The Sweat Shop

The next Armani?

"Mama, if I worked in a sweat shop, then at the end of the day you would come pick me up and say Hey Liam, how was your day at the sweat shop, and I would say, bad. Really bad."

Here's how it started. While my mom was visiting this weekend, we got out her old sewing machine, a 1976 Kenmore, which has been languishing in my basement for nearly a decade. It was completely seized up, but she took it apart and oiled it and got it working smoothly again.

And Liam was utterly fascinated.

Grandma showed him how to insert a piece of fabric, sew a straight seam, remove the fabric and cut the thread. Then repeat. He did it several times with her, and after she left, he sewed for over an hour. He even figured out how to replace the empty bobbin, by watching her do it.

I joked that it looked like we're running a sweat shop, and then Liam had to know all about sweat shops. What really stoked his sense of injustice was not that little kids have to work long hours in horrible conditions, it was a small embellishment I added: that they don't even get to eat lunch. (Tears well up in Liam's eyes. "Not even a snack?")

Now he wants to make his own clothes. And we only have to pay him 25 cents per article.