> So you think that there should be no minimum age at all? Would you be comfortable having 6-year-olds working in a factory, even if it's just for 1 hour/day?

> So you think that there should be no minimum age at all? Would you be comfortable having 6-year-olds working in a factory, even if it's just for 1 hour/day? Jumping into this - I intend to have my kids start working one hour/day of real work at age eight, which I think is natural and healthy, and aim for them to do basic rites of passage at 12, and be mentally equipped for emancipation from parents at 16 (though it'd be their choice if they want to leave or not). It's a bit tangential to the discussion, but I think one of the worst things of modernization is that people are forced into artificially young roles and not given responsibility until much later in life. Many people aren't particularly self-reliant until after age 26 these days! Sheesh, you used to have teenagers serving as officers in the army or helping their father with accounting, or sales, or apprenticing in a craft, or cooking, or keeping an inn 10 years earlier than some people are getting finished with school these days.