Comment by woofie11 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by woofie11 | Hacker News Reader

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I've seen good child labor, "good" child labor, and I've seen bad child labor. They're different.

Good child labor: When I was in high school, I had a (slightly illegal) job programming. It was awesome! (My employer, as a footnote, didn't want to break laws, and was not exploitative in any way; but circumstances were complex). I'm firmly convinced we'd all be better off if kids started having at least part-time jobs in middle school.

"Good" child labor: Yes, families in very poor countries need kids to work to eat food. Kids work in the fields. It's necessary. In India, I saw kids making stone statues for export. It was how families were able to put food on the table. I wouldn't call it good, but it was definitely better than the alternative (which I also saw). It's a rapidly shrinking portion of the world. People often don't realize how far we've come towards eliminating abject poverty, but it still exists. And with abject poverty, everyone works. It's a solvable problem, and it's being solved, but it has not yet been solved. Work is also often better than no-school in parts of the world where access to education is limited.

Bad child labor: Forced. Slavery. Sweatshops. Etc. Most anything involving a factory.

So, yes, we are too quick to judge. On the other hand, I'm not sure we're too quick to judge Apple.

I agree that there are distinctions.

I grew up delivering newspapers 6 days a week from age 12 or so, walkable distances from my home, 30-90 minute routes depending on my age. I didn't _have_ to, and the money I got from it was available to me as spending money - it wasn't needed to contribute to the household budget or anything.

But also, you've got things like family farms (dwindling in the US but still present), where there's a fine distinction between "chores" and "work to run the farm," and I don't think anyone's going to accuse farmers of exploiting their kids as they ramp up responsibilities as the kids get older.

I'd be interested in hearing why you think we'd be better off with middle school students having jobs. I'm a firm believer that absolutely having to have a job to survive completely wrecks the learning process. Not just for children but even adult students at universities. I had to work to scrape by and my schoolwork, my job, and my mental/physical health suffered because of it. Sure, my situation required it and so I'd be much worse off without doing so but I'd have been even better off if it wasn't a requirement in the first place. That is the future I wish to work towards

Kids in middle schools learn very little. There are studies on this too -- you can skip middle school and lose not very much at all. They're notorious for behavioral problems. It's often a toxic experience.

It's the time when, from an evolutionary psychology perspective, people began helping support families and to have meaning and purpose in life. When I've visited countries when kids do elementary school and then go work the fields, that whole set of behavioral problems and toxicity was avoided. Of course, kids also left school, so I'm not claiming that's a good alternative. But a wealthy nation should be able to provide one:

1) I believe that providing kids with meaningful work starting in middle school would reduce much of that toxicity.

2) I also believe providing kids with work would motivate learning. Right now, kids often ask why they need to know "this," and don't know how to pick majors when they hit college.

To be clear, I don't believe just throwing kids into the grinder, metaphorically speaking, and sending them off to flip burgers at McD's would do any good. Ideally, I'd be thinking of a structured process -- internships and similar where kids have something meaningful to do aligned with their interest. If a 12-year-old is interested in art, they're sent off to do something at an advertising company.

On the other side, when kids leave college, I also wouldn't throw them into a 40-hour (or 70-hour a week) grinder. I'd also try to structure jobs which pay less, but provide for learning and mentorship. Your first few jobs out of college, you should still be taking perhaps 1 class per semester.

As a footnote, I also needed to pay my own way for much of college. My short-term mental/physical health suffered for it, but in the long-term, I'm better off for it. I'm not claiming that's true for everyone (so much of this depends on the specifics of the jobs), but I'm claiming it could be.

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