It’s been said that it takes a village to raise a child. But what happens if your children could make a village?
That’s the chaotic quandary that Paul and Zoey Baker face every day. Their nine kids could field a baseball team (even if youngest twins Bronx and Bailey might struggle to throw the ball home). Three are Paul’s from a previous marriage (fledgling influencer Ella, rebel Harley and the adopted Haresh). Zoey brought another two (basketball phenom Deja and comicbook fanatic DJ). They produced four kids together—two sets of twins, actually—to round out the team.
Oh, and after Paul’s sister is sent to rehab (again), they welcome in another teen: brooding, troubled Seth.
The couple has help … of a sort. Paul’s ex-wife, Kate, babysits often—though the level of supervision she provides is questionable. Meanwhile, Zoey’s ex, Dom, has retired from the NFL, and he wants to spend more time with his biological progeny.
Still, 10 kids are a lot—even with a couple of extra, part-time parents in the mix. You’d think that with all those children, Paul and Zoey wouldn’t have time to sleep, much less dream. But Paul has dreams. Big dreams.
He and the fam run a restaurant that serves only breakfast, and on each table you’ll find a bottle of special sauce. That sauce is so good and so versatile that it just might be worth selling on a larger scale. In fact, a pair of well-heeled women are willing to invest in the product. And who knows? A restaurant franchise just might be in the family’s future, too.
Paul’s investors are so confident, in fact, that they’ve already written a massive check to Paul as “seed money.” It’s enough to buy a house in a posh gated community—a house with enough bedrooms for all! (Or, at least, enough bedrooms for most.)
But dreams don’t just happen. Paul knows that to give his family everything he’s always wanted to give them, he’ll have to take something away first: himself. He’ll need to put time into talking business with his investors, time scoping out possible new restaurant locales, time exploring how to make this new chapter of their lives work.
And the kids? Well, Zoey’ll need to handle things mostly on her own for a bit. She’ll have to settle their boisterous, multiracial family into this posh, snooty community; to make sure the kids keep their grades up and get fed now and then; to shepherd the older kids through rebellion and adolescent insecurities; to try to keep the “littles” all in one piece.
But it won’t be easy. After all, it’s hard to be a single parent even when you have a single kid. But ten of them?
Yeah, the Bakers make a village. But if Zoey doesn’t get a little help, those little villagers just might break out a few pint-size torches and pitchforks and march on the village hall.
Zoey and Paul aren’t perfect parents by any stretch. And I’m sure that a few Focus on the Family parenting experts might point out plenty of places where they go astray. But, man, they get an awful lot right here, too.
These parents love their kids—all of their kids, be they biological or adopted or something else. And while Zoey and (first husband) Dom’s children call Paul “Paul,” not “Dad,” it’s clear that he’s more of a parent than Dom ever was. “I have an incredible bond with both of your kids,” Paul tells him. “Because I’m here, boots on the ground. And I love them, and they love me.”
Paul and Zoey carry that love over to Seth, even though none of them know just how long Seth might be staying with them. Seth, given his rocky life, is suspicious of that affection at first. He tells his family roomie, Haresh, “I’ve always been the weirdo with the messed-up mom and no dad.” He’s been left high and dry before, and he doesn’t see why this time will likely be any different. But over time, Zoey and Paul’s unconditional love moves him and puts him on a better track.
For all their love and affection, though, the Baker parents are no pushovers. They ground their kids for misbehaving. They insist on receiving at least a modicum of respect. (When one teen confesses she’s been unhappy and lays the blame at Paul’s feet, another marvels, “I didn’t know we were allowed to go off like that.”) Certainly, with 10 kids, perfect discipline is hard to achieve. But it’s obvious that both Paul and Zoey know that for all the love they shower on their kids, a little discipline is a necessary part of parenting, too.
While Cheaper by the Dozen concentrates primarily on what it means to be a family, the Bakers’ multiracial makeup allows the film to address other issues, as well. Haresh is bullied in part because of his race. Zoey confesses her discomfort in living in a gated, mostly white community. And Dom tells Paul that no matter how loving he is to Deja and DJ, Paul will never be able to fully understand what it’s like to grow up Black. Dom says that even though he’s a rich-and-famous ex-athlete, “I still get pulled over in every city I live in.” Paul—through no fault of his own—can’t know what that feels like, and he’d not be able to prepare DJ for that sort of experience in the future.
That’s perhaps a controversial take for some—that a white dad can’t fully prepare a Black son for what’s ahead. But I do think that the conversation gets at an important point: As loving and as dedicated as moms and dads can be, kids can often use other positive adult role models in their lives that can fill in the inherent gaps.
When Zoey confesses her discomfort with living in a gated community (mentioned above), she asks Paul if he’s ever felt out of place. He says that when he attended the church of Zoey’s mom, he knew everyone was staring at him. Zoey reminds him that’s because he was dancing in the aisles.
“It’s not my fault I caught the spirit, Zoey,” Paul says.
“It was a bake sale,” Zoey reminds him.
Paul’s ex-wife, Kate, appears to be more of a New Age free spirit. We see her talking with a bird handler and exclaiming, “Isn’t it wild that we were both macaws in another life?” We hear someone offer the Hindu greeting Namaste. When DJ dresses in a goth-like getup to impress a girl, Dom’s horrified. “You told my son to be a Satanist?” he asks Paul. Paul asks for an “amen” from his children during a family meeting.
Paul and Zoey make out in a couple of scenes, though nothing critical is shown and the camera quickly moves on. (In one such scene, the two make-believe that talking about casual footwear is sending them into throes of passion.)
In their first night in a new house, Zoey and Paul are intent on having an intimate encounter, alone, in their bedroom. An unexpected influx of kids ends any romance, but we do briefly see Paul’s boxers (featuring hearts and pictures of Zoey’s face on them), and Zoey—wearing a mostly unseen bit of lingerie—quickly covers herself with a robe.
When Deja starts attending a new, private school, a guy named Chris ogles her as she walks past. Soon, Deja and Chris are dating, and Deja scraps her usual athleticwear for more revealing outfits. When she comes down to breakfast dressed in a short skirt and a top that reveals a bit of midriff, Paul, Zoey and the rest of the family are a bit shocked. “Where’s the rest of your skirt?” Paul asks, and someone says that Deja looks like she should be in a Drake video. All of that said, no one makes her change. As Deja walks out and DJ walks in—catching just a glimpse of her—he asks who the woman is with the “fat Kardashian butt.” “That was your sister,” he’s told.
While Zoey enforces an open-door policy at home with Deja and Chris (kicking the door wider as the two do homework), Deja eventually sneaks out of the house and spends the night at Chris’s place. (The film never addresses what did—or didn’t—happen between them at the overnight.) While all three of Deja’s parents are quite displeased, the movie doesn’t specify what punishment (if any) Deja received, and she and Chris are still dating by the end of the film.
When Kate and Zoey rush to the school to handle a problem with Haresh, the school secretary is thrilled when it appears that Haresh has “two moms.” (They quickly tell her that they’re not together, much to the secretary’s disappointment. “But life is long,” Kate says. “Not that long,” Zoey adds.)
DJ asks for the WiFi password, but “not so I can search for college girls being free with their bodies.” Zoey wears outfits that reveal quite a bit of cleavage at times. Paul changes clothes in a van, and we see him shirtless. Other people wear bathing suits.
Oldest daughter Deja comes down in a short skirt and a top that exposes a bit of cleavage. DJ wears eyeliner as part of his temporary goth look. There’s a reference to drag queen Ru Paul. We hear some straight-faced discussion about foot size, which parents will see as a sly nod to the size of other bodily parts.
Seth teaches Haresh how to defend himself from school bullies. After the training, Haresh attacks one of the kids who’s been bullying him, throwing him to the ground. (Seth backs him up, telling him that if the bully doesn’t leave Haresh alone, he’ll have to answer to Seth, too.) Both Haresh and Seth get suspended from school for a week.
Some kids run into walls or doors—mostly harmlessly, but one does suffer a bloody nose.
Zoey tells twins Bronx and Bailey that they can’t play with toy guns outside: It’s just too dangerous, she says (worrying, it would seem, that Black kids playing with toy guns might mistakenly be shot with real ones). When the twins see a pair of white children playing with the same toy guns at the community pool, they’re rather upset.
We learn that Paul and first wife, Kate, adopted Haresh after his parents were killed in a drunk-driving accident.
We hear “d–n” used four times and “h—” used once. God’s name is misused about a half-dozen times.
As mentioned, Seth’s mom is in rehab, and she seems to have a long-standing problem with substance abuse. Zoey and Paul bring a bottle of flavored wine to bed with them during what they hope will be a romantic evening. Zoey joins a mom’s group, and its members apparently drink wine during get-togethers. When Dom comes over to the Baker house and asks for a beer, Paul lies and says they don’t have any—handing the ex-football player a juice box instead. (Dom says he actually prefers the juice box.)
We learn that Seth has gotten into trouble for stealing at times, and we see him slip some money from a restaurant register before he thinks better of it. He’s later falsely accused of breaking into people’s houses to rob them.
People can act in ways that could be interpreted as racist. (In the case of Haresh’s bullies, the racism is more overt.) Children sometimes lie and disobey parents in both big and small ways. When Paul tries to wake up his daughter Harley for school, she says, “touch me and lose a finger,” though the exchange seems to be all in fun. We hear about a Japanese toilet that washes your rear. Paul complains about “morning breath.”
There haven’t been a dozen Cheaper by the Dozen films just yet, but perhaps it’s just a matter of time.
Certainly, Hollywood likes the title. In fact, this 2022 version is the third movie boasting that name, following the 1950 original and the 2003 remake starring Steve Martin. And while each iteration takes significant liberties with the story, all share something in common: a deep appreciation for family.
Families—all families—are imperfect. If Plugged In was in the business of reviewing “problematic content” found in families, including the reviewer’s own, many of these sections would be pretty full. Fitting, perhaps, that we found plenty of things to pick at in this family movie. The language was surprisingly coarse in spots. We saw several elements that landed in our sexual content section. This film was as problematic as Thanksgiving dinner when crazy Uncle Albert comes.
But don’t let that content obscure what the movie does well: It reminds us that kids are treasures—messy treasures, to be sure, but worthy of love and affection and, yes, sometimes discipline. It tells us that it takes two parents—at least—to run a family well. And it reminds us of something that hopefully we shouldn’t need to be reminded of: that family should trump fame and fortune every time.
Cheaper by the Dozen is sweet, sentimental and, often, pretty funny. It’s a bit messy in spots, but it still comfortably inhabits its PG confines. And if every subsequent take on Cheaper by the Dozen has this nice a heart, well, I could probably watch a dozen more.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
