Paid job or free job?（原創）

Nowadays a number of countries, especially countries in the west, are organizing teenagers to take part in paid work. Supporters argue that this practice works in molding the sense of responsibility.

Western parents got this tradition from junior Rockefeller, the famous Oil tycoon. Junior Rockefeller is the first person to own a billion dollars in the world. He taught his children to make money through labor. He would pay them 0.1dollar if they killed 100 flies, and they would get 5 pence by catching 1 mouse.to hold a few examples. His five children, one year, built a farm on a hill and got a good harvest. Junior Rockefeller bought the pumpkin at market price from his fourth son, and the rest were sold to a local food store. Rockefeller turned out to be wise,as all his four sons are successful persons, and one of them even became president of America.

However, this phenomenon goes against the old Chinese tradition and has to walk a tough way in Chinese families. It's has never been heard that a father paid his son for sweeping the floor! Regarding family as topmost, money would be seen as a knife that cut off the family tie.

The different points of view in the west and east are deeply rooted in their different cultural soil. As westerners have a worship of individualism, parents would teach their children self-reliance as the first lesson. It's no strange to hear, see, American teenagers on the go during their summer holiday, or have to leave the "nest" when reaching 18. Parents don't need to worry if they can make a living, since they have taught the children the difficulty in lives ever since their childhood. On the contrary, situation seems to be a little more worrying in China. The generation gap is never deep enough to separate parents from their children. Chinese parents devote their love selflessly, acting as the solid financial and spiritual shelter as long as they are able to move. And this Chinese-parental-love has given birth to unpleasant consequences, a "ken lao zu" comes into being. Children get used to relying on their parents even they have grown up or have their own family, or even they themselves become parents.

From this perspective, teaching children to make money by themselves is a necessary job to do. A nice commission can be a great motive to children, encouraging them to help with more of the house work, loosing parents' burden, too. If children get used to the job in their early years, they will benefit a lot more later. So, standing from my point, pay children for their contribution for the family if it's economically possible.

作者：楊倩