13-year-old boy does yard work, trades in Xbox to buy his mom a car

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Oh, my.

That 13 year old is amazing. It's all too easy to forget that kids can be wonderful.

I'm going to tell this story, even at the risk of seeming to blow my own horn.

In 1962 my mother moved us five kids (oldest brother was in the army at this point) from northern NYS to Tucson, AZ to escape our father who was an alcoholic who was becoming more and more abusive.

Mom was a nurse, so she knew she could get work anywhere. Back then nurses didn't make very much money. So she worked every extra shift she could get. We kids, who had already become independent, self-sufficient, and able to take care of ourselves, were okay. I can recall not seeing mom for weeks on end. But we could fix our own meals, get ourselves off to school, do our homework. We were okay.

About a year after we moved to Tucson I got a Saturday babysitting job. I watched after two little girls, about the ages of 7 and 9, for nine or so hours while their parents, both school teachers, worked at some sort of Saturday job. Mom drove me to the home in the morning, and the other mom drove me home in the late afternoon. It paid $3.00 for the day. Before you react in horror, remember that this was 1963. An inflation calculator makes that three dollars worth nearly twenty-five dollars today. Not too bad. But here's my essential point. Most days, as the other mom was driving me home, I requested we stop at the grocery store so I could buy food for the family. She was astonished that I would do so. But I could not imagine spending the money on myself when we needed the groceries so desperately.

And even more to the point, I never felt like I was sacrificing anything. Feeding myself and my brothers and sisters mattered much more. A year or so earlier we kids had come into possession of some silver dollars, and we'd bring one or two of them to a nearby family run grocery sort of store. We'd give them one or two of the dollars in exchange for groceries, and then within a few days buy back the silver dollars. Sort of a pawn shop kind of deal.

Here's my essential point. When you are at the bottom, but have a resource or two (silver dollars, baby sitting money, X box) you will use it to your best advantage. This is NOT to insinuate that this kid isn't a hero for what he did. He absolutely is. I just want to say that these kinds of things happen more often than you might know but are uncelebrated.