"More often than not, the jobs are in retail, where kids may be routinely exposed to the attractions of the mall. At an age when teenagers could be learning a lot of different things, many of them are learning to fold t-shirts at the Gap so they can buy the t-shirts....Ironically, even at an early age, we depend on the consumption economy for the signs of our independence, even as we're apprenticed to the pattern of work-and-spend that characterizes so much of American life." (101) Truthfully, there's nothing ironic about it.

(Farrell, James J. One Nation Under Goods: Malls and the Seductions of American Shopping. Washington: Smithsonian Books, 2003. Print.)