All I needed to do to earn the two dollars was to clean her house for a few hours after school. It was a beautiful house with things that were common in her neighborhood, absent in mine.
Working for her brought me a sense of pride, not only because I could immerse myself in little luxuries like movies and candy, but also because I contributed half of my earnings to my mother, ensuring they were used for necessities. I was not like the children in folktales: burdensome mouths to feed, 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 and confirmations that I was adult-like, not childlike.
Little by little, I got better at cleaning her house — good enough to be given more to do. After struggling to move the piano, my limbs ached terribly. Despite wanting to decline or voice my discomfort, I feared losing my job and the independence and respect it afforded me. She began to offer me her clothes, for a price. Impressed by these worn things, which looked simply elegant to a little girl who had only two dresses to wear to school, I bought a few.
Still I had trouble summoning up (鼓起) the courage to object to the increasing demands she made. Despite feeling overwhelmed, I hesitated to voice my concerns, knowing my mother would urge me to quit. However, one day while alone in the kitchen with my father, I expressed my disappointment. In any case, he put down his cup of coffee and said, "Whatever the work is, do it well — not for the boss but for yourself. You make the job; it doesn't make you. You are not the work you do; you are the person you are."
I have worked for all sorts of people since then, geniuses and fools, quick-witted and dull, big-hearted 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 my self-worth and family value.
