At least where we were, you needed a special permit to work if you were under 18, and at the time that would allow kids as young as 14 into the workforce. But,

At least where we were, you needed a special permit to work if you were under 18, and at the time that would allow kids as young as 14 into the workforce. But, they could only work part-time. I did that later during the summer between my sophomore and junior high school years, to buy a car from my parents. But as a dishwasher in 6th grade, I didn’t have any adult supervision. I worked alone in there. And I don’t think that kids 16 or under should be working without supervision. And I didn’t have a youth work permit, which was most likely illegal. I don’t know that I learned a great deal as a dishwasher that would be useful in the adult workplace, other than how to efficiently and quickly load a dishwasher. I guess if I had to go back to that kind of work, I could do it again. Ironically, the car I bought from my parents was a 1974 Chevy Malibu Classic with a 350ci V8 engine, and if I had been inclined to do street racing, that would have been a perfect car to use for that. But I was a straight arrow and I had no flipping idea what I had in my hands, so I just drove it calmly (well, mostly calmly) to and from school and nothing else. A couple years later, when I was in college, I wasn’t driving it at all, because there was no reasonable parking on campus, and was effectively forced to take the campus bus. So, I ended up letting the car rot, and we ended up paying a towing company $50 to get it out of the driveway and haul it off for scrap.