How I got my Teenager a job

I tried to think of my teenager like a probationer -- since I used to be a probation officer it wasn’t too hard. I had encouraged my son as young as age fourteen to get a job.  Not in a get-a-job-or-get-out kind of way, but rather in a learn-to-work-for-the-things-you-want-in-life kind of way.  I encouraged him to mow lawns, dog sit, and grocery shop – anything to earn a few dollars.  He was never interested.  When he turned sixteen I told him he had to get a job. He didn’t. I told him the same when-I-was-your-age-story over and over about how I got a job at sixteen as a grocery bagger : My mom and her husband told me I had to get a job at age sixteen and her husband had a plan for how I was going to do it. Basically I went in one to two times a week and spoke to the store manager and after two weeks he told his assistant manager to give me a job because he was tired of me bugging him.  My son was not inspired by my story--  I could have been talking to a rock and it would have had the same effect.

The point of the story isn’t to show how annoying I can be, but that persistence pays off. So in April of this year, one month before age 18, I started treating my son like a probationer. I told him every other day he was going to go to all the businesses in our little town and apply for a job. He just laughed and said “you can’t make me.” Ahhh….but I can. Of course I couldn’t threaten him with probation revocation, going before a judge and going back to jail (what a bummer), but I could do other things. I drove him to McDonald’s and Fry’s twice a week for the first week…. and I made him dress up in a nice shirt each time. After the first week I made him walk to these stores in his nicest pants and shirt. When he got home I would grill him about where he went and who he talked to. I think this could probably be considered nagging as well as irritatingly annoying, but it worked. He eventually charmed a store manager and he got a job at the local grocery store.

Essentially, I got a job for my son, but I couldn’t make him keep the job. He didn’t show up for two days and got suspended for three and until recently he wasn’t even sure if he still had a job. Unfortunately, as the saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. As much as I want my son to be successful in life I have to come to terms with it is his choice to make... not mine.