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Against my better judgment, I gave Marty permission to help a friend deliver morning papers so he can learn the route and fill in as his substitute Saturday and Sunday. Since Tuesday morning he has been crawling out of bed at 2:30 or 3:00 o'clock. His friend, Mike Montgomery, awakens him by coming to his downstairs room through the basement door, actually through the dogs' swinging panel in the basement door, I suspect, from its recent inclination to stick rather than swing in and out with ease. Already worn out before school starts, he spends the remaining hours not only stumbling about in a fog of drowsy inattention, but taking most of the day to warm up after his cold, pre-dawn excursion. There will be no permanent morning route for Marty, no sharing of Mike's delivery chores and earnings, as they had planned -- not even any more substitutions after Sunday. I want my bright- eyed Marty back to stay. I'm not impressed by the sense of responsibility a boy is supposed to gain from such an experience. Responsibility to what? To the pursuit of a buck? Does such an enterprise really build initiative and maturity, or does it, by its consumption of the boys time and energy, merely discourage areas of natural development, giving us no alternative but to acknowledge his business-like deportment. What other qualities have survived to warrant our praise? A boy should also fulfill his responsibility to himself by growing into something more than a one-dimensional, unresponsive clod. He is meant to be part of a moving world where rewards are equated with a man's sense of values, not by a pay-masters' monotonous calculations. So there will be no morning paper route for Marty, no encouragement for him to give up everything, school-work, health, obligations at home, interest and involvement in daily affairs, pep, alertness, willingness to use time, eagerness to meet life head-on, and genuine acceptance of responsibility -- just to worship, dumbly follow, and be enslaved by the almighty dollar. |
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