| "What contract
in industry is so important as the marriage contract? What plans to develop
natural resources, to build bridges or railroads or great buildings, have
such real significance as plans for a family and what it is to be and accomplish?
. . . The marriage contract upon which the family rests is not considered
so binding as an industrial contract. The parties to it may not realize
what a contract is and that if it is to be valid, their minds must meet
in carrying out some plan of family life. The planning here advocated
will do much to see that the minds of the parties do meet, and that each
realizes what each is to give and what each may expecting the way of a
home, companionship, and the other satisfactions which family life involves."
(Living with Our Children, 1928).
Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972) must have been a great planner. She and her husband were both working industrial engineers -- and the parents of twelve children. When Frank died in 1924, she became a single mom. She was no slouch; all her surviving children went to college. |