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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 gre

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.
  - dbspin 4y ago
    Lots of people in the comments are wilfully eliding the distinction between their fond memories of working for a few hours to save for candy and videogames, and the child exploitation being described in the article.
    - dahfizz 4y ago
      You're being uncharitable. In response to a comment saying that all 12 year olds should be banned from working: > This is child labour. It's indefensible. People are pointing out that working at that age can be safe and beneficial. Nobody is claiming that kids should work full time, and people don't feel the need to add that disclaimer because its not a reasonable position they would need to defend against. > I enjoyed milk as a kid > Oh, so you think people should be forced to drink milk? You want every other beverage banned? You are willfully eliding important clarifications.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - danShumway 4y ago
    > OP literally said: The comment I'm replying to literally does not say that, you're referencing an upstream comment by a different person. Did you mean to reply in a different thread? I didn't take hahamrfunnyguy's comment in the way you seem to be taking it, but I'd be happy to learn that they don't support full-time labor for 12 year olds.
roflyear 4y ago
I don't think most of these kids are saving all their money. They are working because their parents can't pay the bills so they need to work.
- flandish 4y ago
  I don’t know why you are downvoted but - related: The Jungle is a fantastic book, everyone who’s ever held a job should read. It is completely related to every reply here and the article in question as well.
DoingIsLearning 4y ago
> I don't think this form of child labor should be discouraged, but rather encouraged. I think the issue is not the formative experience of labour but the lifting of restrictions on 'dangerous jobs'. The motivation behind this is not to enable children autonomy but to maintain the cost of labour low specifically to prop up the slaughterhouse/meat packing industry, and other 'dirty' job industries with labour 'shortages' i.e. we don't want to raise salaries shortages. Exposing kids to toxic cleaning agents, hazards, and general heavy machinery is a recipe for accidents and is simply not OK more so when it is quite obviously greed driven.
dbspin 4y ago
"My sister and I grew pumpkins to sell at our roadside farm stand" You didn't work the fields. You had your own small business you owned and managed. Congrats, sounds like you did a great job, set your own schedule, learned loads and enjoyed yourself. This is real world project based learning - I applaud and support it. It is absolutely nothing like being employed as a child, by a profit making enterprise. That's being subject to an employment contract without the cognitive comprehension or legal protections of an adult. Being an employee means being a productive tool of an enterprise - employees are protected from exploitation to the precise amount they have the economic power and social status to protect themselves. We're not talking about kids running a fruit stand, or even helping their parents with some hours in a shop here. We're talking about hard manual labour, for someone else, likely for a pittance. It's like comparing playing doctors and nurses to child marriage. One is natural unforced experimentation between kids, the other is exploitation of children by adults.
flandish 4y ago
> encouraged If the laborers own the business, sure. But .. when they do not, they are simply exploited for someone else’s profit. Let me ask another way: What is stopping the field/process owner from hiring an adult with minimum wages and attractive benefit packages?
- jleyank 4y ago
  Check out the UK - nobody wants to go muck about in the fields picking food for crap wages. They used to have immigrants for that.

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.
- dbspin 4y ago
  Lots of people in the comments are wilfully eliding the distinction between their fond memories of working for a few hours to save for candy and videogames, and the child exploitation being described in the article.
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    You're being uncharitable. In response to a comment saying that all 12 year olds should be banned from working: > This is child labour. It's indefensible. People are pointing out that working at that age can be safe and beneficial. Nobody is claiming that kids should work full time, and people don't feel the need to add that disclaimer because its not a reasonable position they would need to defend against. > I enjoyed milk as a kid > Oh, so you think people should be forced to drink milk? You want every other beverage banned? You are willfully eliding important clarifications.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- danShumway 4y ago
  > OP literally said: The comment I'm replying to literally does not say that, you're referencing an upstream comment by a different person. Did you mean to reply in a different thread? I didn't take hahamrfunnyguy's comment in the way you seem to be taking it, but I'd be happy to learn that they don't support full-time labor for 12 year olds.

roflyear 4y ago

I don't think most of these kids are saving all their money. They are working because their parents can't pay the bills so they need to work.

flandish 4y ago
I don’t know why you are downvoted but - related: The Jungle is a fantastic book, everyone who’s ever held a job should read. It is completely related to every reply here and the article in question as well.

DoingIsLearning 4y ago

> I don't think this form of child labor should be discouraged, but rather encouraged. I think the issue is not the formative experience of labour but the lifting of restrictions on 'dangerous jobs'. The motivation behind this is not to enable children autonomy but to maintain the cost of labour low specifically to prop up the slaughterhouse/meat packing industry, and other 'dirty' job industries with labour 'shortages' i.e. we don't want to raise salaries shortages. Exposing kids to toxic cleaning agents, hazards, and general heavy machinery is a recipe for accidents and is simply not OK more so when it is quite obviously greed driven.

dbspin 4y ago

"My sister and I grew pumpkins to sell at our roadside farm stand" You didn't work the fields. You had your own small business you owned and managed. Congrats, sounds like you did a great job, set your own schedule, learned loads and enjoyed yourself. This is real world project based learning - I applaud and support it. It is absolutely nothing like being employed as a child, by a profit making enterprise. That's being subject to an employment contract without the cognitive comprehension or legal protections of an adult. Being an employee means being a productive tool of an enterprise - employees are protected from exploitation to the precise amount they have the economic power and social status to protect themselves. We're not talking about kids running a fruit stand, or even helping their parents with some hours in a shop here. We're talking about hard manual labour, for someone else, likely for a pittance. It's like comparing playing doctors and nurses to child marriage. One is natural unforced experimentation between kids, the other is exploitation of children by adults.

flandish 4y ago

> encouraged If the laborers own the business, sure. But .. when they do not, they are simply exploited for someone else’s profit. Let me ask another way: What is stopping the field/process owner from hiring an adult with minimum wages and attractive benefit packages?

jleyank 4y ago
Check out the UK - nobody wants to go muck about in the fields picking food for crap wages. They used to have immigrants for that.