INCOME INEQUALITY

Jobs for the Poor Build Character; Jobs for the Rich Build Wealth

Apparently, the rich don’t require character building

A pair of my husband’s work boots. If you’ve read Strapped, you’ve seen these same boots on the cover! (Photo by Michelle Teheux)

My son got his first job at age 13. It was detasseling corn — a hot, dirty and somewhat dangerous job. He always came home caked in mud and sunburned despite copious sunscreen and protective clothing.

Detasseling is one of the few jobs that will hire a kid so young, and it offered him the chance to earn enough money to buy a computer. It’s not as if I could have afforded to buy him one.

I told him the job would build his character.

“Why don’t you come to the cornfield with me so you can build your character, too?” he asked.

“My character was already formed many years ago,” I told him.

I need to apologize to my son. I was brainwashed back then.

I have worked a list of shit jobs a mile long

None of them built my character. But we have concocted all kinds of myths in order to convince poor people to do shitty jobs for low wages so that the upper classes can enjoy the cheap labor of poor people and their children.