IF I'M WORKING, IT'S WORTH SOMETHING

Last week I sorted my "one day." It was a B, so it went to dinner first. Then it went on the kitchen calendar with everybody's handwriting on it, and the A inside it, the part that was mine, I started that night. Here's what I learned: the waiting is always the scariest part.

Here's the next thing. I set the table every night. I watch Millie while my mom finishes dinner. I carry in the groceries. Nobody pays me for that, and I don't ask. That's family. That's my part of the house. It still counts. See Week 3.

But here's the other kind. At a party, somebody's mom asked me to keep an eye on her little kid so she could go talk. The girls at school keep asking me for bracelets. The little kids at the pool want me to teach them the dance. That's not family. My mom says that's work. And work gets paid, even when you're nine.

It's the same question as last week. Is this mine, or is this ours? Family is ours. Somebody else's kid, somebody else's dog, somebody else's party? That's a job.

Nobody's going to offer. That part's on me. "Sure, the bracelets are two dollars." "I'd love to. I charge five dollars." Say the number like you'd say your name. If they say never mind, that's okay. I still said it.

My mom says grown-up women give away their time all day long, because they learned to be helpful before they learned to be paid. They learned it when they were small. I'm not going to learn it.