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12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

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Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#71

Post by roflyear »

hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #54
dbspin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am one of those twelve-year-olds that worked in the fields to save money for an education. We actually started when I was about 10 or 11. My sister and I grew pumpkins to sell at our roadside farm stand and grew vegetables that were sold to a local grocery chain through a program run by 4H/Cooperative Extension. It was hard work, but a great experience. There were some 10-12 hour days when we were planting, and it…

I don't think most of these kids are saving all their money. They are working because their parents can't pay the bills so they need to work.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#72

Post by dahfizz »

triceratops wrote: post #61
flatline wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started working part time in the summers when I was 12, it was a great experience. My daughter is 12 now and I wish she could have that experience instead of a handful of summer camps and a lot of time at home watching youtube which is the current plan. There are simply no other options available. My friends worked in their family store from an even younger age. Full-time manual labor is of course not good and will…

Depends on the work. Manning the cash register at the family store or restaurant isn't the same as working in fields and factories. I don't mind my kids doing the former at a young age. The latter - hell no.

I'm going to guess you grew up in a city?

I wouldn't have a problem with a kid of mine "working in fields", provided the hours are reasonable. Picking strawberries, outside, with friends their same age, a few hours at a time, would be great for them. I would go as far to say that its fun.

I would prefer that over them having to interact with a bunch of asshole strangers, alone, trapped inside all day.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#73

Post by dahfizz »

danShumway wrote: post #67
hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am one of those twelve-year-olds that worked in the fields to save money for an education. We actually started when I was about 10 or 11. My sister and I grew pumpkins to sell at our roadside farm stand and grew vegetables that were sold to a local grocery chain through a program run by 4H/Cooperative Extension. It was hard work, but a great experience. There were some 10-12 hour days when we were planting, and it…

> Today, Castellano is a sophomore at Tufts University. But when he worked, he felt "this sense that working in those fields was going to be the rest of my life, that I had nothing else going for me." [...] > He worked alongside other kids with one of North Carolina's most valuable crops. Some of them worked in the summer and went to school the rest of the year, like him. Some didn't go to school at all. ---- How are…

OP literally said:

> The issue is when this starts being less of a learning experience and more of an actual full time job. Sending 12 year olds out to earn a living clearly isn’t right.

You are straw manning. Nobody here wants kids working full time.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#74

Post by nverno »

nsxwolf wrote: post #57
nverno wrote: post #9

Earlier 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.

I don’t know how old you are (over 40?) but I suspect there’s a generational gap here. In the 1990s and before, in my part of the US anyway, a teenager without a job was seen as lazy or entitled. Sometime after the mobile internet happened kids stopped working. They stopped driving cars and that was a big motivator for work. There was a lot of money flying around and parents just started handing spending money to the…

I was a teen in the early 00s, so just prior to mobile internet really taking off. Driving was a huge motivator for us to work (rural). I suspect your right about the generational gap. Perspective also seems to differ between urban/rural.

I'd get it if there were some great alternative that teens were missing out on because they worked, but from my experience there was plenty of time to work, go to school, and still smoke weed everyday. Granted I didn't do 10-hour days 5-6 days a week all summer like the guy in the article, but normal 40-50hr/week full-time summer jobs was nothing.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#75

Post by arcticbull »

mprovost wrote: post #38

I 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 wor…

Were you paid a full adult salary? With benefits?

If not, this is a harmful labor practice because you were undercutting the wages of full adult workers.

In the same way that prison labor and undocumented workers undercut pay of adult workers, so too do child laborers.

Neither are really able to report labor and safety violations, neither are able to decide not to work, and neither are paid a proper living wage. Neither are in a position to unionize. This is not a free market, and it hurts everyone in the economy. It feels more like a regression to feudalism.

I’d say if we mandated a living wage this problem would likely sort itself out.

[edit] It's a question of balance of power between employer and employee. Hiring the powerless hurts everyone, even if you personally had a good experience in retrospect. If you want to teach kids, you can do so at a non-profit instead of Philip Morris.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#76

Post by starkd »

dbspin wrote: post #15
jl6 wrote: post #8

> 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.

There are a lot of 12 year olds looking for chances to earn extra money. It gives a sense of indepedence and satisfaction for getting something you worked hard for. 12-year olds are more capable and curious than you think.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#77

Post by DoingIsLearning »

hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #54
dbspin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am one of those twelve-year-olds that worked in the fields to save money for an education. We actually started when I was about 10 or 11. My sister and I grew pumpkins to sell at our roadside farm stand and grew vegetables that were sold to a local grocery chain through a program run by 4H/Cooperative Extension. It was hard work, but a great experience. There were some 10-12 hour days when we were planting, and it…

> I don't think this form of child labor should be discouraged, but rather encouraged.

I think the issue is not the formative experience of labour but the lifting of restrictions on 'dangerous jobs'.

The motivation behind this is not to enable children autonomy but to maintain the cost of labour low specifically to prop up the slaughterhouse/meat packing industry, and other 'dirty' job industries with labour 'shortages' i.e. we don't want to raise salaries shortages.

Exposing kids to toxic cleaning agents, hazards, and general heavy machinery is a recipe for accidents and is simply not OK more so when it is quite obviously greed driven.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#78

Post by bigbillheck »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #53

"efforts to tighten agricultural child labor laws have repeatedly failed because of opposition from Republicans in Congress and farm lobbying groups. They argue that such changes would hurt family farms and make it harder to teach kids about farming." This is the bollocks. I have a farm. Kids have been out helping me since they were about 5 or 6, and around I've never herd of some formal wage system in a family farm…

> I dont understand what has happened to the moral compass in USA.

We've never really had one.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#79

Post by jollyllama »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #2

18-year olds can't buy alcohol, but they can die fighting for oil companies.

Nor can they buy cigarettes anymore. The age was increased from 18 to 21 with little notice. Vape cartridges are allowed though, I think.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#80

Post by sneak »

werdnapk wrote: post #28
dbspin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I worked in strawberry fields during summer months at about 12 years old or younger. I actually enjoyed it and loved the money I made to be able to buy some Nintendo games or candies. More kids should be learning some job skills early and get out of the house.

Doing manual labor in a field isn't "learning some job skills".
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