Pa, can I have a job?

I love watching the Andy Griffith reruns! I laughed my head off when they first aired back in the 1960′s and I still laugh my head off today as I watch them. Each episode brings a fresh innocence that is long gone in the TV land we live in today. The men acted like gentlemen and the women acted like ladies. Children respected their parents.

A quick 30 second scene from an episode we watched last night has stayed with me all through the day. After Opie joined a secret club, he ran directly to his fathers office to tell him about it – at least as much as he could. It was a secret club with a secret name, secret members, and a secret meeting place. So he could not tell his dad much, just that he joined it. This secret club required it’s members to pay dues. While Opie was in his father’s office, he asked his dad the question, ” Pa, do you have a job I can do to earn some money for the dues for my club?”

Hmmmm…I thought. When was the last time I ever heard a young person ask a parent for a job to earn some money for something they wanted? Do kids do that today? It seems to me most of the time kids want money for something, it gets handed to them. Young girls buy products I feel I cannot afford to buy. Where do they get the money to buy these things?

I guess I’m just old fashioned, but take me back to time when kids were young and innocent, when they respected parents and teachers and if they wanted something, they knew they needed to earn it.

Wonder which episode is on tonight?