Unit 3: Compelling Evidence: "The Work You Do, The Person You Are" by Toni Morrison

It was a beautiful house, too, with a plastic-covered sofa and chairs, wall-to-wall blue-and-white carpeting, a white enamel stove, a washing machine and a dryer—things that were common in Her neighborhood, absent in mine.

Part of my pride in working for Her was earning money I could squander: on movies, candy, paddleballs, jacks, ice-cream cones.

Part of my pride in working for Her was earning money I could squander: on movies, candy, paddleballs, jacks, ice-cream cones.

But a larger part of my pride was based on the fact that I gave half my wages to my mother, which meant that some of my earnings were used for real things—an insurance-policy payment or what was owed to the milkman or the iceman.

The pleasure of being necessary to my parents was profound.

I was not like the children in folktales: burdensome mouths to feed, nuisances to be corrected, problems so severe that they were abandoned to the forest.

I was not like the children in folktales: burdensome mouths to feed, nuisances to be corrected, problems so severe that they were abandoned to the forest.

I was not like the children in folktales: burdensome mouths to feed, nuisances to be corrected, problems so severe that they were abandoned to the forest.

I had a status that doing routine chores in my house did not provide—and it earned me a slow smile, an approving nod from an adult.

I had a status that doing routine chores in my house did not provide—and it earned me a slow smile, an approving nod from an adult.

Confirmations that I was adultlike, not childlike.

I suspect that children aren’t needed in that way now.

They are loved, doted on, protected, and helped.

I wanted to refuse, or at least to complain, but I was afraid She would fire me, and I would lose the freedom the dollar gave me, as well as the standing I had at home—although both were slowly being eroded.

So I learned to say “No, thank you” to a faded sweater offered for a quarter of a week’s pay.

Still, I had trouble summoning the courage to discuss or object to the increasing demands She made.

I gave him details, examples of what troubled me, yet although he listened intently, I saw no sympathy in his eyes.

I gave him details, examples of what troubled me, yet although he listened intently, I saw no sympathy in his eyes.

I have worked for all sorts of people since then, geniuses and morons, quick-witted and dull, bighearted and narrow.

I’ve had many kinds of jobs, but since that conversation with my father I have never considered the level of labor to be the measure of myself, and I have never placed the security of a job above the value of home.