Happy Mother's Day, In Advance

Someone once asked Dad "But what do you want to save time for? What are you going to do with it?

"For work, if you love that best," said Dad. "For education, for beauty, for art, for pleasure." He looked over the top of his pince-nez. "For mumblety-peg, if that's where your heart lies."

 As you already know Cheaper by the Dozen is an Xmastme superslice of superslices, so I was delighted to see the mother listed as one of 6 Unforgettable Movie Mothers and the Moms They Depicted (I've never seen the 1950 movie, and refuse to acknowledge the hideous steaming pile Steve Martin was in that glommed onto the title. I'm coming from the angle of the book.)

I don't think I've ever seen a picture of the mother before:

A...cough...handsome woman.

Lillian Moller Gilbreth was an engineer and an industrial psychologist who was known as “the mother of modern management”. She achieved a master’s degree in literature and a doctorate in psychology (by which time she already had four children). She and her husband (who never went to college) studied scientific management principles and time studies. While Frank concentrated on worker efficiency, Lillian explored the effects of incentives, job satisfaction, stress, and fatigue on workers. Did I mention she raised twelve children? After Frank’s death, she became the first female professor in the engineering school at Purdue University. Lillian Moller Gilbreth continued to work up into her eighties; she wrote books, lectured, and even served as a consultant to five presidents on various issues. She was 93 when she died in 1973.

Past Xmastime on the kids HERE.

Still the most laugh-out-loud book I've read.