My Mother Refused to Pay My 13-Year-Old for Six Weeks of Work. Forty-Eight Hours Later, the Labor Board Knocked.

while I was still thinking, Maya was already doing. By the time I’d made myself coffee and sat down at the kitchen table with my laptop, she’d disappeared to her room. Ten minutes later, my phone buzzed with a text from my mother, short and missing punctuation like always: why are you keeping maya from working at the bakery?

I stared at the screen. continue reading …