Cute kids update — economics division

Sam (6) has discovered money, and the power of money, and the glory of money. Money, he has realized, can buy Star Wars toys, and a great deal of money can buy big Star Wars toys.

So Sam is willing to do just about anything at this point to get some money.

My wife, seizing upon this new capitalistic streak, has put him to work around the house, performing more-or-less useful tasks that pose no immediate threat to his health or to local property values.

Yesterday she puts him to work washing our patio doors (which, to be fair, need washing). For the performance of this task she offers him two dollars. The deal is accepted and he goes to work with a pail and sponge.

Enter Kit, kid sister (5). Kit sees Sam washing the windows and wonders how she ever felt fulfillment playing with Polly Pocket. She now wants to wash windows too — not for the money, but to be included, and for the sheer giddy joy of it.

In another time, in another story, Tom Sawyer once put the whole neighborhood to work whitewashing a fence because he was lazy and canny, and he knew it would make a good plot-point in a deathless novel. But in the year 2007, kids and household tasks have changed. Kit approached Sam and asked if she could help and Sam became hysterical. Cries of rage and dishonor echoed around the block. Sam was furious, not because Kit might be cutting in on his window-washing fun, but because he was worried that if Kit was willing to wash windows for nothing, the job could be done without Sam and Sam would be out his two dollars.

Just another example of skilled workers struggling to keep their jobs against a tide of newcomers willing to do the job for less — California economics in a nutshell. And the WGA strike too, I suppose.