What our kids can learn from paid employment is a work ethic, that loose phrase that captures the ability to listen, exert ourselves, cooperate with others, do our best, and stick to a task until we’ve done it, and done it right. Or we could just call it “grit,” a term that University of Pennsylvania professor Angela Duckworth has helped popularize in recent years. To her, grit is the answer to this question: Why do some people accomplish more than others who are just as smart as they are?
