My kid has a real job at a real farm for the apple picking season. I’m very excited for him. We’ve known the owners for years and the farm is a place we’ve frequented every season. We even had a family photo shoot there several years ago. I was comfortable dropping him off there for his first shift and I was (am) pleased that he is actually going to experience real work and not just school work.

Getting his work permit so he could legally work there however was hard on me. I could not get my head around the fact that my kid is capable enough to be considered a contributing member of the workforce AND he was going to pay taxes. It’s a mature thing to have a work permit. It’s not so mature to help out a neighbor who needs a mother’s helper for a few bucks under the table. There’s a difference, you know? And I’m not around to tell him how to handle himself. Look – I’ve known this kid since he weighed 7 ½ pounds. I know what he’s capable of and I know what he refuses to even try. So stop looking at me sideways.

He’s too young to be approved to do anything other than farm work – so maybe this will help ease me in for when he asks to borrow the car to get to his hedge-fund job. In any case, this feels like a big transition to my family. It’s more than having to drop him off at practice or expecting him to stay with his younger siblings while I run an errand. It kind of feels like the first test of my preparing him for adulthood. That’s what the work permit represented to me. Now other people can judge him on his responsibility and work-ethic. He can be promoted for great customer relations or fired for laziness. I have nothing to say about it anymore. Except I still have to drive him to his job. I suppose I could get him fired for not showing up.

Yeah! I’m still in control!