[unclebucknasty]

All of this sounds like great advice. Heck, it's even perfect advice.

And, therein lies the problem. Life doesn't always (i.e. almost never does) present you with a perfect set of circumstances that allows you to respond by making the perfect set of choices.

For instance, you point out the need to consider that a job can have negative impact on family life. That's true. OTOH, perhaps that was his means of maximizing economic opportunity. It's a tough choice, and many make the same one he did every day (for better or worse).

Another: "being a single-source-of-income family is risky". Sure it is, but this must be weighed against the benefit of having one parent focused solely on raising the children (especially with a large family). Also, the costs of day-care in the case of multiple younger children vs. the earning potential of the at-home parent must be considered.

That's not to say the author didn't make poor decisions (as he's acknowledged). It's just to say that life presents a lot of really difficult decisions that frequently require making tradeoffs. Nailing them just right can be very, very difficult. Further, many times the quality of our decisions (or lack thereof) are borne out by circumstances that are beyond our control and not always by our prescient and masterful decision-making.