A Threat

 Those are rows of cotton and they haven't been picked by hand, at least here in Texas for all my life, and that goes back to the middle of last century! But it never stopped my father from threatening to "hire us out" to pick cotton.... usually in response to our disregard for just how easy we had it. And compared to our parents and the lives they had led surviving the  Great Depression we DID have it easy! They did pick cotton and endure going hungry including more I'm sure they never would have told us about. And now when I feel the need to remind my daughter just how easy she has it, all I can do is threaten to take away her cell phone or car.
 But you know I would give anything for my parents to have had the opportunity to "punish me" in the same way as I do her. Not because of wanting those things- but now, looking backwards as a parent, for how I know they would have felt for being able to give them to me in the first place.