Uphill Both Ways

Newt Gingritch, in full deregulate everything mode, expounds on the wrongheadedness of child labor laws, using the specific example of letting children to janitorial work in schools.

Suddenly most Freepers were born on a farm, and every single Freeper worked while in school, and loved it.

sodpoodle fondly remembers farm work.

Sisters and I spent the summers on the farm. Eleven years-old and my uncle says ‘get up on the Massey Ferguson girl and drive her in a straight line’ and I did. Was too little to load the hay on the trailer so he adjusted the labor available.

Best years of my life.

GraceG gloats about all the awesome stuff kids can't do now:

Grew up on a farm and was expected to work to help out onthe farm, the liberals would have had a coronary with all the stuff that I did involving heavy machinery and “dangerous” working conditions and not having a port-a-potty every 50ft...

shotgun picked fruit, which no doubt was awesome.

Picked strawberries at 10 and other fruits after that. First non farm job was working for Sears in the automotive section when I was 17 in 1977.

MrEdd:

Back in the seventies I loaded trucks for North American Van Lines at fourteen.

It was hard work and a good experience.

jessduntno thinks no one caddies anymore:

12-15 years old, I started mowing lawns, caddying and was carrying doubles at the Country Club at the end. Made for a long day on some days. And some of those Doctors had bags like Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack. Started working in the tubs at a local Car Wash to earn money for my first car (which was in the driveway when I was 15 and a half) and never been without a job since. Shoveled snow in the winter and that don’t count cleaning the ponds for hockey.

Kids today wouldn’t be able to do any of those things.

Sea Parrot used to chop cotton. So rustic!

I am old enough to remember when they let us out of school in the spring to chop cotton and lay the crop by. Then back to school until the fall, when let out to pick the cotton, then back to school for the winter.

It never hurt us to work from dawn to dusk and instilled the work ethic, which served me in good stead for rest of my working life.