For the typical young teen growing up in the Baby Boom generation, earning an allowance might involve some weed pulling, dish scrubbing or maybe detailing the family's sedan. But when your mother was Dear Abby creator Pauline Phillips, chores became a lot more interesting.
Jeanne Phillips clearly remembers her first allowance conversation with her mother, when she was 14 and the family lived in Hillsborough. The advice column that had started in The San Francisco Chronicle in the mid-1950s was still growing in popularity.
"I went to my mom with my hand out for money and she said, 'What are you going to do for it?' " Phillips remembers. "We didn't need anyone to clear the table or dust. There was already somebody doing that. She said, 'I have an idea. I get lots of mail from teenagers. Why don't I select some for you and you can answer them? And if they're good, I'll sign them, and if they're not, you can do them over.' That's how I started."
Read more:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment