Adaptation Displacement: There's a book. That's right, there is a book called Cheaper By The Dozen. And it actually got a film adaptation before this one.
Is Tom selfish for having accepted a job opportunity that required them to move to a new city and into a new house away from everything they have grown up with and away from their friends and neighbors? Or did he genuinely believe accepting the offer and the job would benefit not just himself, but their entire family for the better in the long run and received no thanks for it?
Is the children's reckless behavior around the house after the move justified due to having been required to give up everything to support their dad's choice? Or are they a bunch of Ungrateful Bastards who refused to make the best of it and instead elected to express their disapproval through selfish rebellion?
Hank: is he just a silly guy who needs to bring his ego down several notches and understand kids aren't as bad as he thinks, or a fullout Jerkass who deserved what he got?
Charlie: just your typical teenager facing real issues such as bullies and separation from his girlfriend, or a moody Jerkass who is rude and ungrateful to his father (going as far as to go off about Tom's competitive relationship in high school with his boss, whom Charles is barely ever near) does a poor job dealing with being bullied, doesn't care about his siblings, and only apologizes once he knows his father will admit he was right?
Dylan seems pretty calm despite the perilous situations he's in at the hands of the Bakers. Is he naive and clueless? Adventurous? Or does he see the chaos of the Baker household as an escape from Tina's coddling?
Angst? What Angst?: Dylan is much too peppy after just having his arm broken when his birthday party goes awry. And it's all Played for Laughs.
Base-Breaking Character: Are the Baker siblings right to be angry at Tom for uprooting their lives for professional advancement? Or are they spoiled brats who refuse to make the most of the situation and are selfishly hurting their parents?
Designated Villain: Nora's boyfriend Hank. He isn't fond of children and appears to be quite awkward around them. This of course makes him a bad person, and we're supposed to find it funny when the kids play pranks on him — ones that could seriously hurt him. In the film they trick him into tripping into a pool to make him take off his clothes to dry off, then soak his underwear in hamburger meat and sic their dog on him (which borders on sexual assault), and he claims that in the past they've set him on fire. The parents make a show of disciplining the kids but otherwise don't seem to think too much of this, and even Nora brushes off how they set him on fire. While Hank is a self-absorbed Jerkass, he never actually treats the kids badly or does anything to warrant such cruelty from them other than being someone they dislike.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Mark is the one member of the Baker household who is remembered and pitied by the audience due to the neglect and bullying he faces at home.
Foe Yay Shipping: It probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise that fanfiction writers over the years have shipped Lorraine and the unnamed Bully played by Jared Padalecki, solely on the basis of their two-minute scene together (the narrative seemingly being too good NOT to devote fanfiction to it). Interestingly, some fanfiction has even shipped Charlie and the Bully, although much less frequently.
Hollywood Homely: Lampshaded by director Shawn Levy who, in the DVD audio commentary track, jokingly referred to Charlie's new high school as "model high" because he had deliberately cast mostly "beautiful and thin" model types as student extras so that Charlie was - in effect - "the outcast." Charlie himself is outfitted to look particularly scruffy and unkempt for these scenes and doesn't look this way at any other point in the movie. Justified in that it would probably be too much to ask of the audience to believe that normal, peak Tom Welling would have a hard time fitting in anywhere.
Hypocritical Humor: The kids messing with Hank is played for laughs, but when Charlie is on the receiving end of a childish prank from his teammates, it's clearly not intended to be funny. It doesn't help that Charlie can be seen chuckling at Hank as he struggles with the dog, but when he's the butt of the joke himself later in the film, he doesn't exactly take it well (to be clear, BOTH are wrong - but considering that one of the kids' gags involved setting Hank on fire, stuffing corn into someone's locker sounds pretty tame by comparison).
Tom moved his entire family to Chicago to take his dream job as a leading football coach, and the crux of the film's plot is the difficulty of the kids adjusting to the change and wanting to go home. While it's understandable the kids would be upset having to deal with such a huge change to their lives, Tom has perfectly good reasons for how his decision will benefit all of them — they move into a much larger house where everyone has their own room, he makes a lot more money so the kids won't need to wear each other's hand-me-downs anymore, they'll be able to save up for a new car, and as an employee of university the kids will all get free tuition if they choose to attend. Tom also mentions he's turned down numerous other jobs over the years because he didn't want to uproot the family, and he's doing it now because it's his dream job he's always wanted. Despite this the kids see him as a traitor who has ruined their lives.
Tina is both a snob and an overtly controlling mother. But considering the antics of the Bakers endangered Dylan twice, even the most open-minded parent would be wary of anyone having their child near them. Granted, she does lose audience sympathy when she refuses to help the Bakers find Mark.
Charlie. He may be a surly, whiny teenager, but it's hard not to feel bad for him, considering that he's forced to move away from the home he grew up in - and far away from his girlfriend - and because he's bullied by the other kids at his new high school.
Hank may be self-involved, tone deaf and not particularly great boyfriend material, but none of that excuses the lengths to which the kids go to make his life miserable whenever he comes anywhere near them, and some of the kids' pranks are dangerous enough to fall into Disproportionate Retribution territory (Hank being awkward around kids and his dating Nora both overall seem like rather poor reasons for the kids to set his pants on fire).
Memetic Mutation: “Remember when Clark Kent and Sam Winchester almost got in a fight, but it was broken up by Lizzie McGuire?”
Hank refusing to help Nora search for Mark as he is too busy watching his latest commercial which just happens to be on TV. While he may not have been actively malicious towards any of her siblings, his selfishness in that moment understandably leads to the two breaking up.
Tina might have understandable reasons for not wanting her son near the Bakers, but refusing to help them find Mark goes well into spite.
Nausea Fuel: One of the twins puking on the floor, only for Henry to slip and fall into the mess before also throwing up in disgust.
The children (Save for Nora, Lorraine, Mark, and possibly Charlie), as we're supposed to feel sorry for the fact that they've been forced to move to a strange town away from everything they loved back in the country, but their aggressive antics have both their parents struggling to focus on their jobs and their father on the verge of being fired, with their expensive and enormous house frequently falling into disrepair because of their destructive acts while also sparking fights at school. Not once do they consider the needs of their parents or the good points about their new home, even humiliating them both by ruining a televised segment that was to star them all as one big family. The fact that their actions eventually forced their father to give up his dream job doesn't help their case.
Tom himself, especially in the sequel. He comes off less as wanting to spend time with his kids and more as a helicopter parent who can't stand that his kids are trying to have their own lives (see: Him crashing Sarah's first date for literally no reason except for him being overprotective).
Values Dissonance: When the mother leaves the children with their father for the duration of a short work-related trip, everything goes to hell due to the father's inability to take care of his family. The ending has her realize her mistake and promise never to leave the children again. This is a bit jarring to viewers from cultures where women are expected to work and fathers are expected to participate in childcare. (It's also the exact opposite of the original book, where much of the entertainment value came from the father's many unique and amazing methods of organizing the family's life to make it run smoother. Which worked. Of course, him being a workplace management researcher and everything.)
Values Resonance: In the beginning of the film, Charlie tells Tom that he was offered a full-time job at his girlfriend's family's auto repair shop and he's seriously considering taking it instead of going to college. While Tom would obviously prefer Charlie go to college and get his degree, he agrees to discuss the pros and cons of each with him later on. Today, with the rising costs of college tuition, the student debt crisis, and increased number of underemployed college graduates in the 2020s, Tom's open-mindedness to the situation comes across as even more reasonable.
The Woobie: Mark, who is bullied both at school and by his siblings (especially Sarah), feels neglected and forgotten by the rest of his family, and loses his beloved pet frog.
territory (Hank being awkward around kids and his dating Nora both overall seem like rather poor reasons for the kids to set his pants on fire).