I learned my work ethic delivering newspapers. This Labor Day, we should honor those who work hard every day

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A news story out of Australia went viral last week, focused on a mother who will not let her 15-year-old son have a part-time job because she thinks that childhood ought to be carefree and without the burden of work that adults must face. 

Predictably, there was no shortage of backlash over this idea. And while I am not one who tends to judge the parenting choices of others, it did make me remember my own teenage jobs, and why they were important to me, as they were for so many Americans. 

For many of us, our first job as a teenager was a profound memory, as a theretofore hidden world of the workforce, lacking the protections of family or school, opened up to us. 

MOM WHO REFUSES TO LET TEENAGE SON GET A JOB SPARKS DEBATE: IS A WORK ETHIC OVERRATED?

For me, it was a paper route on chilly, still-dark autumn mornings, the snap of the plastic band, the smell of the broadsheets, and eventually, the not-always-so-easy collecting of the subscriber’s money. 

Whether it’s delivering newspapers or working in retail, a first job helps instill a work ethic that can carry through an

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