5 ms·

> Ten-hour days, five or six days a week, in North Carolina's summer heat. This is the problem, not the age of the child or the crop. Spending an occasional w

by jl6 4y ago

> Ten-hour days, five or six days a week, in North Carolina's summer heat. This is the problem, not the age of the child or the crop. Spending an occasional weekend working a few hours in a field sounds perfectly fine and character-building for a 12-year-old. More 12 year olds should be getting outside and tasting manual labor! The issue is when this starts being less of a learning experience and more of an actual full time job. Sending 12 year olds out to earn a living clearly isn’t right.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dbspin 4y ago
12 year olds are generally prepubescent children. This isn't like a sixteen year old working to save for a car, or even a fourteen year old gaining a little independence and exercise working a few hours after school. This is child labour. It's indefensible.
- werdnapk 4y ago
  I worked in strawberry fields during summer months at about 12 years old or younger. I actually enjoyed it and loved the money I made to be able to buy some Nintendo games or candies. More kids should be learning some job skills early and get out of the house.
  - sneak 4y ago
    Doing manual labor in a field isn't "learning some job skills".
    - nradov 4y ago
      Job skills include showing up on time and following directions without mouthing off. Those skills must be learned, they aren't instinctual. Middle class people take those skills for granted but some members of the persistent underclass who grew up on public assistance literally never learned those basics and are now essentially unemployable.
  - dbspin 4y ago
    Hobby work for luxuries isn't comparable to full time work for survival. Did you read the article? Did you "wake up at 4AM?" to pick strawberries? Did you work "a full adult schedule"? Were you working in 90 degree heat? Did you have "this sense that working in those fields was going to be the rest of my life, that I had nothing else going for me." Did you have "trouble getting the money [you were] owed for [your] labor." Did you experience nicotine poisoning? It's like comparing a home woodshop to a factory job.
- hirundo 4y ago
  Children can certainly be abused for labor, but they can also get a lot out of it, and it's at least defensible in that case. I worked in construction for my father at that age. I was well looked after, was able to do actually useful work to help him, learned things and got paid. If I had been prevented from doing that by child labor laws it would have been a loss for everyone involved.
- Symbiote 4y ago
  (Strictly speaking, you mean pre-adolescent. Many boys and most girls will have started puberty by age 12.)
- nunuvit 4y ago
  I was a paid rec sports referee at 13 for the younger kids league, and I worked unpaid for the family business before that. There's no way I could have, or should have, done that full-time. A few hours on the weekends or the odd weeknight was a good experience. My wife grew up on a farm, so she was doing age-appropriate farm work at an even younger age, and she also thinks it was a good experience. There's a difference between child labor and a child doing age-appropriate work.
- slashdev 4y ago
  It’s completely fine to do some work at that age, get a little pocket money, and learn what work is first hand. It’s not ok to do that instead of everything else. Part time work can be beneficial, full time work is child labor.
- hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago
  I am one of those twelve-year-olds that worked in the fields to save money for an education. We actually started when I was about 10 or 11. My sister and I grew pumpkins to sell at our roadside farm stand and grew vegetables that were sold to a local grocery chain through a program run by 4H/Cooperative Extension. It was hard work, but a great experience. There were some 10-12 hour days when we were planting, and it got pretty busy during harvest season. We had days off and typically during the busy part of the season we wouldn't spend more than 4 hours working. Our parents also worked just as hard as we did. It was great because there was no set schedule and we learned some things about entrepreneurship. I was proud of the work we put in and what we were able to achieve. The last season we ran the farm, we made about $12,000 in today's money. I don't think this form of child labor should be discouraged, but rather encouraged.
  - danShumway 4y ago
    > Today, Castellano is a sophomore at Tufts University. But when he worked, he felt "this sense that working in those fields was going to be the rest of my life, that I had nothing else going for me." [...] > He worked alongside other kids with one of North Carolina's most valuable crops. Some of them worked in the summer and went to school the rest of the year, like him. Some didn't go to school at all. ---- How are people in this comments section characterizing this as if it's character building? "We learned some things about entrepreneurship." Is it setting kids up for success if they don't go to school? You're phrasing this like it's immensely satisfying work; the people in the article quoted are saying they had a different experience than you. Can we at the very least agree that working on a farm year-round and not going to school at all is probably not setting up a child to be a successful entrepreneur?
    - dahfizz 4y ago
      OP literally said: > The issue is when this starts being less of a learning experience and more of an actual full time job. Sending 12 year olds out to earn a living clearly isn’t right. You are straw manning. Nobody here wants kids working full time.
- flatline 4y ago
  I started working part time in the summers when I was 12, it was a great experience. My daughter is 12 now and I wish she could have that experience instead of a handful of summer camps and a lot of time at home watching youtube which is the current plan. There are simply no other options available. My friends worked in their family store from an even younger age. Full-time manual labor is of course not good and will disproportionately affect poor families who need the extra income.
  - triceratops 4y ago
    Depends on the work. Manning the cash register at the family store or restaurant isn't the same as working in fields and factories. I don't mind my kids doing the former at a young age. The latter - hell no.
    - dahfizz 4y ago
      I'm going to guess you grew up in a city? I wouldn't have a problem with a kid of mine "working in fields", provided the hours are reasonable. Picking strawberries, outside, with friends their same age, a few hours at a time, would be great for them. I would go as far to say that its fun. I would prefer that over them having to interact with a bunch of asshole strangers, alone, trapped inside all day.
      - Symbiote 4y ago
        You can take your family to a "pick your own __berries" farm if there's one nearby. It's a fun family activity, if you like. This is not the subject of the article.
      - triceratops 4y ago
        No problem if it's the family farm, or a trusted neighbor's. Plenty of kids grow up raising their own pigs and growing carrots and whatnot. Hell no if it's paid employment on some stranger's farm, or an industrial feedlot. Reasonable hours is something that goes without saying. Study, chores, play, work - in that order - is how kids should be taught to prioritize their time. They're your children, not your free labor. Not sure where I grew up has anything to do with it other than that my examples didn't take into account some rural edge cases (family farms constitute a tiny sliver of all farming). The context of the work, and how dangerous it is, is what's important.
- DrThunder 4y ago
  I don't agree at all. Children should not be forced to work but it would do many of them a lot of good to learn how to work. Most of them actually like to be helpful. Anyone that's grown up on or near a farm learns quickly what it takes to actually produce something. As opposed to handing them a tablet while they're a toddler and raising them that way, the "working" child is going to be far more grounded and just overall a better individual. All the kids I grew up with were out helping load hay bails, driving tractors, trucks, feeding cattle, getting chicken eggs etc. at a very young age.
  - dbspin 4y ago
    I think you need to read the article. You're comparing some hours helping with an adult activity with full time employment as a child, in dangerous conditions as vulnerable survival work.
    - DrThunder 4y ago
      No I'm not, I specifically said they shouldn't be forced to work... as in put to labor in a factory or something. Picking tobacco for extra money isn't being forced into employment. I think you need to read my comment again.
- starkd 4y ago
  There are a lot of 12 year olds looking for chances to earn extra money. It gives a sense of indepedence and satisfaction for getting something you worked hard for. 12-year olds are more capable and curious than you think.
  - dbspin 4y ago
    I think 12 year olds are incredibly capable and curious. I also know that the only thing preventing them from being exploited in the labour market like adults are the scant legal protects that exist to prevent them from being treated as adult employees. Please read the original article to see why - since it provides and example of an industry where these protections don't exist.
- mikecoles 4y ago
  Wrong. It's not only defensible, it's beneficial. Picking up work when I was 10 allowed me to buy my first game console. It also was a time to learn how much things cost. Sure, parents could have bought me a game, but realizing how many hours were put in to buy the game made them less attractive.
  - dbspin 4y ago
    Please read the original article. You're comparing voluntarily part time work to save for a luxury, to being compelled to work - i.e.: having an adult job, and a deeply unpleasant and dangerous one at that.
roflyear 4y ago
There's a big difference between helping your dad in the shop and working in a field for a (basically) nameless entity. I don't think anyone really has a problem with the kid who is "working" at his dad's convenience store, though I do feel for the kids working in chinese restaurants.
izzydata 4y ago
12 is a little young I think. They should be outside playing, not outside working. Getting a scrape on the knee will build character enough for a child.
Symbiote 4y ago
You do need to read slightly further to see the issue with tobacco plants: > All the while, nicotine — a substance he's barely old enough to legally purchase now — seeped into his skin. For all tobacco workers, but especially kids, that can cause nicotine poisoning, or green tobacco sickness, whose symptoms include nausea, vomiting, headaches and dizziness.
- HarryHirsch 4y ago
  That sounds like a work safety issue, not a child labour issue.
  - jackvalentine 4y ago
    The two aren’t unrelated - kids can’t advocate for themselves like an adult can. In my state it’s illegal for people under 18 to do hazardous work for this reason. I don’t know if tobacco picking would count as hazardous but other jobs with exposure to chemicals do.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    It’s both, children can’t report workplace issues because they don’t know what they’re looking for, and nobody would believe them anyways.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      That applies to many adults too. People don’t automatically become familiar with labor law when they turn 18, nor is labor law a part of public school curriculum.
stolenmerch 4y ago
As an Iowa kid, I detasseled corn every summer from when I was 12 to 16. 10 hour days, 5 or 6 days a week, in the Iowa heat and humidity. Not saying every ag job for kids is like mine or José Velásquez Castellano's, but it's not that cruel. I'm not sure if I was supplementing my family's income or not, but I sure was paying for things that other more well-off kids had their parents pay for. I'm not arguing for "child labor" but if you grew up in an agricultural community none of this seems that shocking.
- KRAKRISMOTT 4y ago
  You missed out on career opportunities typical upper middle class inner city/suburban kids had access to. Outside of software engineering and a few other specific verticals, most high earning careers would require some sort of preparation from high school. There is a massive opportunity cost for kids when it comes to working in the fields. People wonder how some public figures can just fail upwards, this sort of success requires preparation and grooming at an early age. The Gates and Zuckerbergs of the world did not get where they are through hard physical labor in their teenage years.
  - jonfw 4y ago
    You think these farm kids are going to be groomed to be the next Gates if they're not working farms?
mschuster91 4y ago
> Spending an occasional weekend working a few hours in a field sounds perfectly fine and character-building for a 12-year-old. More 12 year olds should be getting outside and tasting manual labor! Leave it to HN for the top comment to defend child labor. WTF? The exception for kids to work on farms used to be for small family run farms where the kids would inherit the farm one day, so they'd be building equity. Bad enough, but understandable for the time. Today? For commercial mega farms? Fuck that shit. That's blatant wage suppression.
aaron695 4y ago
[dead]
causi 4y ago
The crop is also a problem. I occasionally work with tobacco graders. Extended exposure to tobacco plants will absolutely destroy your skin.
ewgoforth 4y ago
I'm from North Carolina, but never picked tobacco. Another problem I heard was that you absorb nicotine through your skin when picking tobacco, so it can make you sick if you aren't a tobacco user. It was used as an excuse to allow kids to smoke some cigarettes in order to get a tolerance for nicotine. This was back when there was an outside smoking area in high schools for students to smoke in.

by jl6 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dbspin 4y ago

12 year olds are generally prepubescent children. This isn't like a sixteen year old working to save for a car, or even a fourteen year old gaining a little independence and exercise working a few hours after school. This is child labour. It's indefensible.

werdnapk 4y ago
I worked in strawberry fields during summer months at about 12 years old or younger. I actually enjoyed it and loved the money I made to be able to buy some Nintendo games or candies. More kids should be learning some job skills early and get out of the house.
- sneak 4y ago
  Doing manual labor in a field isn't "learning some job skills".
  - nradov 4y ago
    Job skills include showing up on time and following directions without mouthing off. Those skills must be learned, they aren't instinctual. Middle class people take those skills for granted but some members of the persistent underclass who grew up on public assistance literally never learned those basics and are now essentially unemployable.
- dbspin 4y ago
  Hobby work for luxuries isn't comparable to full time work for survival. Did you read the article? Did you "wake up at 4AM?" to pick strawberries? Did you work "a full adult schedule"? Were you working in 90 degree heat? Did you have "this sense that working in those fields was going to be the rest of my life, that I had nothing else going for me." Did you have "trouble getting the money [you were] owed for [your] labor." Did you experience nicotine poisoning? It's like comparing a home woodshop to a factory job.
hirundo 4y ago
Children can certainly be abused for labor, but they can also get a lot out of it, and it's at least defensible in that case. I worked in construction for my father at that age. I was well looked after, was able to do actually useful work to help him, learned things and got paid. If I had been prevented from doing that by child labor laws it would have been a loss for everyone involved.
Symbiote 4y ago
(Strictly speaking, you mean pre-adolescent. Many boys and most girls will have started puberty by age 12.)
nunuvit 4y ago
I was a paid rec sports referee at 13 for the younger kids league, and I worked unpaid for the family business before that. There's no way I could have, or should have, done that full-time. A few hours on the weekends or the odd weeknight was a good experience. My wife grew up on a farm, so she was doing age-appropriate farm work at an even younger age, and she also thinks it was a good experience. There's a difference between child labor and a child doing age-appropriate work.
slashdev 4y ago
It’s completely fine to do some work at that age, get a little pocket money, and learn what work is first hand. It’s not ok to do that instead of everything else. Part time work can be beneficial, full time work is child labor.
hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago
I am one of those twelve-year-olds that worked in the fields to save money for an education. We actually started when I was about 10 or 11. My sister and I grew pumpkins to sell at our roadside farm stand and grew vegetables that were sold to a local grocery chain through a program run by 4H/Cooperative Extension. It was hard work, but a great experience. There were some 10-12 hour days when we were planting, and it got pretty busy during harvest season. We had days off and typically during the busy part of the season we wouldn't spend more than 4 hours working. Our parents also worked just as hard as we did. It was great because there was no set schedule and we learned some things about entrepreneurship. I was proud of the work we put in and what we were able to achieve. The last season we ran the farm, we made about $12,000 in today's money. I don't think this form of child labor should be discouraged, but rather encouraged.
- danShumway 4y ago
  > Today, Castellano is a sophomore at Tufts University. But when he worked, he felt "this sense that working in those fields was going to be the rest of my life, that I had nothing else going for me." [...] > He worked alongside other kids with one of North Carolina's most valuable crops. Some of them worked in the summer and went to school the rest of the year, like him. Some didn't go to school at all. ---- How are people in this comments section characterizing this as if it's character building? "We learned some things about entrepreneurship." Is it setting kids up for success if they don't go to school? You're phrasing this like it's immensely satisfying work; the people in the article quoted are saying they had a different experience than you. Can we at the very least agree that working on a farm year-round and not going to school at all is probably not setting up a child to be a successful entrepreneur?
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    OP literally said: > The issue is when this starts being less of a learning experience and more of an actual full time job. Sending 12 year olds out to earn a living clearly isn’t right. You are straw manning. Nobody here wants kids working full time.
flatline 4y ago
I started working part time in the summers when I was 12, it was a great experience. My daughter is 12 now and I wish she could have that experience instead of a handful of summer camps and a lot of time at home watching youtube which is the current plan. There are simply no other options available. My friends worked in their family store from an even younger age. Full-time manual labor is of course not good and will disproportionately affect poor families who need the extra income.
- triceratops 4y ago
  Depends on the work. Manning the cash register at the family store or restaurant isn't the same as working in fields and factories. I don't mind my kids doing the former at a young age. The latter - hell no.
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    I'm going to guess you grew up in a city? I wouldn't have a problem with a kid of mine "working in fields", provided the hours are reasonable. Picking strawberries, outside, with friends their same age, a few hours at a time, would be great for them. I would go as far to say that its fun. I would prefer that over them having to interact with a bunch of asshole strangers, alone, trapped inside all day.
    - Symbiote 4y ago
      You can take your family to a "pick your own __berries" farm if there's one nearby. It's a fun family activity, if you like. This is not the subject of the article.
    - triceratops 4y ago
      No problem if it's the family farm, or a trusted neighbor's. Plenty of kids grow up raising their own pigs and growing carrots and whatnot. Hell no if it's paid employment on some stranger's farm, or an industrial feedlot. Reasonable hours is something that goes without saying. Study, chores, play, work - in that order - is how kids should be taught to prioritize their time. They're your children, not your free labor. Not sure where I grew up has anything to do with it other than that my examples didn't take into account some rural edge cases (family farms constitute a tiny sliver of all farming). The context of the work, and how dangerous it is, is what's important.
DrThunder 4y ago
I don't agree at all. Children should not be forced to work but it would do many of them a lot of good to learn how to work. Most of them actually like to be helpful. Anyone that's grown up on or near a farm learns quickly what it takes to actually produce something. As opposed to handing them a tablet while they're a toddler and raising them that way, the "working" child is going to be far more grounded and just overall a better individual. All the kids I grew up with were out helping load hay bails, driving tractors, trucks, feeding cattle, getting chicken eggs etc. at a very young age.
- dbspin 4y ago
  I think you need to read the article. You're comparing some hours helping with an adult activity with full time employment as a child, in dangerous conditions as vulnerable survival work.
  - DrThunder 4y ago
    No I'm not, I specifically said they shouldn't be forced to work... as in put to labor in a factory or something. Picking tobacco for extra money isn't being forced into employment. I think you need to read my comment again.
starkd 4y ago
There are a lot of 12 year olds looking for chances to earn extra money. It gives a sense of indepedence and satisfaction for getting something you worked hard for. 12-year olds are more capable and curious than you think.
- dbspin 4y ago
  I think 12 year olds are incredibly capable and curious. I also know that the only thing preventing them from being exploited in the labour market like adults are the scant legal protects that exist to prevent them from being treated as adult employees. Please read the original article to see why - since it provides and example of an industry where these protections don't exist.
mikecoles 4y ago
Wrong. It's not only defensible, it's beneficial. Picking up work when I was 10 allowed me to buy my first game console. It also was a time to learn how much things cost. Sure, parents could have bought me a game, but realizing how many hours were put in to buy the game made them less attractive.
- dbspin 4y ago
  Please read the original article. You're comparing voluntarily part time work to save for a luxury, to being compelled to work - i.e.: having an adult job, and a deeply unpleasant and dangerous one at that.

roflyear 4y ago

There's a big difference between helping your dad in the shop and working in a field for a (basically) nameless entity. I don't think anyone really has a problem with the kid who is "working" at his dad's convenience store, though I do feel for the kids working in chinese restaurants.

izzydata 4y ago

12 is a little young I think. They should be outside playing, not outside working. Getting a scrape on the knee will build character enough for a child.

Symbiote 4y ago

You do need to read slightly further to see the issue with tobacco plants: > All the while, nicotine — a substance he's barely old enough to legally purchase now — seeped into his skin. For all tobacco workers, but especially kids, that can cause nicotine poisoning, or green tobacco sickness, whose symptoms include nausea, vomiting, headaches and dizziness.

HarryHirsch 4y ago
That sounds like a work safety issue, not a child labour issue.
- jackvalentine 4y ago
  The two aren’t unrelated - kids can’t advocate for themselves like an adult can. In my state it’s illegal for people under 18 to do hazardous work for this reason. I don’t know if tobacco picking would count as hazardous but other jobs with exposure to chemicals do.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  It’s both, children can’t report workplace issues because they don’t know what they’re looking for, and nobody would believe them anyways.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    That applies to many adults too. People don’t automatically become familiar with labor law when they turn 18, nor is labor law a part of public school curriculum.

stolenmerch 4y ago

As an Iowa kid, I detasseled corn every summer from when I was 12 to 16. 10 hour days, 5 or 6 days a week, in the Iowa heat and humidity. Not saying every ag job for kids is like mine or José Velásquez Castellano's, but it's not that cruel. I'm not sure if I was supplementing my family's income or not, but I sure was paying for things that other more well-off kids had their parents pay for. I'm not arguing for "child labor" but if you grew up in an agricultural community none of this seems that shocking.

KRAKRISMOTT 4y ago
You missed out on career opportunities typical upper middle class inner city/suburban kids had access to. Outside of software engineering and a few other specific verticals, most high earning careers would require some sort of preparation from high school. There is a massive opportunity cost for kids when it comes to working in the fields. People wonder how some public figures can just fail upwards, this sort of success requires preparation and grooming at an early age. The Gates and Zuckerbergs of the world did not get where they are through hard physical labor in their teenage years.
- jonfw 4y ago
  You think these farm kids are going to be groomed to be the next Gates if they're not working farms?

mschuster91 4y ago

> Spending an occasional weekend working a few hours in a field sounds perfectly fine and character-building for a 12-year-old. More 12 year olds should be getting outside and tasting manual labor! Leave it to HN for the top comment to defend child labor. WTF? The exception for kids to work on farms used to be for small family run farms where the kids would inherit the farm one day, so they'd be building equity. Bad enough, but understandable for the time. Today? For commercial mega farms? Fuck that shit. That's blatant wage suppression.

aaron695 4y ago

[dead]

causi 4y ago

The crop is also a problem. I occasionally work with tobacco graders. Extended exposure to tobacco plants will absolutely destroy your skin.

ewgoforth 4y ago

I'm from North Carolina, but never picked tobacco. Another problem I heard was that you absorb nicotine through your skin when picking tobacco, so it can make you sick if you aren't a tobacco user. It was used as an excuse to allow kids to smoke some cigarettes in order to get a tolerance for nicotine. This was back when there was an outside smoking area in high schools for students to smoke in.