This is Culver’s. They’re a burger fast food joint located throughout the Midwest and have things called “Scoopy Night” where a percentage of the proceeds go toward a specific cause. Schools, dance groups, etc can partake and the kids who attend that school/dance group/etc help take orders and deliver food to tables. Not quite as dystopian as OP has made it seem.
when we needed to do fundraisers THE PARENTS IN THE PTA DID IT FOR THE MIDDLE SCHOOLERS.
We had plenty of 'kids' working at fast food and grocery stores but not until 15 minimum. this kid looks like he's 9. that's too young to be fucking around near fryers and hot grills.
No, that's still idiotic. It doesn't matter what the context is of why a child is working at a fast food restaurant. There's a child working at a fast food restaurant. This isn't selling chocolates to raise money for a class hamster.
It’s indicative of a larger effort by republicans to force children back to work, this is part of that dystopia even if it’s on the “light dystopia” side of the spectrum.
Fuck off whiteknight, keep enabling corporate’s ability to normalize and capitalize off of child labor. This ain’t no goddamn bake sale or car wash.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 work itself wasn't important but learning responsibility and the value of money was important.
It was the first time I did anything completely on my own without being directed in some way by a parent, teacher, coach, etc. Without that job and after-school/summer jobs I had when I was older there is a good chance I would have made poor financial decisions in early adulthood.
With 18 year-olds getting credit cards shoved in their face the day they show up for orientation, after probably signing up for student loans, it's probably a good idea for them to have earned money on their own for a while.
I don't understand the people down voting you. Having a job growing up taught me a lot of responsibility and how to manage my own money and act in a professional environment. Invaluable skills that you wouldn't get anywhere else, certainly not school
These jobs you are speaking of--washing cars, mowing lawns, even kids working in their parents' store--do you think that is the same as working for a multinational conglomerate handling food with no breaks and minimum wage?
Learning things a little at a time, when the stakes are low/non-existent is the way to go. From early teens to partway through college when you get an off campus apartment you can learn how to apply for a job, how to interview, responsibility, managing your money, responsible credit use, professionalism, bill paying. All this over the course of years, with a support system when you make mistakes (hopefully).
I guess some people think you should just have all that dropped on you like a ton of bricks the day after you get a diploma.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
And what about those assholes that never wanted to pay? Just pay the kid you cheap ass. I see your cars, your lights are on, I know you're home motherfucker.
I identified so hard with that "I want my two dollars" kid from Better Off Dead.
One of my customers went and died owing me 80c. I just took the loss. But it would have been hilarious to see some young kid chasing the estate for his debt!
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.
I.e. your locally owned mom-and-pop Chinese takeout. I’ve seen the kiddos answer the phones there a couple of times, tho most of the time when picking up food for the wife they’re just playing in a blocked off side area that used to be dining pre-pandemic.
I think many states allow children as young as 12 to work in specific non-dangerous jobs with permission from the parents. A company recently got in trouble when they had like 20 12-15 year olds working in a meat processing plant which definitely did not qualify for the "not dangerous" qualifier.
Yeah, I agree it's fucked up but there's almost no way that kid's under 14, which is the youngest age Culver's will hire at, he's just a late bloomer probably. I think a lot of people would disagree with calling that age group a "literal child."
Assuming the literal meaning of “literal”, a child is, according to the OED, literally:
a young human being below the age of puberty or below the legal age of majority.
I'm not in any way defending child labor in general or Culvers in particular, but factually speaking, a 14-year-old fits between those two definitions (above the age of puberty but below the legal age of majority).
So that's an inclusive "or" in the definition. If EITHER of those criteria are fulfilled, then the definition can be applied. Since the criterion about the age of majority is true then the definition is true.
So conversely, a person above the age of majority who hasn't reached puberty yet (medical condition maybe? Just suspend disbelief for the sake of the argument) is still by definition a child.
I have a 14 year old right now and I’d have zero issues with him getting a job. He’s already been eyeing some places. I know this isn’t what you’re exactly saying, but once they hit puberty they’re a bit different than young kids.
Getting a job as an indulgence because they are interested is fine. Getting a job because their parents are not capable of giving them a dignified lifestyle is downright disgusting and such kids should be rescued. Often greedy parents mask the latter as the former because they are scum.
Getting a job because their parents are not capable of giving them a dignified lifestyle is downright disgusting and such kids should be rescued
I just don't understand this leap to conclusions that every young person is out there working because their parents aren't feeding or clothing them. I grew up with rich friends, middle class friends, and poor friends. Random assortments of all three groups grew up working. The vast majority of the time it to earn money for themselves to buy luxuries. One friend was working to support their family due to a parental situation. There's no way putting that person in the foster care system would have been better. They Graduated with decent grades too.
Don't get too worked up over it. The average Stay-At-Home-Lemmy is completely unable to understand the concept that not everyone's mom and dad will buy them an Xbox and that sometimes teenagers will get jobs to pay for things they want.
I respect that, but your 14 year old is probably quite unusual in that respect. To his credit, of course! Some kids mature faster, and in different areas at different rates. I have a 13 year old and a 16 year old and neither of them would be capable of paid work in my opinion. I love them from the bottom of my heart but they would crumble after a shift at BK
I got my first job in ‘95 when I was 13. This was in a Toronto suburb at a computer shop and it was awesome although only got $5 an hour and had to stay in the back mostly shrink-wrapping a million cd cases. There was a cute 16 year old older girl at the register that I still remember lol.
Didn’t love wearing a large Windows ‘95 box costume and standing at the corner like a hooker though.
Jeeziz. We're about the same age and I was unable to even make a sandwich at that age I think. Mind you, I bet 13 year old you was ecstatic about that 5 dollars an hour in 1995. I hope you've got a picture of yourself in that box for the laughs.
My first job was call centre work at 16. I answered an advert in the local paper. Trying to use a script to swindle old ladies out of their pension for a commission, it was horrifying. I remember thinking "is this what adults do for a living? Cheat each other??" Looking back, I wasn't that far off in a lot of cases I think.
I was laying lines blueberry raking at 14, and doing dishes in a restaurant at 16. I wanted money and it certainly taught me how difficult manual labor is without putting me in any real danger. The worst I got was bread cuts. I'd 100% put my daughter in the same situation when she's older.
I don't think most people would disagree that "teenager" is a more accurate word to describe that age. Trust me, there is plenty fucked up with the OP picture, we don't need to resort to hyperbolic language to get our point across.
It is blatantly the opposite of accurate. When teenager describes both a thirteen year old who hasn't hit puberty and a nineteen year old who could fight and die for their country, it's obviously not an accurate enough term
I don't think most people would disagree that "teenager" is a more accurate word to describe that age. Trust me, there is plenty fucked up with the OP picture, we don't need to resort to hyperbolic language to get our point across.
Its not hyperbolic, 14 is a teenage child. Teenager is not more accurate, because when you say a 'teenage worker' most would assume they were at least in the usually accepted 'young adult' range, 16-19, the image here is of a child worker. If they were 17 or 16 that might be different, though still literally, legally a child.
I enjoyed it. The work was easy and it gave me a sense of purpose and I needed that. It taught me the value of my time, and enabled me to get a car when I turned 16. Some people grow up fast, simply because they have to, or sometimes because they just, do. One size does not fit all.
They do this often at the Culver's near me. It's a fundraiser for school / extracurricular activities. The group works for a few hours and Culver's donates the receipts for that time.
It's better than having them go door to door selling wreaths and shit.
The school is funded already through taxpayers. The fact that "the children are working to fund the school" is an acceptable line of logic is already dystopian.
Traditionally, children do fundraisers to fund extracurricular activities, like a field trip. If the school is taking that money to add to their budget, that's crossing the line into exploiting kids' labor for money.
Where do you live that public schools are properly funded by taxes? American schools are embarrassingly underfunded, and teachers are tragically underpaid and typically have to spend their own money to buy supplies for their students.
The fact that public schools used to be properly funded by taxes and aren't any longer is part of the dystopia. Do you think I'm defending the current system?
I was surprised to find out how much the U.S. actually does spend on education, given how shitty it is. Idk where the money is going, but it's definitely funded
Part of this comes from the fact that most public schools are funded from local property taxes, so naturally wealthier residents have better public schools due to better funding as they naturally pay more in taxes
Most School systems are financially gutted to the bone. It's dark but most red counties school districts are near bankruptcy and blue areas are slightly better off. So expect more of this as public schools try to keep the doors open.
When looking at homes in the more rural areas I noticed that the schools basically shoved all the kids from a good bit around different towns and areas into one. I’d guess to consolidate as much funds as possible in an effective manner, rather than having to pay for more infrastructure that was really needed.
While I would have liked the slower pace….all I could afford out that way were 100 year old farmhouses with very questionable bones. One you could literally walk the dip between the kitchen and living room. Another had electric, propane and fireplaces for the heating in different areas of the home. Had to tell my wife to stop looking at those.
I remember having school assemblies in middle school with some third party fundraising company trying to get us to sell...I don't even remember what as a fundraiser for the entire school. At the time it felt weird and as an adult looking back I find it far more concerning that that's how they made up the budget shortfalls instead of raising property taxes by fraction of a percent
They got mad at her when an item was missing out of a 4-bag $80 order (they unbagged and checked everything there on the counter).
That one seems valid. That person got burned before with the staff not bothering to do their job and were NOT going to short their friend whatever item(s) the staff kept for themselves. Sure, you can say the counter girl didn't do the bagging, but she's the one that the customer is supposed to tell, and it is hard not to be angry when you've paid for stuff and you're getting shorted -- AND there's almost surely another person relying on you to get it right this time. It shouldn't take so much effort to just get the stuff you paid for.
That's true, but I don't know how much of a stink was made. If someone is unbagging everything at the counter, they've probably been burned before, so I can see some reason to take a harsh tone -- enough to show they're tired of the BS. If, instead, they started throwing things and screaming obscenities, yeah, that'd be an overreaction.
... but they WEREN'T doing their job. I've been a counter cashier at a burger joint. Most of the job was getting the order correct and taking in money properly, but I also has to to things like add extra relish packets and see that I was giving them the correct food. That's the job. You give the customer what they ordered. That is the EASY part. The hard part is dealing with the people trying to scam you with bill-switching/wrong-change schemes (though I suspect those are less common as fewer people use cash now).
This kid is way too young to be taking verbal abuse from customers. I remember being 19-but-looked-15 and grown-ass adult customers calling me stupid and useless, and generally speaking to and looking at me like I was a piece of dung stuck to the bottom of their shoe. People who thought I was a literal child behaved this way. Not to mention all the perverts. Kids shouldn’t be working customer service, not in a world where adults have such disgusting behavior.
I'm sorry that this all happened to you. I know this happened in the past, but you deserve a little hug. I hope things are better for you on a day to day basis. ♥
Thanks, that's sweet of you. <3 Things are much better for me now that I'm out of that line of work, so I do my best to stand up to trashy customers on behalf of the people who can't.
Nah, you got the wrong end of the stick, this is an uplifting story - it's a kid working hard to provide for his mum's cancer treatment that in any other developed nation would be covered by taxes. Uplifting. Right? So Uplifting. He doesn't need to be with his mum in her time of need, he should be suckin that capitalist dick.
When I was 13 I was 'encouraged' by my family to get a job. I had no interest. They pulled some strings and I began illegally working (14 was the legal age) for a small family diner. At this time I just wanted to fiddle on my tech as I was very nerdy, but my family didn't want me to "stay in my room all the time," so pointless labour it was.
I did appreciate the liberation I gained from my family, even if I didn't have the knowledge of what to do with it; How to expand upon it. Probably for the best imo. I spent my whole first paycheck on some games that me and my homies would play in the garage and made great memories. If there was a life lesson to be learned during this whole experience, I never understood it at the time. Eventually I was let go from work since no-one taught me how to perform my job duties well enough. That's life, though!
By luck, one of my caring high-school teachers managed to slip-in his own curriculum. He taught a class of ~15 students some important financial skills... how mortgages work... how to create and manage savings... credit building... Bunch of important life stuff that I would consider essential knowledge in our society was an optional course I learned through word-of-mouth/happenstance.
???
why
Meanwhile and my ultimate gripe with this thread and tying this back into a dystopian - I see some people mention they learned valuable life lessons and a bunch of other copium. Witness me and your kin around you. Is the knowledge you gained - the wisdom acquired through action and experience - is it gained through labour? No. I didn't and others didn't either. Can it be taught safely without forcing children with a young developing brain into dangerous work environments? Yes. I gained such wisdom later from the safety and comfort of my school. And we rest on the final point with a question:
How many opportunities in the common layman eye are there for children to receive education on the matter?
If your experience had 1 or more, I'd love for you to share such experiences here as it's eye-opening to those who received and did not receive such privilege. I'm certainly interested! :)
As someone who was pulled out of school at 14 and sent to work rebuilding old houses and breaking my back for $100 a week, education is where it’s at.
Appalachia is a whole different world (especially 25-30 years ago, the internet is changing it though).
The dude I worked for was molesting little girls and using the boys to stand up for him in court later to talk about how great he was. Unfortunately (for him that is) he made some mistakes and didn’t get our support, but boy he tried.
I remember one time he took us to the lake. He said, “I’m psychic, you know. I know things that no one else knows.” I replied, “there’s no such thing. Prove it.” He said, “Ok, when you and Regina sat on the train tracks and you ate her pussy and she sucked your dick. I just seen that in my mind.” He blew my mind in that moment.
I grew up and realized, Regina put my penis in her mouth because someone was teaching her that shit. I put my mouth on her vagina because she instructed me to do it. She did so because someone taught her this stuff. We were 11 and 9.
I know that’s disturbing and I’m sorry.
Kids shouldn’t be handed over to strange adults to work. If I’m not proof of that I don’t know what is.
Legal working age of 15 1/2 (in my state) plus a kid who looks young for their age - may not be the most appealing situation, bit this probably completely above board.
No age restrictions if family owned business, that's a federal law no state can bypass, but I doubt the owner of Culver's needs their kids to work to support the family.
That's a federal law aimed at farm families from back in the day. And farm kids are still helping and working along side Grandpa and Dad. And where I live, in the middle of a forest, they also help and work along side in logging families also.
Growing up on a farm, my earliest memory in life is walking behind a tractor pulling a 'stoneboat' and picking up rocks in the fields along side my father and grandfather. I was driving a tractor pulling wagons and hay trailers by 8 years old and by 12 I was driving trucks hauling grain from the field to storage bins and unloading them. Plus getting up a 5AM to help milk cows every morning and again at 5PM. It was absolutely crucial when my Grandfather got sick with "Farmer's Lung" and couldn't work much anymore. I pretty much started running his farm at 14.
I was at a tim Hortons in Canada. Had this experience seeing a youngin' working, except it literally seemed like the whole staff was this age. It was enough kids to prompt us to ask what the working age was in Canada. The young lady informed us it was 13 or so
"This is a systemic problem. Children should have their needs met without the need for work, and this child working is an obvious symptom of the problem at hand."
"Have you ever considered that I, an individual, worked at a mcdonalds at the age of 15? I used the money to buy a video game. Therefore your argument is invalid."
I saw this on Reddit a while back. This isn't an actual employee, it's the kid of a manager who brought them to work for the day (school was closed or something). The dumbass manager thought it would be cute to dress her kid up and put them on the register, but patrons were rightly weirded out. Culver's corp found out and were pissed - I'm not sure if the manager got fired or not, but this definitely wasn't something Culver's was cool with.
I work in the Media Center of a High School. Some 9th and even a few 10th graders definitely look like they still belong in middle school, some kids mature late. I’d totally believe that there’s a possibility this person is actually at least 14.
I'd argue that kids are not fit for the stress put on people in service positions with customer contact. It's fine if they have a holiday job cutting grass or delivering newspapers or something like that but standing behind a counter taking orders from people that often don't even acknowledge that you're human, too? That's hard enough on adults already - I definitely don't think it's the kind of job for kids.
Also which business is hiring kids to work a couple of weeks during school holidays and then is fine having one less worker again? The time spent on teaching the child what to do and how to handle different situations as well as the paperwork probably takes more time and money than not having the help for a couple of weeks - even less so as you probably have to have another person nearby in case of customers overstepping so I'm not sure this is just some holiday job for the kid to earn pocket money or get job experience
You'd think so, but people can be downright cruel to those they think are 'under' them, and guess what every person working a job that can't get them fired (so no business-to-business contacts) is to them?
I remember working in a customer facing role when I was a teen, and occasionally had to tell people the place was closed due to weather. They would accuse me of being everything under the sun and personally on a vendetta to make their lives miserable... and there was nothing I could do about it aside from calling the police if they actually started making threats.
I've always been about kids getting out there early and getting a taste of working, but these days feel different. I wouldn't want to go back into customer service now and I've got experience and age to back be up in dealing with customers.
I do think that people who cause the disruptive behavior that I'm referring to should be required to serve time doing those jobs, as I think part of their entitlement is ignorance of what's it's like behind the counter.
I mean service jobs are never great, but most of my jobs from 14 through early adulthood were all service and they weren't that bad.
You encounter plenty of rude and unpleasant people, but you just get on with it. It's not traumatic for the vast majority of people. Learning to handle people like that is a good skill to have.
I totally agree that people would be better to each other if everyone had so service job experience.
Waiting tables at the tail end of high school and throughout college really boosted my intrapersonal skills. I have no problem interacting with most anyone and can usually pick up on cues that go beyond what the person is saying. I work in engineering at a fortune 500 now it's really amusing how bad a decent swath of employees are at getting their point across, understanding what someone else is trying to tell them, and reading the room.
That said, I had a stint in retail. Waiting tables was more stress, but the people were generally quite a bit nicer.
I've seen some very small statured people working in big chains here. I don't think Maccas and their ilk would be taking the risk of illegally employing children, at least not in countries like Australia.
Also, if this is a young child, is it not a bit wrong to be sharing their image around like this?..
If they start working young, how are they gonna learn to play guitar so they can play at the subway terminals when the socialism takes over and we all get our ubi?
That's because it's Culvers. Jokes on ya'll, their recruiting literature make it clear that workers are family. As long as they're not employees it's all good!
I remember reading about that. There's actually a woman who looks perpetually 8, but is in her 20's and she was talking about how hard it is for her to find dates because any man she tried to go out with was either actually a pedo, or afraid of being seen as a pedo. I actually kinda feel bad for her, but I also understand how it would be hard for other guys, myself included, to see her as a fully functioning adult.
Thirteen year olds working in the Netherlands don't qualify for minimum wage- "13: (The minimum age of employment under the supervision and with no guarantee of a minimum wage.)".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_working_age
I worked at an Arcade/Restaurant when I was 13 for 25-30 hours a week. It was absolutely a positive experience for me and it's a shame to see so many people here crucify the idea of any child working at that age. Y'all haven't the slightest idea whats the motivation and just assume they are being forced into it or something. Having a job so young built character and showed me that I was able to get the things I wanted in life if I put in the 'hard' work. Nobody forced me to work those hours, I wanted to! Props to Culver's for providing the opportunity to kids.
Yup. I was picking up lawn mowing accounts when I was 12-13, and it was the best feeling in the world buying myself the jeep that I wanted two weeks before I turned 16.
Aye you're right I should have specified. 25-30 hours a week was only during the summer months. During the school year it was 10-20 hours, and mostly on weekends. The US has strict laws on what children of that age can work during school days.
For one, we have no idea if it's completely unrelated. We don't know any of the context here just from the picture. This could very well be a summer job. We don't know.
Also, nonce is a really weird insult. Are you meaning to call them an idiot, or a pedo? If the former, sure, but if the latter, that's really weird.
I agree 100% but working fast food is very different than an after school work opportunity, come on now.
I never got an allowance and worked after school jobs alt the elementary/hs/uni but that is a far cry from what some of the child laborers are starting to do here in the US.
Normalizing this sort of thing is problematic, it’s not about the kid working for money it’s about the setting and expectations of both the employees and the customers. They should be focused on education and being a kid, but they can’t do that when they spend their afternoons at the factory
I had my own computer and car before I turned 18, and it felt empowering to have accomplished this on my own. You and I have drastically different views on what's exploitative. Full stop.
Child labor laws weren't meant to protect someone like you, they're meant to stop folks from sending their kids to work to pay their rent/mortgage/power/water. Kids should know that paying their parents bills is not ideal, and child labor laws are how we protect them. Without revealing too much about myself, my dad was one of [large number] of children, and they absolutely used those kids for labor at the family farm and were worse off for it. They grew up in poverty (on top of the physical abuse). Basically, these laws aren't supposed to stop young Timmy from buying a [insert gadget here], they're to stop Mom from pulling him out of school for an extra shift because she overdrew her bank account.
There's no way that kid is 13, by the way. Far too young for working the register at Culver's. At least they don't have him at the deep fryer. If the other comment I see in this thread is to be believed (the one that says this is a Manager's child and school was closed), it's probably not as nefarious as it seems. Republican states have been in the news fighting against child labor laws though, people are rightly outraged about that.
The kid in the picture looks under 13. We all thought he's not high school, lol.
I'm not American but i saw a South Park episode poking fun of children working, as those older refuse to work under bad pay and toxic working condition as the result of pandemic. Is there any truth to this despite the satire?
15 year old kids are probably capable of cashier work so long as they aren't overworked and it doesn't get in the way of school. It is not particularly dangerous like certain factory jobs could be, and is legal in most cases if the child has a parent's permission.
The child in the photo does not look like he is 15 years old though, probably closer to 10-11 which generally is too young to be working.
Ive been working since I was 15 to support my family. This is a problem with a late stage capitalist society. Your complaining about something that alleviates this problem. Obviously its not a good thing for a child to need to work to support their household, but the solution is sure as hell not to stop them from being able to eat at all.
Kid in old age, probably: "Yeah, I was working in the Salt Mines at 11. Then they petered out, so I got me a job at the Pepper Mill.
By the time I retired, I was first shift at the Olive Garden, doling out shredded cheese like a fiend. Yessir! Them was the days!"
No one is attacking the child, but the fact that children have to work. If children have to do anything, that's to learn and to have fun. I'm sorry about what you had to go through, but saying that such a situation is wrong is actually attacking the system, not criticizing the people choosing the lesser evils available to them.
You can attack the system and while you do that, there are people under 18 years old who are just trying to provide for themselves or their dependents and need a job now.
They have adult responsibilities before the age of 18. A lot of the commenters outright refuse to believe that these legal minors could have possibly matured earlier than the law expects, but that really does happen and it really is socially irresponsible to ignore their struggle.
Most commenters are essentially holding this series of positions based on a photo that is out of context:
Why does this kid have a job?
The system is bad.
Why is the system bad?
Some kids have jobs.
How can we stop kids from working?
We should outlaw jobs for kids.
But that series of positions critically fails to account for exceptions where kids become competent before the age of 18, need jobs and want to work.
It ignores that, in reality, many minors have kids of their own or other dependents that they are struggling to support and it does not provide any plan for them, it makes their situation worse while you fight the system.
That is inhumane public policy. Like many areas of law, this is a complicated issue, and we are going to harm people in our communities if we jump to strict authoritarian control for an answer.
This comment deserves an award. Mods should pin it to the top of the thread, because the majority of comments are totally divorced from their neighbors' struggle to survive in our imperfect economy.
I don't get why you're downvoted. The French would have brought out the guilotines by now. The threshold for warranting violence has LONG been crossed by European standards
Not sure where you're getting your info, but 14 year olds can legally work (with some restrictions) in France. Some EU countries have a minimum age of 13. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_working_age
I was stoked to have a job when I was 14 making smoothies. Legally I could only do 7 hours a week and I enjoyed it. It helped me learn about scheduling and being on time, and I saved up enough money to buy my own Xbox. People in this thread are idiots.
If there's reasonable legal maximum hours and legal minimum age then sure, otherwise it's just opening the door to child labour and that's a real problem that exists even in first world countries.
Yeah, minimum age in the US (most states) is 14 yrs old. I wanted a job so bad when I was a kid. I grew up super poor so I never had an allowance. I got a job as soon as a could and I could buy my own things.
My own kid also got a job early, I told them they didn't have to but they wanted to earn their own money (I was super proud of the reason). They worked for a few years, took a year or so off, then after graduating high school, bought their own car. I'm actually so proud of my kid. Kind of a smart ass sometimes but like... That's because they're me too. So like.. 🤙
I started working at 15. The owner/manager of my first job would give the 15-17 year-old girls he hired drugs in exchange for sexual favors. Also had us work past legal hours and all the other normal exploitative shit people should expect.
Second job I had also had pedo managers. Asking us questions like, "what was the craziest places you had sex at?" during group orientation. I also had to dispute the hours I was paid for on nearly every paycheck I got.
I'm guessing experiences like this aren't universal, but the fact that my first 2 jobs as a child were very exploitative, it's probably not uncommon.
I think scheduling and being on time could be picked up quickly by adults.
I started at 15. First thing I purchased was a PS1 and Chrono Cross. I felt like I had everything. After that it became a steady stream of gas money and tossing in $10-$20 bucks with other friends to get some weed. I miss the easy days...
When was this taken? If it's a Holiday/weekend/afterschool Job, i don't see any problem with that. Also did a lot of them to scrounge up the Money for my PC
Also weird as fuck to be sneaking photos of children like this.
EDIT: I am ABSOLUTELY not defending child labor like this. It's all kinds of messed up. But it's also not an excuse to photograph children, and put their image online without their consent.
Nobody s documenting anything with that photo. It's an out-of-context snapshot. Could be anything.
Part of a make a wish with a cancer patient. A school thing to experience five minutes of adulthood. A prank. Staged. You name it. What exactly is documented here?
So yeah, just posting some picture is weird as fuck.
I don't see how this was since one doesn't see children working at Culver's. OP wasn't aware that it was part of a fundraiser for some school thing... So now it's weird. They probably had signs up and OP missed it.
If this was a playground or doing normal childhood activities, then yeah, but this is a fucking Culver's (I think)... This is not normal.
Are we supposed to take OP at their word or something? "Guys there's a kid working fast food! I would have taken a picture but it would have been weird. My Canadian girlfriend who was in town that you all have never met urged me not to!"
You take photos of extraordinary sights. I'm sure the shitheads who have allowed this to happen would agree with you since they want to normalize it.
I'm hoping there's a legitimate, innocent reason for this.
There was an innocent reason apparently, from the now top comment:
"This is Culver’s. They’re a burger fast food joint located throughout the Midwest and have things called “Scoopy Night” where a percentage of the proceeds go toward a specific cause. Schools, dance groups, etc can partake and the kids who attend that school/dance group/etc help take orders and deliver food to tables. Not quite as dystopian as OP has made it seem."
Oh my fucking god it's a kid working behind a register in full work clothes, in broad daylight, surrounded by people. There is absolutely nothing about this that suggests predatory behavior except possibly some Capitalist tossing on a shiny wrapper for a reason this happens at all. Which, btw, this image circulates periodically. You can find explanations even in this comment thread.
Yeah this is so much worse than 5yo kids working in coal mines a hundred years ago.
Sure its not exactly ideal, but if this is a kid whose parents own the franchise and he is legally working and being paid at the family business its better than him being left at home on the xbox.
This is a pretty funny image because the kid looks like they're 8 and in full uniform, but there's no way to know their age from this picture. They could be like 14, and a part time job at that age (or a bit younger) isn't weird.
What's weird and, frankly, extremely fucked up is some internet weirdo taking creepshots of a minor and posting it on Lemmy. What the fuck is wrong with you, OP? How would you feel if someone was posting pics like this of your kid on the internet?
Hmm. Maybe minors shouldn’t be working in that type of role if they can’t be photographed at work then? It’s a job in a business that serves the public, photography has to be assumed.
I am getting downvoted in another thread for pointing out that in Canada it's illegal to identify minors taking part in, or convicted of a crime. So I am not pro-nazi, just that we view those children as victims as well. People get weird about this stuff.
I'm not saying it's illegal, just that it's fucking creepy to take pictures of children like that. I know Lemmy is full of old weirdos, but this is just gross.
People offended just by looking at this picture out of context should really try explaining their preferred authoritarian social policy to a teenager who wants a part-time job but for whom some people would forbid them by penalty of the law.
Spoiler: They won't understand why you should have any authority over their body and time.
I don't understand why you should have that authority either. I mean, where does it end?
What are your criteria for exceptions? Shouldn't it be between the kid and their parents, and not you?
Are you imagining there is a parental figure with a bull whip for this kid in the back office and you want to outlaw physical abuse? There are already separate laws for that!
Children should not be working. We have piles of dead children that died in the past for the profits of capitalists, and it took millions of maimed children marching to DC led by Mother Jones for anything to be done about child labor. I highly doubt that there's anyone, let alone children, that want to be in the coercive environment we call work. If you want to say protecting children from the dangers of a capitalist workplace is authoritarian, then so be it. I don't want to see children in a workplace where they will be exploited by everyone above them.
I started working at age 13 back in 1980 because I wanted money to buy GI Joes, and comic books. So I started going to construction jobs with my shithead father on Saturdays and helped him put up sheetrock. My first legitimate job was the summer I turned 15, I was big for my age so I started doing deliveries for a furniture store, worked there for two summers until I was fired after a workplace injury. The guy I worked with was a racist Italian from Whitestone New York, and I was a smart slightly autistic black kid. His delivery truck only had one seat so I stood in the open door on the right side holding on for dear life. One day we were moving a heavy office desk upstairs and I was bringing up the rear, he lost control which resulted in the desk sliding downstairs and slamming me into a wall. My ribs were badly bruised so after I got home the store panicked and fired me, they probably thought we were going to sue. Anyway I went into a deep depression and couldn't leave my room for a month. One of my therapists later told me that it was the first appearance of my bipolar disorder.
I was legally employable, and of age but still got hurt on the job. I just had shithead employers.
It's cute that you think I'm talking about murder. Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Children in mines and mills. Children in factories. Children on farms. Children in retail. These are all areas of labor that have killed, maimed, and injured children. These kids were never murdered, they were hurt and killed in accidents that occurred because they were too young to handle the conditions of labor that was demanded of them. Fuck you for advocating for children to return to that type of labor.
Why tf should a kid want to work? Why would you want a society to normalize a 14-year-old hustling and working after school? It's not authoritarian to protect children from parasitic businesses. Child-labor is illegal because at that stage a person has less emotional intelligence and rationality, they can more easily be taken advantage of and overworked, and won't understand their rights as a worker as well. You can't even sign a contract at 14 without a parent or guardian and you want them to be able to act at the whim of fast food managers?
Your argument is hardly one step away from the argument I see people trot out when defending child marriage.
This is the first time I've encountered such extreme and immovable opinions on Lemmy. It's wild to me that people who are (presumably) trying to support social justice for minors cannot even acknowledge that teenagers sometimes need and would prefer to work - that it's a separate issue from child abuse and strict authoritarian prohibition over their labor is itself abusive.
Don't people understand that a 17 year old can have a baby and need a job?
They won't even entertain the possibility and defend an actual policy position. It's devoid of social responsibility.
If they are genuinely socialist or communist, then how can they defend stripping 14-18 year olds of their natural right to profit from their own labor? It's just as bad as a capitalist exploiting that labor with unlivable wages - they are essentially condemning these people to $0 in wages and total state dependence.
As others have pointed out, those laws have important exceptions to account for kids who want to work, and that is the question I am asking all of the knee-jerk authoritarians:
What is the actual policy position they support? What are the exceptions they support or are they completely authoritarian about this issue? (I think a strict rule prohibiting all people under 18 from ever earning a living is a pretty embarrassing position to defend.)
What are emancipated teenagers supposed to do? Should they live 100% at the mercy of state programs and not improve their living standards beyond the meager social welfare they are afforded until they turn exactly 18 years old? Really? Not even a day sooner, even if they are ready and qualified to work?
That would be completely inhumane. Certainly it's depriving them of their bodily freedom and natural ability to extract capital value from their own labor.
So where is the line? 13? 14? I think somewhere in there is reasonable. Perhaps a test could determine their capacity to participate in their own economic fate? Or an evaluation by a social worker? I could go for something like that.
What if they are NOT emancipated and their parent is supervising them? Should the age minimum be higher then? 17? 18? I do not think so.
I think it's only logical that the age minimum should actually be lower if a parent is directly supervising - their physical and economic risk is lower if the parent is looking out for their best interests. This of course presumes that the parent is not physically or mentally/emotionally abusing the kid(again, separate laws exist for the abuse component and most parents don't abuse their kids).
The wall is usually 14-ish with limitations on what you can do and how many hours you can work.
We have to limit it otherwise adults will take advantage of the fact that children don’t know what they’re doing.
Yes, some of them might be smart enough, but a lot of them aren’t, and it’s better to protect the majority and work on irregular cases on their own merits.
Part of becoming an emancipated minor is showing that you have the means to care for yourself to a judge, otherwise you’re not allowed to become emancipated
What if a teen really really wanted to date an adult.
They're a child, no one cares what they "understand" because their capacity to understand is literally crippled. Their brains aren't developed yet.
It sounds like you are equating any job to getting sexually abused or raped.
That is "like... Yuck".
It's an irrelevant comparison because the work itself is not abuse. There are other laws that protect kids from being abused, if they are being abused to force them to work(or for any other purpose).
If you don't care what people under 18 think, you should reflect on how selfish and closed-minded that sounds to me and especially to the real human people you are proposing to lose their ability to work.
Do you really think there is a major difference between the brain of a 17 year old the day before their 18th birthday and the day after? There is no significant difference at all.
So, my question is, where do you draw the line for a person under 18 whose quality of life might depend on working? Should they just have that freedom stripped because you don't care what they think?
Even if they are on their own? Or supporting a dependent, like their own baby? Really? If you are that authoritarian about this, I hope you forget to vote on it.
The yuck part is that children under 18 are legally defined as not having full reasoning and consent capabilities.
So, I wasn't saying all work is rape, that's silly and foolish to think.
I'm saying your assertion that teens should have adult independence to make adult choices without laws and support is yuck.
"They don't understand" is literally my point. They CANT
If you're saying teens can consent in the same way adults can, that is yuck. And that is wrong. (For clarity, you need to consent to a working relationship for it to be healthy.)
It sounds like you are using a legal framework from medical treatment of minors. If I have that right, then you should know that there is an exception for emancipated people under 18 years of age.
Would you support the same exception for work, now that you know this or perhaps you would also eliminate this exception for them to control their own bodies in a medical context?
Court-ordered emancipation. A child under the age of 18 who lives independently without the support of parents and makes his or her own day-to-day decisions may petition the court for emancipation. If granted, the minor will have the same legal rights as an adult, including the right to consent to (and refuse) medical treatment.
This is Culver’s. They’re a burger fast food joint located throughout the Midwest and have things called “Scoopy Night” where a percentage of the proceeds go toward a specific cause. Schools, dance groups, etc can partake and the kids who attend that school/dance group/etc help take orders and deliver food to tables. Not quite as dystopian as OP has made it seem.
Honestly... the idea that they do this work, and the money goes to a school instead of them, makes it even worse to me?
"Child labor is ok if the money goes to a school!"
Are the kids required to work in order to get the money? Because that sounds like a job with good PR.
when we needed to do fundraisers THE PARENTS IN THE PTA DID IT FOR THE MIDDLE SCHOOLERS.
We had plenty of 'kids' working at fast food and grocery stores but not until 15 minimum. this kid looks like he's 9. that's too young to be fucking around near fryers and hot grills.
Children do work at McDonald’s though
Just they would keep them in the back so they can’t be seen
In this thread, a bunch of people that have never heard of doing a fundraiser.
Whoa whoa whoa, how dare you provide context! I want to be rage baited into thinking America Bad!
No, that's still idiotic. It doesn't matter what the context is of why a child is working at a fast food restaurant. There's a child working at a fast food restaurant. This isn't selling chocolates to raise money for a class hamster.
It’s indicative of a larger effort by republicans to force children back to work, this is part of that dystopia even if it’s on the “light dystopia” side of the spectrum.
Fuck off whiteknight, keep enabling corporate’s ability to normalize and capitalize off of child labor. This ain’t no goddamn bake sale or car wash.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/04/18/child-labor-returns/
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immigration-hyundai/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html
Keep downvoting, bootlickers
"no, no, its not bad! The child worker is working for charity!"
Oh nice, so its worse
So many Americans in here defending this, get a clue you idiots.
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.
Cool story mate!
Lots of people are fine with bad things they grew up with because it didn’t personally affect them.
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?
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?
They wouldn’t call them minors if they didn’t like it.
Based and perfect-response-pilled
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.
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
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.
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.
If by wasted days you mean cherished childhood memories then sure
I had a paper route when I was 12.
The work itself wasn't important but learning responsibility and the value of money was important.
It was the first time I did anything completely on my own without being directed in some way by a parent, teacher, coach, etc. Without that job and after-school/summer jobs I had when I was older there is a good chance I would have made poor financial decisions in early adulthood.
With 18 year-olds getting credit cards shoved in their face the day they show up for orientation, after probably signing up for student loans, it's probably a good idea for them to have earned money on their own for a while.
I don't understand the people down voting you. Having a job growing up taught me a lot of responsibility and how to manage my own money and act in a professional environment. Invaluable skills that you wouldn't get anywhere else, certainly not school
You can learn valuable skills like how to replace the roof of a house.
These jobs you are speaking of--washing cars, mowing lawns, even kids working in their parents' store--do you think that is the same as working for a multinational conglomerate handling food with no breaks and minimum wage?
Right?
Learning things a little at a time, when the stakes are low/non-existent is the way to go. From early teens to partway through college when you get an off campus apartment you can learn how to apply for a job, how to interview, responsibility, managing your money, responsible credit use, professionalism, bill paying. All this over the course of years, with a support system when you make mistakes (hopefully).
I guess some people think you should just have all that dropped on you like a ton of bricks the day after you get a diploma.
Well, I'm not fucking going down there.
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.
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...
facepalm
About as much as you think the police should be shutting down lemonade stands.
"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.
Why is this worse than the literal same thing at a younger age?
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!!!!"
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.
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.
And what about those assholes that never wanted to pay? Just pay the kid you cheap ass. I see your cars, your lights are on, I know you're home motherfucker.
I identified so hard with that "I want my two dollars" kid from Better Off Dead.
One of my customers went and died owing me 80c. I just took the loss. But it would have been hilarious to see some young kid chasing the estate for his debt!
That’s all well and good, but the necessity of child labor laws are not for the few who are doing it voluntarily.
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.
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.
Yeah this is just going to make them soft. Send the little shits to the miners, like in the good old days!
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.
You’d be aghast at the ages of kids I had pull pints for me when I lived in Europe, bro.
No way to downvote your stupid ass enough.
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.
No, only people from the USA.
Name and shame which Culver's it is.
you can work for your parents in many places regardless of age
I.e. your locally owned mom-and-pop Chinese takeout. I’ve seen the kiddos answer the phones there a couple of times, tho most of the time when picking up food for the wife they’re just playing in a blocked off side area that used to be dining pre-pandemic.
I think many states allow children as young as 12 to work in specific non-dangerous jobs with permission from the parents. A company recently got in trouble when they had like 20 12-15 year olds working in a meat processing plant which definitely did not qualify for the "not dangerous" qualifier.
Yeah, I agree it's fucked up but there's almost no way that kid's under 14, which is the youngest age Culver's will hire at, he's just a late bloomer probably. I think a lot of people would disagree with calling that age group a "literal child."
A lot of people wouldn't call a fourteen-year-old a child? Which people? I don't know of any.
Assuming the literal meaning of "literal", a child is, according to the OED, literally:
Can you explain how the pictured human being does not fit the description above?
R Kelly has entered the chat.
Those people might say, back in my days I fought wars even though we know better.
I'm not in any way defending child labor in general or Culvers in particular, but factually speaking, a 14-year-old fits between those two definitions (above the age of puberty but below the legal age of majority).
So that's an inclusive "or" in the definition. If EITHER of those criteria are fulfilled, then the definition can be applied. Since the criterion about the age of majority is true then the definition is true.
So conversely, a person above the age of majority who hasn't reached puberty yet (medical condition maybe? Just suspend disbelief for the sake of the argument) is still by definition a child.
Could be a Shawna Rae thing
I have a 14 year old right now and I’d have zero issues with him getting a job. He’s already been eyeing some places. I know this isn’t what you’re exactly saying, but once they hit puberty they’re a bit different than young kids.
Getting a job as an indulgence because they are interested is fine. Getting a job because their parents are not capable of giving them a dignified lifestyle is downright disgusting and such kids should be rescued. Often greedy parents mask the latter as the former because they are scum.
I just don't understand this leap to conclusions that every young person is out there working because their parents aren't feeding or clothing them. I grew up with rich friends, middle class friends, and poor friends. Random assortments of all three groups grew up working. The vast majority of the time it to earn money for themselves to buy luxuries. One friend was working to support their family due to a parental situation. There's no way putting that person in the foster care system would have been better. They Graduated with decent grades too.
Don't get too worked up over it. The average Stay-At-Home-Lemmy is completely unable to understand the concept that not everyone's mom and dad will buy them an Xbox and that sometimes teenagers will get jobs to pay for things they want.
I respect that, but your 14 year old is probably quite unusual in that respect. To his credit, of course! Some kids mature faster, and in different areas at different rates. I have a 13 year old and a 16 year old and neither of them would be capable of paid work in my opinion. I love them from the bottom of my heart but they would crumble after a shift at BK
I got my first job in ‘95 when I was 13. This was in a Toronto suburb at a computer shop and it was awesome although only got $5 an hour and had to stay in the back mostly shrink-wrapping a million cd cases. There was a cute 16 year old older girl at the register that I still remember lol.
Didn’t love wearing a large Windows ‘95 box costume and standing at the corner like a hooker though.
Jeeziz. We're about the same age and I was unable to even make a sandwich at that age I think. Mind you, I bet 13 year old you was ecstatic about that 5 dollars an hour in 1995. I hope you've got a picture of yourself in that box for the laughs.
My first job was call centre work at 16. I answered an advert in the local paper. Trying to use a script to swindle old ladies out of their pension for a commission, it was horrifying. I remember thinking "is this what adults do for a living? Cheat each other??" Looking back, I wasn't that far off in a lot of cases I think.
I was laying lines blueberry raking at 14, and doing dishes in a restaurant at 16. I wanted money and it certainly taught me how difficult manual labor is without putting me in any real danger. The worst I got was bread cuts. I'd 100% put my daughter in the same situation when she's older.
It's really good life experience I think. I don't want my kids missing out on it either.
From my reply to the other comment:
It is blatantly the opposite of accurate. When teenager describes both a thirteen year old who hasn't hit puberty and a nineteen year old who could fight and die for their country, it's obviously not an accurate enough term
14 and a bit is literally a child
Fourteen.
I don't think most people would disagree that "teenager" is a more accurate word to describe that age. Trust me, there is plenty fucked up with the OP picture, we don't need to resort to hyperbolic language to get our point across.
Its not hyperbolic, 14 is a teenage child. Teenager is not more accurate, because when you say a 'teenage worker' most would assume they were at least in the usually accepted 'young adult' range, 16-19, the image here is of a child worker. If they were 17 or 16 that might be different, though still literally, legally a child.
I agree with you and Priests and Republicans that 14 isn't a Child. 😉
You're getting a lot of down votes, but you're spot on. I started working fast food at 14, and I looked like I was 9.
And you should have been given pocket money and sent to the playground.
I enjoyed it. The work was easy and it gave me a sense of purpose and I needed that. It taught me the value of my time, and enabled me to get a car when I turned 16. Some people grow up fast, simply because they have to, or sometimes because they just, do. One size does not fit all.
They do this often at the Culver's near me. It's a fundraiser for school / extracurricular activities. The group works for a few hours and Culver's donates the receipts for that time.
It's better than having them go door to door selling wreaths and shit.
Somehow that made it even more dystopian. The school system is in on it
The children are working to fund the school.
Nuf said?
The school is funded already through taxpayers. The fact that "the children are working to fund the school" is an acceptable line of logic is already dystopian.
Traditionally, children do fundraisers to fund extracurricular activities, like a field trip. If the school is taking that money to add to their budget, that's crossing the line into exploiting kids' labor for money.
Where do you live that public schools are properly funded by taxes? American schools are embarrassingly underfunded, and teachers are tragically underpaid and typically have to spend their own money to buy supplies for their students.
The fact that public schools used to be properly funded by taxes and aren't any longer is part of the dystopia. Do you think I'm defending the current system?
https://usafacts.org/topics/education/
I was surprised to find out how much the U.S. actually does spend on education, given how shitty it is. Idk where the money is going, but it's definitely funded
I'm not sure if I'm reading the data wrong or what, but that usafacts.org says 35% of people 25 or older have at least a bachelors degree. When I checked the census data, it says only 27.4% have that... https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2021.S1501?q=EDUCATIONAL%20ATTAINMENT&g=010XX00US$0400000&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S1501
Link doesn't work for me, but I'll look it up
The US spends the second most per student in the world.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/education-spending-highest-school-brazil-chile-italy-mexico/
Part of this comes from the fact that most public schools are funded from local property taxes, so naturally wealthier residents have better public schools due to better funding as they naturally pay more in taxes
Imagine if they spent anything on teachers
Most School systems are financially gutted to the bone. It's dark but most red counties school districts are near bankruptcy and blue areas are slightly better off. So expect more of this as public schools try to keep the doors open.
When looking at homes in the more rural areas I noticed that the schools basically shoved all the kids from a good bit around different towns and areas into one. I’d guess to consolidate as much funds as possible in an effective manner, rather than having to pay for more infrastructure that was really needed.
While I would have liked the slower pace….all I could afford out that way were 100 year old farmhouses with very questionable bones. One you could literally walk the dip between the kitchen and living room. Another had electric, propane and fireplaces for the heating in different areas of the home. Had to tell my wife to stop looking at those.
I remember having school assemblies in middle school with some third party fundraising company trying to get us to sell...I don't even remember what as a fundraiser for the entire school. At the time it felt weird and as an adult looking back I find it far more concerning that that's how they made up the budget shortfalls instead of raising property taxes by fraction of a percent
This made it worse for me
That one seems valid. That person got burned before with the staff not bothering to do their job and were NOT going to short their friend whatever item(s) the staff kept for themselves. Sure, you can say the counter girl didn't do the bagging, but she's the one that the customer is supposed to tell, and it is hard not to be angry when you've paid for stuff and you're getting shorted -- AND there's almost surely another person relying on you to get it right this time. It shouldn't take so much effort to just get the stuff you paid for.
But you can nicely check your items and say "ope looks like one of the fries got missed" and not make a big stink about it
That's true, but I don't know how much of a stink was made. If someone is unbagging everything at the counter, they've probably been burned before, so I can see some reason to take a harsh tone -- enough to show they're tired of the BS. If, instead, they started throwing things and screaming obscenities, yeah, that'd be an overreaction.
Be Polite and don't come back. That's my rule of thumb.
Meanwhile on the other side of the coin, people have literally been shot and killed for having an extra item in their bag that they didn't pay for.
... but they WEREN'T doing their job. I've been a counter cashier at a burger joint. Most of the job was getting the order correct and taking in money properly, but I also has to to things like add extra relish packets and see that I was giving them the correct food. That's the job. You give the customer what they ordered. That is the EASY part. The hard part is dealing with the people trying to scam you with bill-switching/wrong-change schemes (though I suspect those are less common as fewer people use cash now).
This kid is way too young to be taking verbal abuse from customers. I remember being 19-but-looked-15 and grown-ass adult customers calling me stupid and useless, and generally speaking to and looking at me like I was a piece of dung stuck to the bottom of their shoe. People who thought I was a literal child behaved this way. Not to mention all the perverts. Kids shouldn’t be working customer service, not in a world where adults have such disgusting behavior.
I'm sorry that this all happened to you. I know this happened in the past, but you deserve a little hug. I hope things are better for you on a day to day basis. ♥
Thanks, that's sweet of you. <3 Things are much better for me now that I'm out of that line of work, so I do my best to stand up to trashy customers on behalf of the people who can't.
Fuckin same. Honestly no age is old enough to take shit working at fuckin Office Depot.
Nah, you got the wrong end of the stick, this is an uplifting story - it's a kid working hard to provide for his mum's cancer treatment that in any other developed nation would be covered by taxes. Uplifting. Right? So Uplifting. He doesn't need to be with his mum in her time of need, he should be suckin that capitalist dick.
The orphan crushing machine is at it again!
Is there a orphancrushingmachine community yet?
I'm unsure I haven't looked for it yet.
“We made this shitty thing legal, so you can’t disagree with it. Checkmate athieists”
ps5 wont buy itself keep hustlin
Rise and grind and watch spongebob
gotta work hard to play hard fr fr
When I was 13 I was 'encouraged' by my family to get a job. I had no interest. They pulled some strings and I began illegally working (14 was the legal age) for a small family diner. At this time I just wanted to fiddle on my tech as I was very nerdy, but my family didn't want me to "stay in my room all the time," so pointless labour it was.
I did appreciate the liberation I gained from my family, even if I didn't have the knowledge of what to do with it; How to expand upon it. Probably for the best imo. I spent my whole first paycheck on some games that me and my homies would play in the garage and made great memories. If there was a life lesson to be learned during this whole experience, I never understood it at the time. Eventually I was let go from work since no-one taught me how to perform my job duties well enough. That's life, though!
By luck, one of my caring high-school teachers managed to slip-in his own curriculum. He taught a class of ~15 students some important financial skills... how mortgages work... how to create and manage savings... credit building... Bunch of important life stuff that I would consider essential knowledge in our society was an optional course I learned through word-of-mouth/happenstance.
???
why
Meanwhile and my ultimate gripe with this thread and tying this back into a dystopian - I see some people mention they learned valuable life lessons and a bunch of other copium. Witness me and your kin around you. Is the knowledge you gained - the wisdom acquired through action and experience - is it gained through labour? No. I didn't and others didn't either. Can it be taught safely without forcing children with a young developing brain into dangerous work environments? Yes. I gained such wisdom later from the safety and comfort of my school. And we rest on the final point with a question:
How many opportunities in the common layman eye are there for children to receive education on the matter?
If your experience had 1 or more, I'd love for you to share such experiences here as it's eye-opening to those who received and did not receive such privilege. I'm certainly interested! :)
As someone who was pulled out of school at 14 and sent to work rebuilding old houses and breaking my back for $100 a week, education is where it’s at.
Appalachia is a whole different world (especially 25-30 years ago, the internet is changing it though).
The dude I worked for was molesting little girls and using the boys to stand up for him in court later to talk about how great he was. Unfortunately (for him that is) he made some mistakes and didn’t get our support, but boy he tried.
I remember one time he took us to the lake. He said, “I’m psychic, you know. I know things that no one else knows.” I replied, “there’s no such thing. Prove it.” He said, “Ok, when you and Regina sat on the train tracks and you ate her pussy and she sucked your dick. I just seen that in my mind.” He blew my mind in that moment.
I grew up and realized, Regina put my penis in her mouth because someone was teaching her that shit. I put my mouth on her vagina because she instructed me to do it. She did so because someone taught her this stuff. We were 11 and 9.
I know that’s disturbing and I’m sorry.
Kids shouldn’t be handed over to strange adults to work. If I’m not proof of that I don’t know what is.
Holy shit, man, you okay?
Oh yeah. Life is great these days bud. Thank you for asking.
I'm just gonna say if they got me building houses for a day or two each week, I would've loved that shit and might've stayed in school.
The rest of the story is beyond me.
How old are you now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Omens?useskin=vector
Martin Sheen!?
That's President Kennedy, you idiot!
Well same difference! He played Kennedy once!
The children yearn for the fast food jobs, Overcooked and Roblox games have proven that.
Legal working age of 15 1/2 (in my state) plus a kid who looks young for their age - may not be the most appealing situation, bit this probably completely above board.
No age restrictions if family owned business, that's a federal law no state can bypass, but I doubt the owner of Culver's needs their kids to work to support the family.
I'm assuming it is the franchise owner's kid. Not the owner of Culver's.
I mean still...
That's a federal law aimed at farm families from back in the day. And farm kids are still helping and working along side Grandpa and Dad. And where I live, in the middle of a forest, they also help and work along side in logging families also.
Growing up on a farm, my earliest memory in life is walking behind a tractor pulling a 'stoneboat' and picking up rocks in the fields along side my father and grandfather. I was driving a tractor pulling wagons and hay trailers by 8 years old and by 12 I was driving trucks hauling grain from the field to storage bins and unloading them. Plus getting up a 5AM to help milk cows every morning and again at 5PM. It was absolutely crucial when my Grandfather got sick with "Farmer's Lung" and couldn't work much anymore. I pretty much started running his farm at 14.
So they should just make the legal working age 12 and the problem is solved
I was at a tim Hortons in Canada. Had this experience seeing a youngin' working, except it literally seemed like the whole staff was this age. It was enough kids to prompt us to ask what the working age was in Canada. The young lady informed us it was 13 or so
This photo was taken years and years ago, look how young Neil Gaiman is in it.
"This is a systemic problem. Children should have their needs met without the need for work, and this child working is an obvious symptom of the problem at hand."
"Have you ever considered that I, an individual, worked at a mcdonalds at the age of 15? I used the money to buy a video game. Therefore your argument is invalid."
This comment section is fuckin weird.
I saw this on Reddit a while back. This isn't an actual employee, it's the kid of a manager who brought them to work for the day (school was closed or something). The dumbass manager thought it would be cute to dress her kid up and put them on the register, but patrons were rightly weirded out. Culver's corp found out and were pissed - I'm not sure if the manager got fired or not, but this definitely wasn't something Culver's was cool with.
In pretty much every state you can legally work limited hours at 14. Considering this is a Culver's, I highly doubt they illegally hired this kid.
There's nothing wrong with a part time job at a place like this at 14. I'd argue it's better than having no work experience at all as a minor.
Is that kid 14 or 10?
Hard to tell from all 16 pixels. I've seen some pretty young looking 14 year olds though.
Additionally, I looked it up and in some states you can work at a family business at 12.
I'm assuming that store is a franchise, that's the only way I can think of it being technically a "family business"?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure all Culver's are franchises. I don't know why a franchise owned by one's parents wouldn't be considered a family business.
Can confirm at least some of them are franchises, for sure (if not all of them).
Nope, that's little Billy Culver in that picture
Loopholes, baby!
I work in the Media Center of a High School. Some 9th and even a few 10th graders definitely look like they still belong in middle school, some kids mature late. I’d totally believe that there’s a possibility this person is actually at least 14.
I worked as a waiter at a retirement home at 14, and definitely looked younger at the time, so I think there's a good chance this is the case.
I'd argue that kids are not fit for the stress put on people in service positions with customer contact. It's fine if they have a holiday job cutting grass or delivering newspapers or something like that but standing behind a counter taking orders from people that often don't even acknowledge that you're human, too? That's hard enough on adults already - I definitely don't think it's the kind of job for kids.
Also which business is hiring kids to work a couple of weeks during school holidays and then is fine having one less worker again? The time spent on teaching the child what to do and how to handle different situations as well as the paperwork probably takes more time and money than not having the help for a couple of weeks - even less so as you probably have to have another person nearby in case of customers overstepping so I'm not sure this is just some holiday job for the kid to earn pocket money or get job experience
Judging by the comments here, everyone is going to be thrown off sufficiently to watch their behavior.
You'd think so, but people can be downright cruel to those they think are 'under' them, and guess what every person working a job that can't get them fired (so no business-to-business contacts) is to them?
I remember working in a customer facing role when I was a teen, and occasionally had to tell people the place was closed due to weather. They would accuse me of being everything under the sun and personally on a vendetta to make their lives miserable... and there was nothing I could do about it aside from calling the police if they actually started making threats.
I've always been about kids getting out there early and getting a taste of working, but these days feel different. I wouldn't want to go back into customer service now and I've got experience and age to back be up in dealing with customers.
I do think that people who cause the disruptive behavior that I'm referring to should be required to serve time doing those jobs, as I think part of their entitlement is ignorance of what's it's like behind the counter.
I mean service jobs are never great, but most of my jobs from 14 through early adulthood were all service and they weren't that bad.
You encounter plenty of rude and unpleasant people, but you just get on with it. It's not traumatic for the vast majority of people. Learning to handle people like that is a good skill to have.
I totally agree that people would be better to each other if everyone had so service job experience.
Waiting tables at the tail end of high school and throughout college really boosted my intrapersonal skills. I have no problem interacting with most anyone and can usually pick up on cues that go beyond what the person is saying. I work in engineering at a fortune 500 now it's really amusing how bad a decent swath of employees are at getting their point across, understanding what someone else is trying to tell them, and reading the room.
That said, I had a stint in retail. Waiting tables was more stress, but the people were generally quite a bit nicer.
I got my first real job at 15. I might have looked like this kid. Lol
no reason to ever make someone labor at such a shitty customer facing job when you could simply set up a kiosk system like everywhere else is, finally
Sounds like Quebec
Fuck yeah and I'm all in for it.
Automate the repetitve jobs, invest in higher education, and provide a minimum living quality for everyone.
Could this just be a 14/15yr old who looks young for their age?
Or a short person or someone with a growth delay?
I've seen some very small statured people working in big chains here. I don't think Maccas and their ilk would be taking the risk of illegally employing children, at least not in countries like Australia.
Also, if this is a young child, is it not a bit wrong to be sharing their image around like this?..
Why would you even ask such a hypothetical, unanswerable question?
You gotta be more emphatic about it, rather than asking.
This kid obviously has a rare genetic disorder that makes them look young, but they are actually 18, you ableist fucks!
How is it unanswerable?
This is a culvers and they hire at 15y/o. They also start at $15 so i dont see what OP is crying about.
Ooo, post it again!
15 is the age I started working at a grocery store. Pretty sure that's the norm in many states, it was in Illinois at least.
Meanwhile me with no job at 19y/o
No fast food restaurants around you? I worked as a bagger for a year, then made pizzas for like 2 more years.
No fast food around me but the real reason is i'm lazy and also i'm studying
I too can copy and paste the same comment on every subthread.
If they start working young, how are they gonna learn to play guitar so they can play at the subway terminals when the socialism takes over and we all get our ubi?
Land of the free my ass
That's because it's Culvers. Jokes on ya'll, their recruiting literature make it clear that workers are family. As long as they're not employees it's all good!
Red raspberry is a pretty weak flavor of the day. Midnight toffee or caramel cashew ftw!
In the land of the "they were really better off as slaves!".
They could have adrenal hypoplasia such that they never started puberty. Like that one guy who looks like a 6-year-old but is actually 30.
I remember reading about that. There's actually a woman who looks perpetually 8, but is in her 20's and she was talking about how hard it is for her to find dates because any man she tried to go out with was either actually a pedo, or afraid of being seen as a pedo. I actually kinda feel bad for her, but I also understand how it would be hard for other guys, myself included, to see her as a fully functioning adult.
And this photo could be from an alternate timeline where everyone has benjamin-button disease and that guy is actually 57.
OR it's the child labor.
is that in Oshkosh WI?
Thirteen year olds working in the Netherlands don't qualify for minimum wage- "13: (The minimum age of employment under the supervision and with no guarantee of a minimum wage.)". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_working_age
I worked at an Arcade/Restaurant when I was 13 for 25-30 hours a week. It was absolutely a positive experience for me and it's a shame to see so many people here crucify the idea of any child working at that age. Y'all haven't the slightest idea whats the motivation and just assume they are being forced into it or something. Having a job so young built character and showed me that I was able to get the things I wanted in life if I put in the 'hard' work. Nobody forced me to work those hours, I wanted to! Props to Culver's for providing the opportunity to kids.
Yup. I was picking up lawn mowing accounts when I was 12-13, and it was the best feeling in the world buying myself the jeep that I wanted two weeks before I turned 16.
When did you go to school?
Aye you're right I should have specified. 25-30 hours a week was only during the summer months. During the school year it was 10-20 hours, and mostly on weekends. The US has strict laws on what children of that age can work during school days.
For one, we have no idea if it's completely unrelated. We don't know any of the context here just from the picture. This could very well be a summer job. We don't know.
Also, nonce is a really weird insult. Are you meaning to call them an idiot, or a pedo? If the former, sure, but if the latter, that's really weird.
I was delivering papers at 11 or 12. First real job at 14.
My daughter just turned 14 and she has her first job working one day a week at an after school program.
This should not be such a big deal. You learn important life skills and have your own money to spend.
I agree 100% but working fast food is very different than an after school work opportunity, come on now.
I never got an allowance and worked after school jobs alt the elementary/hs/uni but that is a far cry from what some of the child laborers are starting to do here in the US.
Normalizing this sort of thing is problematic, it’s not about the kid working for money it’s about the setting and expectations of both the employees and the customers. They should be focused on education and being a kid, but they can’t do that when they spend their afternoons at the factory
https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/04/18/child-labor-returns/
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immigration-hyundai/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html
Oh, but they can learn about money so it’s okay!!! Give me a fuckin break.
Yeah Culver’s isn’t nearly as bad but it’s on the same spectrum when it comes to young children like this
This isn't "providing and opportunity". This is exploitation. Full stop.
I had my own computer and car before I turned 18, and it felt empowering to have accomplished this on my own. You and I have drastically different views on what's exploitative. Full stop.
Child labor laws weren't meant to protect someone like you, they're meant to stop folks from sending their kids to work to pay their rent/mortgage/power/water. Kids should know that paying their parents bills is not ideal, and child labor laws are how we protect them. Without revealing too much about myself, my dad was one of [large number] of children, and they absolutely used those kids for labor at the family farm and were worse off for it. They grew up in poverty (on top of the physical abuse). Basically, these laws aren't supposed to stop young Timmy from buying a [insert gadget here], they're to stop Mom from pulling him out of school for an extra shift because she overdrew her bank account.
There's no way that kid is 13, by the way. Far too young for working the register at Culver's. At least they don't have him at the deep fryer. If the other comment I see in this thread is to be believed (the one that says this is a Manager's child and school was closed), it's probably not as nefarious as it seems. Republican states have been in the news fighting against child labor laws though, people are rightly outraged about that.
Does this child look even close to fucking 12 to you?? This ain’t a summer job either
Stupid fucking moron, go whiteknight for corporate somewhere else.
That’s your braindead take.
It's not, it's a fundraiser.
Sounds like you could really use a hug Fades. I hope someone gives you that soon.
The kid in the picture looks under 13. We all thought he's not high school, lol.
I'm not American but i saw a South Park episode poking fun of children working, as those older refuse to work under bad pay and toxic working condition as the result of pandemic. Is there any truth to this despite the satire?
14 is when we could get work permits. I was a little league umpire, and I agree that it was a very positive experience.
This is a culvers and they hire at 15y/o. They also start at $15 so i dont see what OP is crying about.
Maybe because the child looks 10 and not a 15?
Probably just a rounding error.
Child looks like 8.
At 15, can you drive? Have "concesual" sex with someone 10years older? drink alcohol? Gamble?
Then why should.you be allowed to work?
15 year old kids are probably capable of cashier work so long as they aren't overworked and it doesn't get in the way of school. It is not particularly dangerous like certain factory jobs could be, and is legal in most cases if the child has a parent's permission.
The child in the photo does not look like he is 15 years old though, probably closer to 10-11 which generally is too young to be working.
Ive been working since I was 15 to support my family. This is a problem with a late stage capitalist society. Your complaining about something that alleviates this problem. Obviously its not a good thing for a child to need to work to support their household, but the solution is sure as hell not to stop them from being able to eat at all.
(Also you can drive at 15)
No way this shit is real. It's like something I would expect to see in 1920 or something like that.
If you zoom in they look younger, but in a gigantic uniform. In fact it's hard to gauge their age. The could be a little person.
Kid in old age, probably: "Yeah, I was working in the Salt Mines at 11. Then they petered out, so I got me a job at the Pepper Mill. By the time I retired, I was first shift at the Olive Garden, doling out shredded cheese like a fiend. Yessir! Them was the days!"
No one is attacking the child, but the fact that children have to work. If children have to do anything, that's to learn and to have fun. I'm sorry about what you had to go through, but saying that such a situation is wrong is actually attacking the system, not criticizing the people choosing the lesser evils available to them.
You can attack the system and while you do that, there are people under 18 years old who are just trying to provide for themselves or their dependents and need a job now.
They have adult responsibilities before the age of 18. A lot of the commenters outright refuse to believe that these legal minors could have possibly matured earlier than the law expects, but that really does happen and it really is socially irresponsible to ignore their struggle.
Most commenters are essentially holding this series of positions based on a photo that is out of context: Why does this kid have a job? The system is bad. Why is the system bad? Some kids have jobs. How can we stop kids from working? We should outlaw jobs for kids.
But that series of positions critically fails to account for exceptions where kids become competent before the age of 18, need jobs and want to work.
It ignores that, in reality, many minors have kids of their own or other dependents that they are struggling to support and it does not provide any plan for them, it makes their situation worse while you fight the system.
That is inhumane public policy. Like many areas of law, this is a complicated issue, and we are going to harm people in our communities if we jump to strict authoritarian control for an answer.
100%
This comment deserves an award. Mods should pin it to the top of the thread, because the majority of comments are totally divorced from their neighbors' struggle to survive in our imperfect economy.
I started working at McDonald's at age 13. Was the worst job I ever had and that remains true to this day even in my 30s.
When I was that age I was mowing lawns to pay for my video arcade habit. This is probably safer
I would just walk out.
Lol Republicans with their shenanigans. All red states have made child labour legal and kids aged 16 can work at a bar. #MAGA
Great. Now I'm craving a butter burger
I don't get why you're downvoted. The French would have brought out the guilotines by now. The threshold for warranting violence has LONG been crossed by European standards
Idk my comment got deleted. Guess child labor is okay. Whoever is saying this kid is 14 owns the restaurant
Not sure where you're getting your info, but 14 year olds can legally work (with some restrictions) in France. Some EU countries have a minimum age of 13. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_working_age
That kid looks 10. You got their ID?
Next, companies are going to start recruiting at Day Care centers lmfao
Probably a family business that own's a franchise.
I was stoked to have a job when I was 14 making smoothies. Legally I could only do 7 hours a week and I enjoyed it. It helped me learn about scheduling and being on time, and I saved up enough money to buy my own Xbox. People in this thread are idiots.
If there's reasonable legal maximum hours and legal minimum age then sure, otherwise it's just opening the door to child labour and that's a real problem that exists even in first world countries.
Yeah, minimum age in the US (most states) is 14 yrs old. I wanted a job so bad when I was a kid. I grew up super poor so I never had an allowance. I got a job as soon as a could and I could buy my own things.
My own kid also got a job early, I told them they didn't have to but they wanted to earn their own money (I was super proud of the reason). They worked for a few years, took a year or so off, then after graduating high school, bought their own car. I'm actually so proud of my kid. Kind of a smart ass sometimes but like... That's because they're me too. So like.. 🤙
And there it is. Let's not fix poverty or anything.
unreal that SendMePhotos chose to get a job instead of storm into the white house and demand poverty be fixed OR ELSE
🤷🏽 Builds character and I make more money than what my goal was from a teenager. I wasn't forced into it. #NoRagrets
Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with a 14 year old working a few hours a week if they want to. Lemmy hivemind is pretty fucking stupid sometimes
That’s exactly how I looked at 14. Internet detectives don’t know jack shit
Case in point ^
No it isn’t. 14 is legal age to work in most US states
Yeah I'm saying you're on the Internet and also don't know shit
I started working at 15. The owner/manager of my first job would give the 15-17 year-old girls he hired drugs in exchange for sexual favors. Also had us work past legal hours and all the other normal exploitative shit people should expect.
Second job I had also had pedo managers. Asking us questions like, "what was the craziest places you had sex at?" during group orientation. I also had to dispute the hours I was paid for on nearly every paycheck I got.
I'm guessing experiences like this aren't universal, but the fact that my first 2 jobs as a child were very exploitative, it's probably not uncommon.
I think scheduling and being on time could be picked up quickly by adults.
I was stoked to have a job at 14 too!
I was not stoked to find out they had no intention of paying me.
i wish i had a job as a kid. i wouldnt have done anything smart like save it though i would have just bought dlc for rock band 😂
I started at 15. First thing I purchased was a PS1 and Chrono Cross. I felt like I had everything. After that it became a steady stream of gas money and tossing in $10-$20 bucks with other friends to get some weed. I miss the easy days...
Babies serving babies
Blur the Faces
When was this taken? If it's a Holiday/weekend/afterschool Job, i don't see any problem with that. Also did a lot of them to scrounge up the Money for my PC
Also weird as fuck to be sneaking photos of children like this.
EDIT: I am ABSOLUTELY not defending child labor like this. It's all kinds of messed up. But it's also not an excuse to photograph children, and put their image online without their consent.
Is it "weird as fuck" to document archaic and abusive systems?
Nobody s documenting anything with that photo. It's an out-of-context snapshot. Could be anything. Part of a make a wish with a cancer patient. A school thing to experience five minutes of adulthood. A prank. Staged. You name it. What exactly is documented here?
So yeah, just posting some picture is weird as fuck.
I don't see how this was since one doesn't see children working at Culver's. OP wasn't aware that it was part of a fundraiser for some school thing... So now it's weird. They probably had signs up and OP missed it.
If this was a playground or doing normal childhood activities, then yeah, but this is a fucking Culver's (I think)... This is not normal.
Are we supposed to take OP at their word or something? "Guys there's a kid working fast food! I would have taken a picture but it would have been weird. My Canadian girlfriend who was in town that you all have never met urged me not to!"
You take photos of extraordinary sights. I'm sure the shitheads who have allowed this to happen would agree with you since they want to normalize it.
I'm hoping there's a legitimate, innocent reason for this.
There was an innocent reason apparently, from the now top comment:
"This is Culver’s. They’re a burger fast food joint located throughout the Midwest and have things called “Scoopy Night” where a percentage of the proceeds go toward a specific cause. Schools, dance groups, etc can partake and the kids who attend that school/dance group/etc help take orders and deliver food to tables. Not quite as dystopian as OP has made it seem."
Thanks!
Oh my fucking god it's a kid working behind a register in full work clothes, in broad daylight, surrounded by people. There is absolutely nothing about this that suggests predatory behavior except possibly some Capitalist tossing on a shiny wrapper for a reason this happens at all. Which, btw, this image circulates periodically. You can find explanations even in this comment thread.
Yeah this is so much worse than 5yo kids working in coal mines a hundred years ago.
Sure its not exactly ideal, but if this is a kid whose parents own the franchise and he is legally working and being paid at the family business its better than him being left at home on the xbox.
This is a pretty funny image because the kid looks like they're 8 and in full uniform, but there's no way to know their age from this picture. They could be like 14, and a part time job at that age (or a bit younger) isn't weird.
What's weird and, frankly, extremely fucked up is some internet weirdo taking creepshots of a minor and posting it on Lemmy. What the fuck is wrong with you, OP? How would you feel if someone was posting pics like this of your kid on the internet?
Hmm. Maybe minors shouldn’t be working in that type of role if they can’t be photographed at work then? It’s a job in a business that serves the public, photography has to be assumed.
I am getting downvoted in another thread for pointing out that in Canada it's illegal to identify minors taking part in, or convicted of a crime. So I am not pro-nazi, just that we view those children as victims as well. People get weird about this stuff.
I'm not saying it's illegal, just that it's fucking creepy to take pictures of children like that. I know Lemmy is full of old weirdos, but this is just gross.
It's creepy only if you assume malice on behalf of the photographer.
It's also creepy that you assume malice on behalf of the photographer.
That kid is in full uniform and is a public-facing agent of the restaurant and the franchise. In the US.
That is the priority issue here. That is the first part of this that never should be happening in the 2020s.
There's no way you're serious, right?... Right?
Sheesh, have you seen a 14 year old kid before?
This kid is at oldest 10-12.
People offended just by looking at this picture out of context should really try explaining their preferred authoritarian social policy to a teenager who wants a part-time job but for whom some people would forbid them by penalty of the law.
Spoiler: They won't understand why you should have any authority over their body and time.
I don't understand why you should have that authority either. I mean, where does it end?
What are your criteria for exceptions? Shouldn't it be between the kid and their parents, and not you?
Are you imagining there is a parental figure with a bull whip for this kid in the back office and you want to outlaw physical abuse? There are already separate laws for that!
Children should not be working. We have piles of dead children that died in the past for the profits of capitalists, and it took millions of maimed children marching to DC led by Mother Jones for anything to be done about child labor. I highly doubt that there's anyone, let alone children, that want to be in the coercive environment we call work. If you want to say protecting children from the dangers of a capitalist workplace is authoritarian, then so be it. I don't want to see children in a workplace where they will be exploited by everyone above them.
I started working at age 13 back in 1980 because I wanted money to buy GI Joes, and comic books. So I started going to construction jobs with my shithead father on Saturdays and helped him put up sheetrock. My first legitimate job was the summer I turned 15, I was big for my age so I started doing deliveries for a furniture store, worked there for two summers until I was fired after a workplace injury. The guy I worked with was a racist Italian from Whitestone New York, and I was a smart slightly autistic black kid. His delivery truck only had one seat so I stood in the open door on the right side holding on for dear life. One day we were moving a heavy office desk upstairs and I was bringing up the rear, he lost control which resulted in the desk sliding downstairs and slamming me into a wall. My ribs were badly bruised so after I got home the store panicked and fired me, they probably thought we were going to sue. Anyway I went into a deep depression and couldn't leave my room for a month. One of my therapists later told me that it was the first appearance of my bipolar disorder.
I was legally employable, and of age but still got hurt on the job. I just had shithead employers.
If the business commits a crime like killing a kid, there are laws for that - just like there are laws for when businesses kill adults.
You are not providing a reason to bar the kid from working, you are providing a reason to outlaw murder(which is already illegal).
You doubt there are people under 18 who want to work? Should everyone just take your doubt for evidence of the absence of those people? I think not.
I do agree, if you stand by your beliefs on this issue, you are officially a self-proclaimed authoritarian on this issue.
It's cute that you think I'm talking about murder. Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Children in mines and mills. Children in factories. Children on farms. Children in retail. These are all areas of labor that have killed, maimed, and injured children. These kids were never murdered, they were hurt and killed in accidents that occurred because they were too young to handle the conditions of labor that was demanded of them. Fuck you for advocating for children to return to that type of labor.
Why tf should a kid want to work? Why would you want a society to normalize a 14-year-old hustling and working after school? It's not authoritarian to protect children from parasitic businesses. Child-labor is illegal because at that stage a person has less emotional intelligence and rationality, they can more easily be taken advantage of and overworked, and won't understand their rights as a worker as well. You can't even sign a contract at 14 without a parent or guardian and you want them to be able to act at the whim of fast food managers?
Your argument is hardly one step away from the argument I see people trot out when defending child marriage.
I don't presume to know why anyone else wants anything for themselves, why do you?
To make it clear that I am answering your question: I do not know.
Can you answer my question? Why do you presume to know what the kid wants?
Like I said, there are separate laws for child abuse. Physical abuse, mental/emotional abuse too. The bases are covered.
You're right. How can we claim to live in a free society if our children don't even have the right to be exploited?
Are all jobs bad because someone else skims part of the profit? Or is it just bad to you because it's a person under 18?
Just trying to sort out whether you are for eliminating all work or just work for minors?
If it's just work for minors, would you support any exceptions?
Like, for example, for an emancipated 17 year old with a baby of their own to support?
Yes, these people think all jobs are bad because they're communists. Lemmy is very detached from reality.
This is the first time I've encountered such extreme and immovable opinions on Lemmy. It's wild to me that people who are (presumably) trying to support social justice for minors cannot even acknowledge that teenagers sometimes need and would prefer to work - that it's a separate issue from child abuse and strict authoritarian prohibition over their labor is itself abusive.
Don't people understand that a 17 year old can have a baby and need a job?
They won't even entertain the possibility and defend an actual policy position. It's devoid of social responsibility.
If they are genuinely socialist or communist, then how can they defend stripping 14-18 year olds of their natural right to profit from their own labor? It's just as bad as a capitalist exploiting that labor with unlivable wages - they are essentially condemning these people to $0 in wages and total state dependence.
Yeah, we tried to let people have the permission to do that, kids died.
Enough kids died that even America decided we needed to make laws against it, and we love exploiting the under class people
As others have pointed out, those laws have important exceptions to account for kids who want to work, and that is the question I am asking all of the knee-jerk authoritarians:
What is the actual policy position they support? What are the exceptions they support or are they completely authoritarian about this issue? (I think a strict rule prohibiting all people under 18 from ever earning a living is a pretty embarrassing position to defend.)
What are emancipated teenagers supposed to do? Should they live 100% at the mercy of state programs and not improve their living standards beyond the meager social welfare they are afforded until they turn exactly 18 years old? Really? Not even a day sooner, even if they are ready and qualified to work?
That would be completely inhumane. Certainly it's depriving them of their bodily freedom and natural ability to extract capital value from their own labor.
So where is the line? 13? 14? I think somewhere in there is reasonable. Perhaps a test could determine their capacity to participate in their own economic fate? Or an evaluation by a social worker? I could go for something like that.
What if they are NOT emancipated and their parent is supervising them? Should the age minimum be higher then? 17? 18? I do not think so.
I think it's only logical that the age minimum should actually be lower if a parent is directly supervising - their physical and economic risk is lower if the parent is looking out for their best interests. This of course presumes that the parent is not physically or mentally/emotionally abusing the kid(again, separate laws exist for the abuse component and most parents don't abuse their kids).
The wall is usually 14-ish with limitations on what you can do and how many hours you can work.
We have to limit it otherwise adults will take advantage of the fact that children don’t know what they’re doing.
Yes, some of them might be smart enough, but a lot of them aren’t, and it’s better to protect the majority and work on irregular cases on their own merits.
Part of becoming an emancipated minor is showing that you have the means to care for yourself to a judge, otherwise you’re not allowed to become emancipated
Perfectly reasonable!
This is like...yuck.
What if a teen really really wanted to date an adult. They're a child, no one cares what they "understand" because their capacity to understand is literally crippled. Their brains aren't developed yet.
It sounds like you are equating any job to getting sexually abused or raped.
That is "like... Yuck".
It's an irrelevant comparison because the work itself is not abuse. There are other laws that protect kids from being abused, if they are being abused to force them to work(or for any other purpose).
If you don't care what people under 18 think, you should reflect on how selfish and closed-minded that sounds to me and especially to the real human people you are proposing to lose their ability to work.
Do you really think there is a major difference between the brain of a 17 year old the day before their 18th birthday and the day after? There is no significant difference at all.
So, my question is, where do you draw the line for a person under 18 whose quality of life might depend on working? Should they just have that freedom stripped because you don't care what they think?
Even if they are on their own? Or supporting a dependent, like their own baby? Really? If you are that authoritarian about this, I hope you forget to vote on it.
The yuck part is that children under 18 are legally defined as not having full reasoning and consent capabilities.
So, I wasn't saying all work is rape, that's silly and foolish to think.
I'm saying your assertion that teens should have adult independence to make adult choices without laws and support is yuck.
"They don't understand" is literally my point. They CANT
If you're saying teens can consent in the same way adults can, that is yuck. And that is wrong. (For clarity, you need to consent to a working relationship for it to be healthy.)
Never said anything about healthy. I have consented to a lot of “relationships” that weren’t healthy for a healthy relationship.
I agree with most of what you said though
It sounds like you are using a legal framework from medical treatment of minors. If I have that right, then you should know that there is an exception for emancipated people under 18 years of age.
Would you support the same exception for work, now that you know this or perhaps you would also eliminate this exception for them to control their own bodies in a medical context?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4008301/#:~:text=A%20child%20under%20the%20age,(and%20refuse)%20medical%20treatment.