Nitpick: It should be "Like a child too long away from his mother"
This one strikes home just as much as the others, in a completely different way. My family may have been "intellectuals" instead of "working class," but this is kind of the epitomy of the Midwest industrialist society. Everybody knows someone in the UAW. A lot of families, the parents work their asses off at the plant every day to put their kids through college when the time comes, and the kids meanwhile are dreaming of a good, steady job at the factory once they graduate highschool.
My father was a firefighter and mother a health worker when she wasn't busy bein my mom. But i work in democratic politics and see these types of stories every day from people all over the state. It kills me, it really does.
See, I don't know that it kills me, so much. It depends a lot on the factory. If you can stand the daily grind and the union politics, some of them are actually pretty good jobs. In the factory, they tend to know - a lot more than other places - that it's the grunts that keep things running. You get a steady paycheck for a living wage, and if you're there long enough you get a gold watch, a cake, and a pat on the back when you retire, instead of a kick in the ass.
Obviously, we all want the American Dream. And there's no nobility in being a grunt. But it's an honest job, and being able to put food on the table and watch your kids grow up isn't so bad.
But then, only a couple of generations back, I come from farm stock. The factory is an easy gig.
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This one strikes home just as much as the others, in a completely different way. My family may have been "intellectuals" instead of "working class," but this is kind of the epitomy of the Midwest industrialist society. Everybody knows someone in the UAW. A lot of families, the parents work their asses off at the plant every day to put their kids through college when the time comes, and the kids meanwhile are dreaming of a good, steady job at the factory once they graduate highschool.
You captured it well.
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Obviously, we all want the American Dream. And there's no nobility in being a grunt. But it's an honest job, and being able to put food on the table and watch your kids grow up isn't so bad.
But then, only a couple of generations back, I come from farm stock. The factory is an easy gig.
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