After yesterday's tirade, that berated some folks' ability (or lack thereof) to take responsibility for themselves, today comes along another story that brings the pendulum back.
I had a customer today with a special needs son that is now 18 years old. She has lined up a job for him at the Co-op where he spends two hours/day doing some janitorial work. Lately he has been purchasing some of his own clothing, and subsequently complaining about not having a proper place to store it. To her, there was only one solution. She brought her son to the store, he now had $300 for a down payment, and would like to start an account. The plan was for him to make a down payment, purchase his own dresser to store his things, and then to come in every payday to make a payment. In this manner, he would learn the value of money, respect the furniture (since he had to pay for it himself), take the responsibility of paying for the loan that he made, and have some pride in having looked after himself.
How refreshing! The down side (of course there still has to be a down side) was that head office thought that he was too young, and didn't make enough money to get an account, but they still didn't let that stop them. They put the $300 on a cashlink card and will make that payments in the same manner until he has enough cash to buy it outright. An equally important (if not more important) lesson to learn.
There still are people out there that teach their children to be responsible for themselves, as opposed to impatiently waiting for yet another hand-out. If only there were more people out there like that. It's one thing to be a leader... but if nobody's following, you're just going for a walk.
Lead on Susie (hopefully someone will follow)!
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