A Kid’s Ideas about the Working World

Laboring in exchange for money is a known concept for kids. Parents go to work. Teachers are present in classrooms. People in stores sell goods. Most kids recognize that adults don’t do most work out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it for a paycheck.

I knew, for example, that I lived in a home paid for by my parents’ labor. Work, it seemed to me, was just something adults had to do. It was a requirement.

Authority figures teach kids to dream about work, to imagine themselves doing what they love to do when they grow up. When I was a kid, teachers and other authority figures encouraged us not to rely on money as a metric for judging future work. I took that to heart.

We were fortunate enough to travel by plane somewhat frequently. As a result, my dream was to be a porter at an airport, someone who helped people carry their bags. I associated this position with getting on an airplane and traveling, even though that’s not part of a porter’s job.

I didn’t know the details of the work; I just knew that I liked airports, and working in an airport seemed the most fantastic thing. I didn’t think about how much they were paid or whether they had health insurance or a pension (Yes, I’m old enough that I remember when people still got pensions and didn’t invest in a 401k).

This passion disappeared by the time I turned six or so. But dreaming of a working future only continued.

Being young, my parents greatly influenced my views about work.

Before I was born, my father worked for the government. He was older and, by the time I came around, had retired. However, he never stopped working. He went on to the private sector and continued a rigorous series of volunteer positions. He also owned several small businesses when I was growing up, and he would have to work on various nights of the week.

My mom stopped working for the federal government after I was born, though she did have sporadic work through when I went to college. While her work in the home was extensive, she spent a great deal of time doing volunteer work as well, whether in school or at her synagogue.

As a kid, work meant going to an office. I didn’t think of what my mom did as work. What my dad did when he left home every morning and came home late every night was work. Call it sexism in the 70s and 80s or an ongoing failure to view all labor as valuable; it doesn’t matter. That’s what I thought.

I got to visit my father, of course and got to see what it meant to work in an office. In the early eighties, about the beginning of my first memories, I recall a secretary. I remember separate offices, and I recall my father’s office being the largest of all because he was in charge of the whole place.

It wasn’t easy to understand what exactly he did at work. I couldn’t gather that from my visits. I could see that he seemed essential and that other people in the office respected him greatly.

I could easily see the theater in it all. There was a stage (the office). There were roles (people at the office doing different tasks). And there was a script (the actual work), rehashed repeatedly. People wore special clothes to work, which seemed like costumes.

I knew that the pomp my dad entered every day took a toll on him. He came home tired.

He took a rest and then his work started again.

My dad sometimes had to head out to his small business after dinner, which often stayed open until 10 pm. Other times he had community meetings, which would last well past my bedtime.

My father started working at a young age and often told me about his youth work. The story I remember most was having to drive a dump truck to New York when he was only 15 and had no driver’s license. He also worked as a busboy. He pumped gas. He went to college, stopped, and then went back while working an overnight job.

It isn’t easy to overstate what kind of an impact that has on a young person. Here was somebody who, at the time, was in his early 60s. He’d done a lifetime’s worth of work, yet he had no intention of stopping. It wasn’t because he loved work but because he didn’t know any other way to be.

I think that being a Black man had something to do with this. He wasn’t a perfectionist but relentless; he refused to allow others to see him as less than the hardest-working person around. He seemed to have boundless energy. And by the time I was aware, he had a lot of experience, which gave him wisdom that others didn’t possess.

My mom was no less of a worker, though in different settings. Besides working in the house, she played various roles in the community, which I wouldn’t understand until later.

My mom was a volunteer in the classroom before she did anything else. Before I came along, she had worked for the federal government. But I wasn’t aware of that at the time. After working in the classroom, she held various PTA positions, oversaw the school’s safety patrols, ran various fundraisers, and participated in numerous meetings.

Later, she went back to work briefly in an office but always kept her ties to wherever I was in school. She also began to do more at her synagogue, participating in the various fundraising and bureaucratic activities there. Eventually, much later, after I’d already graduated from college, she even became President of the congregation.

It isn’t easy to put a price on all the work she did and continues to do, even into her 80s, in numerous other settings besides those I’ve mentioned.

As a kid, I learned that work is often difficult and does not necessarily involve doing something you love. However, at the very least, it should be something you believe in. My parents didn’t raise me to pursue money for its own sake. However, I was never taught that money wasn’t important. I was taught that being a responsible steward of personal finances was important.

My parents taught me that people shouldn’t be miserable or suffer abuse while working. My initial dreams of being a porter at the airport quickly faded, in large part, I believe, because I learned the status of this job. A porter wasn’t and still isn’t, considered a prestigious position. People who use porters’ services might be inclined to treat them poorly. Therefore, in my little head, being a porter wouldn’t necessarily have been the best career choice.

This idea of never allowing myself to be treated poorly by others, especially in the workplace, was always something important to me and greatly impacted my work outlook and the choices I made.

Likewise, the idea that my work would take place in the office got planted early. Because that standard for work always stood front and center, I had great difficulty imagining myself in any other setting, despite feeling deep antipathy and dissatisfaction in many such places.

And for most of us, it’s difficult to find office work where one doesn’t come in contact with at least one other person who makes your life hell.

Beyond the dreams and conceptualizations, at a young age, I was exposed to doing repetitious work and having responsibility, subjects I’ll delve into more in my next post.