a non sequitur. These points all seem like individually good
things to prepare humans for the world, but none of them are sufficient to
explain how each child came across $80-120k [0] [1] [2] [3] [4] from part-time
work.

[0] [https://finaid.wisc.edu/undergraduate-
cost.htm](https://finaid.wisc.edu/undergraduate-cost.htm) [1]
[https://onestop.umn.edu/finances/cost-
attendance](https://onestop.umn.edu/finances/cost-attendance) [2]
[https://admissions.illinois.edu/Invest/tuition](https://admissions.illinois.edu/Invest/tuition)
[3] [https://finaid.umich.edu/cost-of-
attendance/](https://finaid.umich.edu/cost-of-attendance/) [4]
[https://admissions.uiowa.edu/finances/estimated-costs-
attend...](https://admissions.uiowa.edu/finances/estimated-costs-attendance)

~~~
anaccountwow
If you take every AP there is and also have a nice story about having 11
siblings, many schools will accept you with generous aid.

~~~
mdrzn
Also if you put away the money from the chores it may add up to something.

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helen842000
I may have missed it but he didn't actually say how he made sure his kids
could pay for college. Of course having a good work ethic is a great advantage
but there is no mention of if his children took jobs, saved their allowance or
are still paying off student debt.

Also their days seem extremely long with breakfast at 5:15 and curfew between
10 and 12. Surely more than 5hours sleep is beneficial for small children.

------
dongslol
To provide another view: I rarely had chores (other than generally to keep a
basic level of cleanliness) and didn't get an allowance. My parents were
divorced, so this kind of "family life" is pretty foreign to me, but I never
minded. I trained myself early to live without needing much. By high school my
mother realized that flimsy "you must work on x between 6-8" rules just
weren't going to work on me as I'd simply refuse to do it. I coasted through
school explicitly doing the bare minimum. My mother yelled at me and tried
every kind of punishment possible for my bad grades, but it went in one ear
and out the other. I never did "community service" except the 25 required
hours, and left cross country after sophomore year. I never complained about
food.

I spent most of that extra time learning how to program. I had no idea it was
profitable; I started because I wanted to cheat in online MMORPGs. By the time
I was 18, I'd been programming for seven years, and knew enough web stuff to
skip college and start contracting. Today I'm 21 and have a job that pays six
figures.

I realize CS is anomalously profitable, but I think that growing up in the
sort of family described in the article, the kind that makes you do arbitrary
character-building exercises, the kind that believes in heavy socialization,
would've not only been horribly painful for me but stifled my economic
potential.

I personally think extracurriculars as a teenager are a waste of time, because
they're always going to be a stunted, baby version set up for you by adults.
It's a much better plan to gain financial independence, after which you can do
literally anything you want.

Also, giving back to the world is honestly just not high on my list. I just
don't think about it. I mean, I think about possibly doing a startup someday,
but that's mostly from the perspective of the world having lots of problems
that need solving, not some kind of good feeling about giving back to society,
which is nice but not really a big motivator. I still don't understand why
it's supposed to be indicative that someone has been raised well.

I will say that I strongly agree with the article about standing back and
letting kids make and learn from mistakes; and making rules that are
consistent.

------
mrfusion
I feel like the eating advice is rather cruel. You're basically starving them
until they eat what you tell them to.

I am frequently given this same advice by relatives for my picky eaters.

~~~
cosmie
When I was little, my mom was given that advice by my pediatrician to break my
picking eating habit. While it can be effective, I'd caution you to dig into
the source of the pickiness before trying it. In my case, it was a texture
thing and certain foods would trigger my gag reflex. But I was too young to
articulate that. Resulting in a standoff over every meal, a generally
antagonistic and anxiety-ridden relationship with food and mealtimes, and an
aversion to social events that included food. It also made me _less_
adventurous with trying or asking for new foods, because of the pressure
previously instilled in me to finish it.

With my daughter, I take a much more collaborative approach to her pickiness.
She's not allowed to tell me she doesn't like something (or refuse to eat it)
until she's had at least one bite. If she doesn't like it then, she doesn't
have to finish it but she has to describe to me why she doesn't like it. I've
had enormous success with this, as it not only develops her ability to
articulate what her preferences are, it provides me constructive feedback on
how to prepare and serve that food next time (and foods with the same negative
trait). It's amazing how a slight change to the seasoning or preparation can
resolve a lot of pickiness. And now that _she_ understands that, she no longer
categorically writes off entire ingredients or dishes, since she knows it
could taste totally different and be delicious the next time she tries it.

I also couple that with dynamic portion sizing. If she's not finishing her
vegetables, and they're prepared in a way where I know she's fine eating them
and is just avoiding them, then I start gradually reducing the portion size of
her favorite foods on the plate. She can't get seconds of anything until she
finishes everything on her plate, so she can either finish her vegetables to
unlock more chicken or she can decide more chicken isn't worth the veggies.
Her choice. Over time this has desensitized her to eating things she's not
particularly fond of and it's not nearly as big of an issue as it used to be.

I could go on, but my soap box is getting kind of long. Feel free to email me
(email in profile) if you'd like to chat more about strategies that might work
for your picky eaters. :)

------
protomok
"When the kids turned 16, we bought each a car. The first one learned what
that meant. As the tow truck pulled a once “new” car into the driveway, my
oldest proclaimed: “Dad, it is a wreck!” I said, “Yes, but a 1965 Mustang
fastback wreck. Here are the repair manuals. Tools are in the garage. "

Amazing! Will use this one day. The model described in the article seems
pretty solid to me. Particularly the focus on teaching problem solving and
discipline using self motivation.

------
kapauldo
Jesus, 12 kids? Paying for college is the least of your worries.

------
dbg31415
There is no one right way to run a family. What works for one won't work for
another.

I feel like, if you can somehow quantify success on a bell-curve, the values
in this article aim to land kids in the middle two quadrants. You won't end up
with kids in the bottom quadrant... but you also won't end up with individuals
capable of soaring to great heights either. Just overall solid, middling,
performers. There just would be no Apple, Microsoft, Dell, or any of the
others... because people would have been conditioned not to take risks.

Anyway Plato wrote already wrote a response to this and it was in all the
Philosophy 101 classes.

* Plato, "The Allegory of the Cave" || [http://historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html](http://historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html)

~~~
VLM
"because people would have been conditioned not to take risks."

Not sure we read the same article, several paragraphs boiling down to "here
are my car repair tools best of luck" I've done brake jobs and I'd at least
oversee the task if nothing else. Or "here's a plane ticket to Europe come
home when your cousins get too annoying"

------
mrfusion
I've yet to find the magic trick that makes kids do chores especially three
year olds! I'm not sure how they solved this

~~~
jimnotgym
Punishment maybe? I think making 3 year old kids clean is abhorrent. Get them
to help you tidy, not scrub toilets.

~~~
tolas
Actually the opposite. Make it fun. Make it a family event. Give rewards for
doing their chores.

------
mkautzm
It's great that a wealthy family tries to instill good values into their kids,
but the idea that this kind of model could translate to everyone is a prime
example of socio-economic ignorance.

The thing that actually sets kids up to succeed are a stable home life and
financial security as a family. 'Doing Chores' and focusing on education and
extracurriculars is nice, but there are a couple really important things:

Being able to focus on education and being able to encourage your kids to do
extracurriculars is a privilege that is borne from money in the first place.
If you can't afford extracurriculars and the various expenses they incur, or
you don't have time to monitor and enforce a 'no TV/Computer/Games' time
because you have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, then I guess you
make a sacrifice there. If you don't live in a neighborhood when your kids can
safely go outside unsupervised, then that's a sacrifice there. In a lot of
places, community support services don't exist.

This shit right here:

"When the kids turned 16, we bought each a car....Here are the repair manuals.
Tools are in the garage. I will pay for every part, but will not pay for
LABOR.”

A garage, a manual, tools, any kind of car, the parts. This is a ton of money
for one kid, let alone several. To think that this somehow teaches anyone a
lesson about the real world is the definition of socioeconomic privilege. That
is an entirely insurmountable expense for most people.

This entire article is just that though: It's a wealthy baby-boomer piece
written from the stance of someone who's never wanted or struggled for
anything. Their idea that you can project their methods onto other kids is
unbelievably ignorant of the economic climate of working class America and is
so disconnected from the real world as to be painful to read.

You want to raise kids that can pay for college by themselves? Be wealthy in
the first place and reap all the implicit rewards that come with it.

~~~
ciconia
> the idea that this kind of model could translate to everyone is a prime
> example of socio-economic ignorance... It's a wealthy baby-boomer piece
> written from the stance of someone who's never wanted or struggled for
> anything.

Nowhere in the article does he claim any such thing. It's just a guy telling
how he raised his kids up. What's bugging you?

actually, I think a lot of the points he makes about raising kids are
applicable to less-fortunate families. Doing chores, their approach to
schooling, food, family vacations, community service, backpacking and camping
and in general self discipline do not require having lots of money. It just
requires that parents be attentive.

~~~
mkautzm
> actually, I think a lot of the points he makes about raising kids are
> applicable to less-fortunate families. Doing chores, their approach to
> schooling, food, family vacations, community service, backpacking and
> camping and in general self discipline do not require having lots of money.
> It just requires that parents be attentive.

What?

In what world do Vacations and Backpacking and Camping require little to no
money? Those are expensive activities in both time and raw cash. When you
don't have a lot of money, food is also not something you get to be picky
about because you don't have a choice -- You can eat what's on the table or
you can literally starve. That is the real circumstance for people living
below the poverty line in this country of which there are plenty
([http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html](http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html)).

What bugs me is there are a non trivial number of people, yourself included,
who are entirely blind to the circumstances of the poor and struggling. These
are the people who insist that if you 'just work hard' you can make it, or
that education is some kind of great equalizer. These are the people who also
generally have a lot of influence in politics, both locally and otherwise, and
proceed to campaign against what little social safety net we have because they
couldn't be bothered to give up a fraction of their disposable income so
millions of people could have food to eat and running water.

~~~
jimnotgym
I'm with you mkautzm. During my upbringing I went on holiday twice, we simply
could not afford it. My Dad worked so many hours including weekends in a
physical job, and was exhausted when he got home, being attentive was not
really an option. I spend all the time I can talking to and playing with my
kids, but it is at a real premium, so I don't waste it running a stupid
rulebook.

Growing up we used to service cars ourselves but didn't have the kind of tools
to do major jobs, as they cost money. Nobody bought be a car neither.

Personally I would never make 3 year old do cleaning jobs. I think the guy in
the article is weird. I also didn't see where he actually paid for college.

Btw I don't have a weird feeding regimen for my kids and they eat just fine.
In fact he youngest massively prefers fruit and veg. Perhaps I should force
feed him meat because I have a puritanical rule book.

------
BuffaloBagel
This guy smells Mormon. Most of the kids likely interrupted their college with
18 month (girls) or 2-year (boys) proselyting missions. I envy his discipline
and dedication.

------
kahrkunne
Interesting. I really like some of these (mainly the big focus on self-
reliance) and strongly disapprove of some others (5.15AM breakfast? No snacks?
No thanks. More seriously, I'm really opposed to the mandatory 2 hours of
daily study. I know I would suffer under that, as someone who can only study
effectively in 15 minute intervals spread throughout the day)

------
debatem1
So much virtue signalling. If you've ever wondered why pride made it to the
list of 7 deadly sins, this is it.

