Maddy's Blog

When I look back at this past summer and see how much money I earned, I think to myself, why did I ever quit my job? Teaching little kids how to swim took up the majority of my summer days and even though I loved it, looking back on it now exposes completely different feelings. The stress and responsibility that I felt is crazy. Although it is not to the same extreme as child labor laws, how much of what Florence Kelley was saying in her speech we looked at this week true? Are we still putting too much weight on children’s shoulders when it comes to working? It is true that most teens choose to work. In my case, no one told me I had to have a summer job. I did it because everyone else was and I wanted to make some money. Whether it was just my type A personality or the job actually being stressful, I always felt the need to do better. Come in earlier, pick up more shifts...whatever helped me gain recognition. I noticed that everyone was in the same position as me. They all str...

Who makes assumptions? The answer, simply stated, is everyone. I’ve never met a single person who doesn’t make assumptions and I doubt I will meet someone like that in the future. Whether we know it or not, we judge everything. I am a dedicated victim to this vice. I find that quite often I judge everything and everyone around me. Just like the piece we read this week, “There is No Unmarked Woman”, I wonder is there any human who is unmarked? Unmarked of judgement? Why do I, along with everyone else, feel the need to judge? To attempt to answer this question, I delved into my most recent victims. Most recently, it was the attendees at the snowcoming dance. I looked around and wondered so many times, why would she wear those heels or why is he not more dressed up? In the moment, it felt natural. I didn’t even think twice about it. Now that I look back on it, I feel horrible. People should be free to wear or do whatever they want. But what was this natural instinct inside me that ...