Some things stuck out to me this time around reading it, since this is the first time I read it since having kids of my own and being a grown-up. The main thing I realized is how amazing both of the parents were--how they raised a happy family with so many kids while both working. They did have live-in help (a cook and a handyman--which must have been a huge reason why they managed to do this) and all of this was in the 1910s and 1920s. It was amazing that their mother had a PhD in psychology at that time too--she seriously sounded amazing. Their dad spent all his time trying to teach them things like French and German and Morse code and astronomy, and he genuinely liked being with his kids and figuring out new things for them to do together. I just loved them both.
But another thing that was so fantastic to me this time around was realizing how much Frank Gilbreth sounded like my grandpa Murphy. Seriously--they had so much in common in their pushy and inquisitive and engineering and instructive personalities. Some of the stories just made me laugh out loud imagining Grandpa Murphy doing the same thing. The very fact of Gilbreth's interest in motion study and efficiency is a similarity to Grandpa Murphy's values too. When WWI broke out, Frank Gilbreth just got on a train going to Washington D.C. and sent a telegram to President Wilson saying, "I'm coming on a train this evening. If you don't know how to use me, I'll show you how." Haha! So hilarious and so something Grandpa Murphy would do. It made me miss him and think about him a lot.
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