How I made sure all 12 of my kids could pay for college themselves (opens in new tab)

I went to one of the schools you linked to. I ended up paying less than half of the quoted price and I had no financial aid or scholarships. My school's websites makes significant assumptions, such as assuming that you stay in the dorms (the dorms cost over twice as much as the average rent in the area) and that you buy every single recommended book brand new. Also, I don't think its fair to include things like room and board in the cost of a college education, as that is something that one always has to pay.

It is possible to earn enough money with a summer job (or part-time job during the school year) to significantly reduce the amount of debt you have to go into in order to afford a college education.

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.

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. :)

And the problem with this is what?

When kids can eat whatever they want, they gravitate toward high energy dense foods like candy and carbs... which makes healthier foods taste like crap. You have to starve them through the withdrawals to gain their sense of taste back.

Parenting.

"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"

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

> 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.

I knew the top rated comment would be something like this.

You completely skip past the family's achievements, ascribe some agenda that was not stated anywhere in the piece, and immediately start ragging on about privilege and focus on the most unfortunate people in society (cause they're the only ones that should be talked about, right?).

It's just creepy how some people's minds work.

"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."

??? Buying tools for car repairs is a one time cost and these tools would be shared by the kids. Car parts are actually not that expensive (can even be almost free if getting a part from a junkyard), much of the cost is in the labour.

Teaching kids problem solving and how to fix things is a critical skill that is lacking badly in our society and applies regardless of the wealth of the family.

If your argument is that some families are not able to afford cars or garages period then they can teach some other skill to their kids...I really don't see how the author is being ignorant, he's just sharing his experience.

This is what the author wrote in the very beginning. "I have always had a very prosperous job and enough money to give my kids almost anything". Where do I missed the claim it translates to everyone?

> from the stance of someone who's never wanted or struggled for anything.

How do you know this?

   > 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.

Or be poor and reap all the implicit rewards that come with it. I came from a low-income, single parent household and was a first generation college student. Every single bit of that played in my favor when I applied to schools - from waived application fees to great fodder for compelling admissions essays. I actually had a higher acceptance rate at prestigious schools than state schools due to how under-represented my background is at that type of institution (since so few disadvantaged people apply there to begin with). The bar for being considered "above average" seems to be relative to your peer group, and luckily my socio-economic background played in my favor in that regard too. As a white male who had mediocre grades, decent-but-not-great test scores, no sports, no clubs, and no extracurriculars (except a job), I never would have gotten accepted at many of the places I was had I been from a wealthier family.

And those same prestigious schools all tend to have sliding scale tuitions, where an expected family contribution of $0 means a tuition bill of $0.

    > 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.

I wouldn't go that far. Yes, a lot of the particular examples he gave came from a position of socio-economic advantage. But there are several that can be generalized and scaled to any socio-economic standard. Instead of getting a car at 16, I was given a junky bike at 10. I got it as cleaned up and working as I could, then made a list of everything that was still wrong with it. My mom took me to the store to pick out parts. She only had $20 we could spend on it, so I picked out innertubes, a chain, and replacement spokes (instead of new rims). It taught me to fix things rather than replace them, and properly prioritize nice to haves vs. must haves. Yes, it was done out of necessity rather than the privilege of artificial and arbitrary constraints (like giving someone a Mustang and unlimited raw materials, support, and tools to fix it). But in the end, it instilled similar habits of appreciation for my belongings, defaulting to fixing things myself instead of replacing them or outsourcing it, and to better evaluate the value in things that aren't readily apparent (i.e. see the bones instead of the veneer). By the time I was 23 I made more in three months than my mom ever made in a year (and raised three children on). And those habits are every bit as translatable to my life now as they were when I learned them before.

I guess I'm in the demographic the article was written for, although my kids and I are a good decade too young to be the parents while also too old to be the children. I read the whole thing and I didn't see where it specified it was advice for working class America. I specifically did a text search on some common words and phrases and still don't see where its being mistargeted. Have to take your word for it, I guess.

I didn't think it would be terribly difficult to switch gears, for example I'm so old we didn't have "Advanced Placement" classes we had an equally trendy older name for the same concept. Likewise as a kid I got worn out yard sale bicycles and an infinite supply of parts and toolbox access. Same general idea. Or both myself and my kids are expected to upgrade desktop computers not cars, although I have no driving age kids (barely, yet)

There are indications that the story is completely imaginary. I never had any trouble affording an old beater of a car as a teen, the absolutely killer expense is insurance, and now that most "teen kid jobs" have been taken over by illegal alien laborers I'm not sure how anyone, parent or teen, could handle the immense cost of automobile insurance for a teen boy.

Likewise you can harumpf and preach all you want about who should pay for what part of school, but financial aid forms used to assume a certain $$$ from the parents and if you didn't get that $$$ you simply didn't go to college, it really is that simple. I had Army GI Bill money, whatever, but most people don't have many options.

Another false aspect is the peculiar sleep schedule of 10-5, that just doesn't sound realistic. Maybe the author was thinking of older teens going on dates rather than little kids. Little kids sleep like 10 hours per day, and their pediatrician thinks nothing is wrong about that.

Paying for weddings also sounds weird, even assuming its a boomer. Everyone in my cohort got married well after leaving the nest and having whatever passes for a career started. It must be very awkward for a older singles to ask mom for money to get married. The days of everyone got married at 18 or 22 seem like WWII generation or even older. The $250K wedding seems very nouveau riche and not really culturally acceptable outside hollywood movie sitcoms, although I suppose it depends where (and when) you live. Generally if it costs more than the divorce will, you're probably living in a hollywood movie.

Yet there are indications the story was written by an actual parent. The old trick of providing the false choice is probably as old as parenting.