Cheaper by the Dozen

Tom Baker is a football coach working at a small rural college in the fictional town of Midland, Illinois, where he raised twelve children. His wife, Kate, has written about her story in a book and hopes to send it to her friend for publication. One day, Tom receives an offer from his old friend and football teammate, Shake McGuire, to coach at his alma mater in Evanston, Illinois. Tom accepts the offer, and he demands all the children vote on moving. Despite losing the vote, Tom has the entire family to move to Evanston for a better home and space. The atmosphere at the Bakers' new house is tense and the situation at school is even worse. When her book is ready to pick up for publication, Kate is strongly required to do a national book tour to promote it. While Kate is away, Tom thinks that he can handle everything in the family's household, so he decides to hire the family's oldest child, Nora, and her self-absorbed boyfriend, Hank, to manage the children. When Nora and Hank arrive, the younger children plans to make Hank the target of their prank by soaking his underwear in raw meat and siccing the Bakers' pet dog on him to bite his buttocks, prompting him to refuse to assist in babysitting. As a result, Nora angrily drives off with Hank, while Tom lectures them for their prank. After Kate departs for her book tour, Tom realizes that he cannot handle the children on his own after a chaotic night. He tries to hire a housekeeper, but nobody is willing to work with a family as large as the Bakers. Tom decides to bring the football players from work into his house for game practicing in the living room to prepare for the Saturday night football game, while the children perform chores and their household games. However, they start causing trouble at school and Charlie, the Bakers' oldest son, is removed from the football team. Kate overhears from the children about the chaos and cancels the remainder of her book tour to take charge of the situation. Kate's publisher decides to create an additional promotion for her book by inviting Oprah Winfrey to tape a segment about the Bakers in their home instead. Despite much coaching from Kate, the Bakers are not able to demonstrate the loving, strongly bonded family that Kate described in her book. However, when Mark becomes upset that his pet frog has died, a heated fight erupts moments before the segment starts, leading the cameramen to call Winfrey to cancel the segment. Mark runs away from home, prompting the Bakers to find him, with Nora dumping Hank when he refuses to help. Tom indulges a hunch that Mark is trying to return to the Bakers' old home, and eventually finds Mark on an Amtrak train en route from Chicago to Midland. Reuniting with the rest of their family, the Bakers begin to address their issues with each other, and find a happy medium. Kate publishes her book and becomes successful in sales. Tom ultimately resigns from his position at his alma mater and finds another job, which allows him to spend more time caring for his family.

Plot from Cheaper by the Dozen (2003 film)CC BY-SA 4.0