God forbid their parents be paid well enough that these children are allowed to have a childhood before having to work 40+ years until they die chasing retirement. Kids are already in school for like 35 hours per week plus they have homework and chores. When are they supposed to play with toys, see friends, go outside, or participate in clubs or team sports or whatever they might be interested in?
Only a few decades ago it was normal for a single income to provide for a family, including owning a home and taking vacations. Then both parents started having to work. Now it’s rare for a couple even without kids to be able to buy a house. And you’re seriously defending the normalization of working parents sending their kids to work?! Fuck that. This is third world country shit that we used to adopt refugee children from, and now we’re doing it to our own kids.
My family is well into the top 5% globally
Makes sense that you don’t understand the difference between have to work and be able to work and why we need to protect children who have to work.
My family is well into the top 5% globally
Is this supposed to be some kind of flex? If you make ~$20k/y in the US you’re almost top 5% income globally. Around top 5% range globally is probably somewhat poor in the US. The lowest middle class household income in the US is $40k/y
Kids don’t want more, they are taught to desire things. All kids want really is the freedom and time to have fun, learn about the world, and maybe catch a toad or two if they’re more the outside, exploratory type. So perhaps this wasn’t at “gunpoint”. The question then is “why are they working at some factory?” Who convinced them? Why are they there?
What you are attempting to speak on is called “responsibility”. This is fine. However, no child should ever be coerced, tricked, guilted, or otherwise forced in any fashion to work in a society that has enough. Do the dishes at home? Sure. Mow the lawn? Okay. Vacuum the house? That’s alright. Never as a stand-in at any institution when there are capable, older individuals to do that work, if that institution meets their needs, which the overwhelmingly vast majority of the time when you hear about these situations: They 100% do not.
Besides, since you’re clearly one of those bootstraps folk: Don’t you believe it is the responsibility of the older generations to responsibly teach and support future generations by making the world better than it was for us growing up?
Or did you buy that gaming rig and decide you’re better than that?
Just saying.
Lol you fucking dipshit. This isn’t about teenagers getting summer jobs. This clearly said primary school students. Maybe Merriam-Webster can help you to understand what that means.
Nowhere in the article it mentions it being a summer job.
It’s an actual job, fulfilled by literal children (ages 11 and up, also stated in the article). There is nothing wrong with summer jobs, but there sure is something wrong with child labour.
Working an ice cream stand, being a camp counselor, or a life guard as a 14 year old is one thing. And working at your family restaurant or shop helping dad fill orders or take phone calls is one thing. Working a day job at a factory as an 11 year old is ridiculous. The factory has a labor shortage because theu wont pay living wages. I 100% guarantee that the people who support putting literal children to work are also rabidly against immigration.
We should all want and hope for better for our kids.
Giving them the ability to go to work at younger and younger ages is not making life better for kids. You can argue that it allows them to make good money and enable them to become good consumers, and sure, you’re not wrong. But you have to realize that you’re willingly siding with the capitalist machine here. When you start justifying things like child labor because labor shortages, you can easily start justifying things like 6 day work weeks, relaxed safety laws, longer working hours, etc. In 5-10 years, odds are they will push kids to work in other jobs than just “hospitality…or washing dishes” due to the “success” of it using the same argument of “labor shortage”.
You have to understand that there are very good reasons why there are labor shortage at these places, and almost every single one of them is because companies do not want to pay their employees a living wage or offer any sort of benefits. It’s the same reason there are lobbyists in Washington pushing to not increase the minimum wage.
Don’t support laws like this
Okay, well disregard the lobbyists in Washington part, however the rest of it still applies.
Politicians understand that they can change ANYTHING as long as it’s changed slowly enough. As innocent as this seems, I promise you that it is anything but. It’s just the first step of many in the wrong direction.
Even if the jobs are safe, those kids need to be focusing on school. Kids also need unstructured play time to help their development. Kids this young who are in extra curricular activities every day often have decreased mental health and academic performance. And I highly doubt employers are going to appreciate an employee who only works for an hour or two on weekends.
Hey man, serious question, what went wrong in your life that caused you to end up wasting your time trolling on a niche Internet forum?
“child labor bad” eeeerm aksually we should let children work in the mines to teach them how to mine when they are older
It’s the slippery slope that’s the problem. It starts with washing dishes. Then they help a bit in the warehouse. After that just delivering stuff in production. And helping a little bit when someone needs a bathroom break in production. And helping a bit more.
