What's Wrong With Work?

I just read some comments that were posted after an article in which a politician was reported to have made comments regarding how poor kids in poor neighborhoods had no one around them who worked and therefore had no experience of the things necessary to get and hold jobs. From the comments, you would think he was advocating slamming such kids into a workhouse and feeding the gruel. The people posting used vile words to describe this person and said that "Kids don't work they need to go to school, etc, etc " - ALL IN CAPS, NO LESS!

Well, what is wrong with work anyway? I know I am of a different generation. But, ... I worked from age 8. I sold boiled peanuts for 5 cents a bag during the "season". At 12 I rode my bike to meet my father at his second job to mix mortar and carry bricks for him to lay. At 16 I worked part time at a shoe shop running up and down stairs carrying shoes for the ladies to try on. I also worked in the tobacco fields picking tobacco and at the warehouses where it was auctioned off, loaded in trucks and shipped. And, I went to school every day -- well almost every day. I never ate a meal at a restaurant with my family. I saved money. After graduating, I served in the Army for 3 years and then went to college - the first of my extended family ever to do so. I lived and worked in a funeral home to make money while going to classes. Yes. I got a GI check while going to school - $110 per month. I have been employed my entire life and have paid the maximum Social security contribution every year until after I retired.

What's wrong with working??