(Yahoo!News) More than a half century ago, Mary Ann Sorrentino, then 16, dutifully watched her mother "kick a press" in a jewelry sweat shop.
It was a terrible job. With burned fingertips, Sorrentino helped solder cufflinks while laboring next to her mother, who'd been at it since fourth grade.
"She wanted me to see how I might end up if I didn't get a degree," Sorrentino writes in a first-person account for Yahoo News. Her mother's lesson: Get an education, invest your money -- smartly -- and don't expect something (hint: Social Security) to rescue you.