• saltesc@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I’m Australian and this reminds me of working at the local fish and.chip store when I was 12. I asked the local general store, but they’d only pay me to do odd jobs, the local bakery said no,.and the local fish and.chip shop said I could help take orders and.package meals during their busy hours each evening.

      My Lego collection grew, I got real good at Time Crisis 3, and I went to see a movie each Saturday. It was awesome. I didn’t see it any different to scoring cash for mowing lawns or washing cars, just stable and they appreciated my help so I felt good too.

      If you’d told me I wasn’t allowed, I’d have done it behind your back and said I was going to friend’s houses.

      • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        Cool story mate!

        Lots of people are fine with bad things they grew up with because it didn’t personally affect them.

        • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Do you think kids shouldn’t be allowed to work in any capacity? What if they are self employed? Is that wrong even if they want to?

          • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            Yes, and yes.

            I think children should be free to focus on more important things than working.

            Do you think we should send the kids back to the mines? Some of them might prefer to be out of school. What if they’re a self-employed mine owner?

            • tillary@sh.itjust.works
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              10 months ago

              I think there’s a line somewhere and for me the line is whether the job is suitable for children. Like, doing chores around the house or on your grandparents’ farm. Paper route riding a bike. I worked summers at a carnival, and at a pool when I was a bit older. Low physical labor, low responsibility, low customer interaction, family friendly environments. You’re right it should never interfere with education.

              If I saw a kid at the register of a fast food place or a store, I would turn around immediately and never return. Just leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth.

            • grff@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Your example is very extreme. Having an after school part time job as you’re growing up will prepare you for quite a bit, and set us apart from our peers that didn’t work, and instead wasted their days after school or on the weekends. I take it you never worked growing up ? It’s building essential life skills, not inhaling noxious fumes working 16 hr days in mines, this isn’t the 1800’s. I loved flipping burgers and making a paycheck at 15

              • BossDj@lemm.ee
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                10 months ago

                I wasn’t sure where I stood on this and read a lot of comments.

                One thing that seems common is that many of those who worked young seem to think it made them better than the other kids somehow. They “wasted” their summer, while you built “essential life skills” unlike the person you’re replying to, who did not? Are you still “set apart” from the person you replied to?

                I might think getting thrown into the system at a younger age is the real waste of life. I’ve had a job since I was 15, but I really don’t think it made me better than anyone.

                • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  It didn’t make me “better” but from talking to people I went to college with (that didn’t get jobs early), I’d definitely say I was more prepared for the workforce.

                  Also having money was dope and my fast food job was fun. I still enjoyed my life and summer outside of work, even more so because I could afford to do and get shit that my parents might not have been able to give me. It’s not an all or nothing deal it’s just a different life experience. I think it would be infantilizing to take the choice away from teenagers, though it is important to regulate it as shitty people will take advantage of it.

            • The Barto@sh.itjust.works
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              10 months ago

              Do you think we should send the kids back to the mines?

              Well, I’m not fucking going down there.

            • Soulg@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              First of all, I generally agree with you that child labor such as in the OP is bad.

              That being said, responding to people who had positive experiences with it in their own lives by jumping directly to sending then to the mines is absolutely fucking insane. They are not the same thing.

            • saltesc@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Sometimes I read comments online and initially think they’re sarcastic but then realise the person’s serious and flexing way above their capacity, usually by straw manning. And here’s one of those moments…

              Do you think we should send the kids back to the mines?

              facepalm

              About as much as you think the police should be shutting down lemonade stands.

            • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              I think children should be free to focus on more important things than working.

              “Freedom” to do what you want them to and nothing more, not even to earn it over summer break or learn the value of money.

              Fuck 'em, just wait until they get out of highschool at 18 before they ever even see real money and have no idea how any of it works, who the predators are, and what the risk is.

              • Esqplorer@lemmy.zip
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                10 months ago

                Fuck 'em, just wait until they get out of highschool at 18 before they ever even see real money and have no idea how any of it works, who the predators are, and what the risk is.

                Why is this worse than the literal same thing at a younger age?

              • saltesc@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                They completely missed an entire part of my initial comment that started this tangent.

                Literally, it was all my idea and what I wanted to do.

                “Children should be free to focus on things.”

                12 year old me: “Cool! I want to work at the local fish and chip store and they already said it’s okay, pleeeeease?.”

                “NO!!!”

                • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  This place is insane sometimes. In their heads they’re thinking children being forced into labor, obviously that’s not what we’re talking about here. I had various gigs I did as a kid to earn some extra money, snow shoveling in the winter, mowing in the summer, I’m doing much better financially than my peers. Most of the guys I was in the military with were losing their whole paychecks just days after getting them, never having that much money in their lives. No one ever taught them and they never developed the skills on their own.

                  Say what you will, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with letting a kid work in an entrepreneur kind of fashion or in limited capacity like what you did on weekends, summer break, etc.

                  You can’t raise someone into an adult if you hand them the keys for the first time on their 18th birthday. Most of us learn by doing and it’s best to get the hands on experience.

      • Nath@aussie.zone
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        10 months ago

        I don’t know why, but paper boys (yes we were all boys) were some sort of exception to child labour laws. I was selling newspapers when I was 12-13 for 5c ea.

        The 80s was a wild place.

      • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        That’s all well and good, but the necessity of child labor laws are not for the few who are doing it voluntarily.

      • RecallMadness@lemmy.nz
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        10 months ago

        Amen.

        Got money, bought a PC my parents couldn’t afford, learned to code, got a desk job.

        Taught me life skills too, like dealing with dickhead managers and customers, time keeping, and just general responsibility.

      • heyoni@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        Honestly it’s the uniform for me. It implies so much like maybe that kids gotta punch in with a time card of has their pay docked.

    • Diplomjodler@feddit.de
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      10 months ago

      Yeah this is just going to make them soft. Send the little shits to the miners, like in the good old days!

    • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      You’d be aghast at the ages of kids I had pull pints for me when I lived in Europe, bro.

    • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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      10 months ago

      I’m American and I totally agree. It feels like there are two different countries here, with the red one generally mooching off of the blue one while simultaneously claiming they’re the “real America”. I’m so tired.

    • jimbo@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      There’s hardly anything to defend because there’s nothing here other than a photo with zero confirmed information about what appears in the photo. People are just making baseless assumptions.

      • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        Haha okay dumbarse.

        Go love child labour some more, maybe enough kids b working low wage jobs and you’ll be a successful nation instead of the failure you are now.