Recently a school district in my state was considering giving students 40% credit for work not done. The idea was to encourage kids to stay in school by giving them a second chance at getting the work done. Of course, there has been some public outcry about the dangers of getting credit for work not completed. Will they get paid by employers for work not done? We all have worked with those who do little and take home big checks – it happens. Doesn’t mean we want to reward kids for being slackers.
Some of us are old enough to remember when you got one chance to do your school work and if it wasn’t done on time you lost out. And when you didn’t get what you wanted just because you wanted it. Remember Margaret Truman, Harry’s daughter. Margaret, who parents paid dearly for years of music lessons, made her singing debut in 1947. She received pay for her performance of $1,500.
While shopping with her mother, First Lady Bess Truman, Margaret decided to treat herself and buy a mink scarf. Picking out the best one in the store, she told the saleslady to charge it to her mother, whereupon Bess firmly said “Oh no you don’t, you bought it, you pay for it. You’re working now.” *
First Ladies through the ages have had the same problems keeping their children on the straight path as we do today, but they had stronger cultural and religious values to help them out. Abigail Adams had trouble with her son, Thomas, who was a good student and made his parents very proud by becoming a lawyer in the family tradition. His first case, however, was to defend the owners of the local brothel. Abigail must have wrung her hands over Thomas’ decision to make this his first case. In addition, Thomas flatly refused to wear a wig or powdered hair, as required by the “Establishment”. Sort of reminiscent of the hair wars of the sixties, isn’t it? Some things never change.**
Some of us are old enough to remember when you got one chance to do your school work and if it wasn’t done on time you lost out. And when you didn’t get what you wanted just because you wanted it. Remember Margaret Truman, Harry’s daughter. Margaret, who parents paid dearly for years of music lessons, made her singing debut in 1947. She received pay for her performance of $1,500.
While shopping with her mother, First Lady Bess Truman, Margaret decided to treat herself and buy a mink scarf. Picking out the best one in the store, she told the saleslady to charge it to her mother, whereupon Bess firmly said “Oh no you don’t, you bought it, you pay for it. You’re working now.” *
First Ladies through the ages have had the same problems keeping their children on the straight path as we do today, but they had stronger cultural and religious values to help them out. Abigail Adams had trouble with her son, Thomas, who was a good student and made his parents very proud by becoming a lawyer in the family tradition. His first case, however, was to defend the owners of the local brothel. Abigail must have wrung her hands over Thomas’ decision to make this his first case. In addition, Thomas flatly refused to wear a wig or powdered hair, as required by the “Establishment”. Sort of reminiscent of the hair wars of the sixties, isn’t it? Some things never change.**
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*Boller, Paul F., Jr., Presidential Wives, 1988, page 326
**Truman, Margaret, First Ladies, 1995, page 94
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