Essay Questions

How does Mr. Gilbreth's efficiency expert job affect the whole family?

Mr. Gilbreth is an efficiency expert. He tries to find the most effective, efficient way to do things. He uses his family of twelve children to experiment with efficiency methods. From washing dishes to removing tonsils, he always wants everything to be quick, so that people have more time to do what they love and enjoy.

However, experimenting with his family does cause some problems. Once, a motion picture person came to their house to film how the Gilbreth’s eat lunch and how efficiently they set the table and serve the food. And that film was shown in movie theaters. But, the filmmaker speeded everything up so it looked like the Gilbreth’s scarfed down there food in ten seconds. He was making fun of them.

Another mishap was the removing of tonsils. Mr. Gilbreth made a motion picture of the surgery to study them later and figure out a better way to do it. Of course, who gets their tonsils removed but all his children. The whole family does a lot to help Mr. Gilbreth with his job and making things more efficient, but they do have some problems along the way. However, in the long run it does help the whole household run smoothly.

How do the kids act at their relatives home in California?

The mother and seven oldest children (the youngest who weren’t born yet) go to California to visit the mother’s side of the family, the “genteel and well-to-do” Mollers. There they cause quite some chaos, but after they start to feel at home.

Their mother wanted them to make a good impression on her family and worked hard to make them all look their best and have fresh, new, clean clothes. On the train ride, all the kids get to eat is food from Sterno cans, cereal, and graham crackers. There is much crying and discomfort. When they get there, the children think that their family is the “kissingest kin in the world”. But they are happy to see them.

At first, the children tiptoe and whisper when in their grandparents' presence. The grandparents don’t find this very normal. But then, one day, on the day there is to be a fancy tea, the children have to dress in very fancy clothes that they really dislike. And that is when they start to act more normal. They hate the clothes so they stand under the sprinklers and get soaking wet, ruining their appearance. But after that, they start to whoop and holler and slide down the banisters, acting like normal kids, making their aunts and grandparents happy.