When did ‘labor’ become a bad word?

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Years ago, when I was a teenager and dinosaurs roamed the earth, I always moaned — inwardly, of course, for my health’s sake — when my parents or someone the age I am now would start a conversation or lecture with the immortal words, “When I was your age ...”

Now I think I understand what they were trying to say.

Let me say right up front I’m not opposed to youth and young folks, although I do find myself agreeing more and more with Mark Twain’s notion that “youth is wasted on the young.”  The energy I once had, which never did lead the activity meter, has now given way to pacing myself and trying to leave something undone so there’ll be something to do tomorrow.

All of this deep philosophy and meditation comes about as I consider the recently observed Labor Day and the holiday that comes with it and what it all means. For some folks, it’s the last hurrah of summer, one more chance to go to the beach or mountains or lake or back yard.

Nothing wrong with that. Vacations and leisure are good and I’m going to try some sooner than later, I hope.

For others the weekend is the start of the new school year or close to it, a time when new clothes are bought, old ones are dusted off, supplies are bought and buses start roaming the roads.

Part of what I’m feeling, I think, is the shift away from emphasizing work and the importance and value of it, not just in economic reward but also in personal growth and development. Our society places such an emphasis on leisure that work is coming to have a bad connotation, something even to be avoided if possible.

I know we still make some things in this country but more and more of our employment is found in service industries. And, yes, the folks who do those things provide a service and work while they’re doing it.

But I find myself more and more longing for those days when the old folks did say, “When I was your age ...”

Lest you think me a cold inconsiderate old fogey, let me say that one thing that has happened is that there are not as many jobs available today not only for teens and youth but older folk, as well.

Fewer and fewer farmers, for instance, produce square bales of hay anymore, bales that need teenage boys to pick them up out of the fields. Instead, the growers make use of large round balers that produce bales that are transported by tractor. So, which came first — the round balers that one person could handle and that eliminated the need for labor or the fact teenage boys didn’t want to work in the hot sun anymore and farmers had to do something different.

Cigarettes and other tobacco products are taboo now, which although perhaps healthier for us all wiped out a large portion of summer labor opportunities. Fewer and fewer drug stores have soda fountains now and instead of being soda jerks we just become jerks.

You get the idea, I think, and I know it’s dangerous to generalize but, again, as I become the person I once loathed, I see folks saying they’re bored or that life has no meaning or similar thoughts and ideas.

Then you add in that too often our government makes it easier not to work and get paid for it than to do something like “an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.” And then adding what some folks think the Good Book says about work just complicates things. There are some who say work is a curse from God but if you go back and take a peek at the first book of The Book, you’ll see that work came along before the first folks convinced themselves God didn’t really mean what He said about disobeying Him.

The old saying “Hard work never killed anybody” has been relegated to antiquity in favor of “I’d rather somebody kill me than to have to work hard.”

Pity.

Bob Wachs is a native of Chatham County and retired long-time managing editor of the Chatham News/Chatham Record, having written a weekly column for more than 30 years. During most of his time with the newspapers, he was also a bi-vocational pastor and today serves Bear Creek Baptist Church for the second time as pastor.