The 12-year-old-boy had just gotten his first summer job: working as a newspaper delivery boy. He was glad to tell anyone who would listen about the crosses he carried now that he had entered the workforce. Wearing a martyr’s robe, he sadly sighed, "I get up at 5 a.m. and, while I’m getting dressed, Mom makes me breakfast. Then, just as I’m leaving for work, dad gets up. Mom fixes him breakfast, too. When I get home, mom usually has lunch ready and on the table, but I’m so tired by then, I can hardly eat. Work is so exhausting.”
If you pressed the boy for particulars about his work, he would have been more than glad to provide the dark details of how he folded the papers, delivered the papers, and tried to make collection for those papers. When asked if Mom had a job, he dismissed the question with a, “Naw, Mom just cleans the house, runs to the store, takes care of the other kids, washes clothes and does some ironing.” The part the boy liked best was to talk about getting paid. He was proud of being paid. Rightly so. He was, after all, earning a wage, bringin’ home the bacon. “And Mom, did she get paid?” “Mom, get paid? Of course not”, was his reply, “Mom don’t get paid. She’s got no job. She don’t do no work.”
