After a month of hassling my daughter to find employment, it became all too clear to me she had no intentions of getting a job. So around the end of February I told her that in the real world, if she didn’t work, she wouldn’t be eating in the style to which she was accustomed. Therefore, as long as she was not gainfully employed, she was free to eat all the peanut butter and jelly, fruit, raw vegetables and milk she cared to ingest—but all other more expensive food items were not a part of her diet.


Very little “floats her boat”, but if I had to name one thing that elicited a reaction from her, it would be a good meal. Nevertheless, the days stretched into weeks, the weeks into months. I would fix a great meal… the smell of pork on the grill wafting throughout the house and yard. She would scowl, mope and perfect her victim persona, and periodically she would inquire,

“Do I need to fix a sandwich tonight?”

“Do you have a job?” I would ask.

“No” was the whiny reply.

“Then what do you think?” I would say… and she would fix a peanut butter sandwich.


OK… so before I go on, how many months do you think this went on? Three? Five? Six?


In AUGUST, before school started, it became abundantly clear that once again, paralysis had set in. Peanut butter paralysis. So, I greeted Amy one morning with the statement that clearly she was stuck—but not to worry. When folks had something they needed to do but they couldn’t get it done, often they hired a Personal Assistant to help them. So I had arranged for her to do just that. The son of a friend of mine (also an adoptee, from Eastern Europe, who had given his folks his own brand of hell) was due to arrive at our house momentarily. He was going to drive my daughter to the bank where she was to withdraw $30 for his first payment. (I told her to consider it an investment in her future!) He was then going to walk her through the mall, collecting applications.


The next day, my adult friend was going to take Amy for Round Two, and in return, my daughter would clean her van.


The third day, her brother Kyle would take her, and she would clean his room as payment.


And so it went, and she acquired a job in retail. She worked there until we moved last December. They took major advantage of her, calling her in all the time, because she had no other social life and no ability to stand up for herself. But she put away money… and then left it all in a bank account in Illinois after we told her three times to deal with it before we moved… (We dealt with it…)


Do you know any kids who need a Personal Assistant?