Becoming One’s Own Person

We are watching our grandchildren grow up, watching them rebel against authority, and listening to their pleas for autonomy.  It made me remember my own coming of age.

I lived at a time when you could not get your Social Security Number until you were sixteen years old.  It followed that you could not get a job until you were sixteen, as you needed a Social Security Number for tax purposes.  (Exceptions were if you lived and worked on a dairy farm, which I didn’t.)

So I lived in anticipation of  being “Sweet Sixteen”.  I wanted to work, to make my own money.  By this time in my life, my father was not strict.  I had kept house and cooked supper for him since my mother died a couple of years before.  Money was tight–I received a small allowance.

While finishing high school, I envied the students–usually Seniors, who attended school only half a day, leaving at noon for their jobs.