[glennaro]

To help them develop an appreciation for work, I taught my children that all legal work is honorable. My thinking has been altered in recent years by innumerable assaults by telemarketers: I have no respect for the work they do, and thus having no respect for them, I treat them accordingly when they call.

I recall the words of Brian Dougherty in this month's Reason magazine where he writes of: "the privacy-shattering powers of the telephone, a device that allows strangers to set off alarms in your house simply by punching a few numbers on a remote keypad."

[steve-b]

I taught my children that all legal work is honorable.

The basic idea you're trying to teach is correct, but it got mucked up when you implicitly equated "legal" with "honest".