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12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields
31–40 of 130 posts
Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields
#32children under 18 can’t vote for better labor laws either, they should be able to vote
Do you think they would vote against be allowed to work? I always wanted jobs as a teen so I could do stuff- I wanted to be independent as do most teens I'd imagine.
Not sure where you studied arithmetic but in my locale 12 is not "teen".
Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields
#33> Ten-hour days, five or six days a week, in North Carolina's summer heat. This is the problem, not the age of the child or the crop. Spending an occasional weekend working a few hours in a field sounds perfectly fine and character-building for a 12-year-old. More 12 year olds should be getting outside and tasting manual labor! The issue is when this starts being less of a learning experience and more of an actual fu…
You do need to read slightly further to see the issue with tobacco plants:
> All the while, nicotine — a substance he's barely old enough to legally purchase now — seeped into his skin. For all tobacco workers, but especially kids, that can cause nicotine poisoning, or green tobacco sickness, whose symptoms include nausea, vomiting, headaches and dizziness.
Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields
#34They shouldn't be allowed or compelled to do either buying cigarettes or working as child labor. Both are unacceptable.
Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think they would vote against be allowed to work? I always wanted jobs as a teen so I could do stuff- I wanted to be independent as do most teens I'd imagine.
Not sure where you studied arithmetic but in my locale 12 is not "teen".
> children under 18
Whether your 12 or 13-18, I doubt their voting preferences would be considerably different in this regard.
Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields
#36> Ten-hour days, five or six days a week, in North Carolina's summer heat. This is the problem, not the age of the child or the crop. Spending an occasional weekend working a few hours in a field sounds perfectly fine and character-building for a 12-year-old. More 12 year olds should be getting outside and tasting manual labor! The issue is when this starts being less of a learning experience and more of an actual fu…
12 year olds are generally prepubescent children. This isn't like a sixteen year old working to save for a car, or even a fourteen year old gaining a little independence and exercise working a few hours after school. This is child labour. It's indefensible.
(Strictly speaking, you mean pre-adolescent. Many boys and most girls will have started puberty by age 12.)
Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields
#37I grew up in NC. I worked in tobacco a few times for family friends. Many of my schoolmates' families raised tobacco. Or corn. Or soybeans. Many of these kids earned hundreds of dollars over the summer, while supporting the family business. 12 year olds didn't smoke. We bought candy cigarettes.
Farmers and their families and their employees work hard. They work long hours. People on dairy farms work 7 days a week. Cows don't take the weekend off. Crops don't care if its 100 degrees.
I mowed yards. I raked leaves. I helped harvest hay. I built fences and sheds. I helped vaccinate cattle. I helped build the new VFD building. All this as a kid. In 100 degree heat.
We didn't have air conditioning. And you were excused from class on the 1st day of deer hunting season.
This wasn't child abuse. This is living. Some people grew up with AC, color tv, video games, and summer camp. Some grow up and work.
Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields
#38I spent my summers from ages 14-18 picking shade tobacco (for cigar wrappers) in Connecticut's Tobacco Valley. I'm not sure if it was state law but you couldn't start until you were 14. This was during summer vacation when school was out - but it used to be such an important local industry that if the crop was late they would delay the start of the school year so kids could keep picking. Boys and girls could both work but it was completely segregated - boys worked in the field, and girls worked in the sheds sewing the leaves onto lathes to hang to dry. They used to rent the old big yellow school buses from the local school district to pick us up in the morning, and there were even separate bus routes for boys and girls. I remember coming home with my fingers totally covered in black sap from the leaves but don't think I ever felt the effects of nicotine. They were long hot days and it was even hotter under the tents - they grow shade tobacco under cover. If it rained they sent us all home! But it was a fun time hanging out with other kids and even competing to see who could pick the fastest. Still, when I went to college I remember telling myself that my objective was to get a degree so I wouldn't ever have to work outside again.
Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields
#39children under 18 can’t vote for better labor laws either, they should be able to vote
Have you seen how kids vote in their school elections? Why in the world would you want them to have any real say in anything? It’s bad enough people get to vote before they turn 30 you want to give kids who think produce is made in the back of the grocery store the ability to make decisions?
Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields
#4018-year olds can't buy alcohol, but they can die fighting for oil companies.
And they can work in bars.