HOW OLD SHOULD A CHILD BE TO HAVE A JOB ?

[anygunanywhere]

I started as an Apprentice to my brother in his lawn mowing business when I was six. He was an "Old Man" of eight. By the way, these were the orginal unpowered mowers. We also worked pulling bolls in the cotton fields, and whatever else we could do to turn a dollar for school clothes. Good part wasthat since we earned the money we got to buy the clothes we wanted .

Parachute pants?

Anygunanywhere

[Dragonfighter]

10, I started on a 75 paper route and grew it to 100 by the time I was done. This was the Denver Post, a huge paper on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I would get up at 0400, go and fold papers, deliver, come home and get my books and head to school. From about 12 on I did yard work because I was used to having money. At 15 I worked at Long John Silver's and at 16 I went to work for a tire shop in Lewisville. I remember being handed the keys to the ruck and driving out to a semi on 121 and changing an inside tractor tire with a split rim. I was pretty buff by 17. After high school I went into the army at 17 (for those who think Trayvon was a mere child) and the rest as they say is history.

[Abraham]

Age 8 - Dug up Quohogs (a hard shell bivalve) with bare hands and sold them to tourists for $1.00 a dozen - Plus free dived (sans mask and fins) for free swimming scallops to sell to tourists

Age 9 - Busboy/Dishwasher in restaurant

Age 10 - Shoveled snow out of driveways for a $1.00 per - the money I made doing this paid for my first rifle and ammo

Age 11 - Drove a stick shift Allis Chalmers tractor pulling a hay bailer that pulled a wagon with three men stacking rectangular bales - I was so short I had to hop off the seat in order to shift

Age 11 - Worked as a general farm hand on a dairy farm

Age 12 - Worked as a carny/Tilt A World operator with a traveling carnival slept in the back of Tilt A World truck - made a sleeping bag out of the light bulb bag.

Age 13 - Worked on another dairy farm

Age 14 - Cleared land for the princely sum of .50 cents an hour

Age 15 - Worked at a grocery store until I graduated High School - used this money to completely support myself.

There were other jobs, like ranch hand and I worked at other restaurants, but the above gives you some idea.

All of this was done in between hitchhiking the U.S. with my Dad. We would on occasion take a break from the road and work.

If children don't work outside the home - they darn sure ought to pitch in with the various household tasks that will help them later, i.e., learning how to operate a washing machine and mowing the grass. Spoiling your kids isn't in their best interests.

[chuck j]

I'm getting a much more positive response than I thought I would as far as members agreeing that they SHOULD to taught to work and be responsible . Really does surprise me because in person most parents seem to think it was a strange thought .

[Bullitt]

First job was shining shoes in downtown L.A., I was in 4th grade, so was 9-yrs. old. I would do this after school and catch the businessmen before they went home. Some guy from the Herald Examiner spotted me shining shoes and told me I could sell their evening newspaper on street corners, so I sold the Herald Examiner on various street corners. In high school I worked as a janitor in a shoe store, got promoted to stock boy, then to salesman. Dress code: I had to buy suits to wear in order to sell the shoes.

Now I am a success and carry a gun. I still wear suits.

[Texas_Blaze]

I was 15, paid in cash by a local rancher. That guy worked me from 6AM to 8PM during that summer...in central Texas.

[rotor]

Worked the cash register at my grandparents store when I was 4. Payed by allowing me to read comic books. But that was 66 years ago.

[Bennies]

I was 15 when I first started in 1998. I washed airplanes and swept for exchange of flight time from the FBO manager. When I was 16 and legally allowed to officially work they promoted me to line technician. So for the rest of highschool and a little bit of college I had a blast fueling and towing airplanes around the airport. I can not tell you how many things I had learned from that job that sticks with me today.

[Oldgringo]

I pumped gas, changed tires and washed cars in a fillin' station in Harrisburg, IL at age 13, circa 1955. At age 16, I clerked in a department store on the town square and was a card carrying member of the IRCU, but "...I never picked cotton". I was on a towboat pushing a string of barges down the Cumberland River at 0530 hrs. the morning after I graduated from High School.

It begins in the home OR it doesn't. It's all about the parents, responsibility and expectations. NO EXCUSES!

[Pawpaw]

Here is a blog post that speaks directly to the OP's question.

http://themattwalshblog.com/2013/07/17/ ... -basement/

[Dadtodabone]

Moved cows, fed cows, chased cows(cows are stupid, not as stupid as sheep, but still pretty stupid), fixed fences & gates, learned the basics of being a successful, professional stockman from about age 8 'til junior year in High School(football).
Trimmed and shoed my first gaited horse for pay at 15, did balance trim and shoe for several of Rapid Bar's(son of three bars)progeny for futurity runs and Arabians in halter class so they could pick up their feet.
These activities led me to believe that all females between the age of 16 and 20 that weighed less than 112 lbs. were naturally red in the face, spoke only in a screech, knew more foul and vile language than a stevedore and that every failure at show or race was the #@%&!?& farriers fault.
I found that my taste in women runs to those with curves and of an even to sweet disposition(been married to one for almost 4 decades). I haven't picked up a horse's foot other than to clean before a ride or check a frog since I went away to school.

[Bullitt]

I was 15 when I first started in 1998. I washed airplanes and swept for exchange of flight time from the FBO manager. When I was 16 and legally allowed to officially work they promoted me to line technician. So for the rest of highschool and a little bit of college I had a blast fueling and towing airplanes around the airport. I can not tell you how many things I had learned from that job that sticks with me today.

Best teen job posted yet. Must have been a blast.

[Dadtodabone]

I'm getting a much more positive response than I thought I would as far as members agreeing that they SHOULD to taught to work and be responsible . Really does surprise me because in person most parents seem to think it was a strange thought .

Shouldn't be a surprise that the most law-abiding, personally responsible citizens in Texas would also promote those qualities in their children and the community at large. Like most surveys, it's who you ask, not what that determines your results.

[Dadtodabone]

I was 15 when I first started in 1998. I washed airplanes and swept for exchange of flight time from the FBO manager. When I was 16 and legally allowed to officially work they promoted me to line technician. So for the rest of highschool and a little bit of college I had a blast fueling and towing airplanes around the airport. I can not tell you how many things I had learned from that job that sticks with me today.

Best teen job posted yet. Must have been a blast.

What? You don't like Cows?