The U.S. Department of Labor is here to help farmers and their families with new regulations on what their kids can do to help around the farm. The proposed rules have provoked in me a little stroll down nostalgia lane.
I grew up on a dairy farm in the mountains of Southwestern Virginia. Helping out the folks was not optional - our house was heated by wood stoves, so a good bit of my summers was spent wielding an axe and stacking cords of wood. Milking cows happened twice a day every day, holidays and weekends not excepted. I carried the milk cans to the big refrigerator for storage until they were picked up by the dairy company trucks. I was sometimes tasked to cut down timber using a chain saw.
I rarely got to drive the tractors since as a teenager with a strong back I was expected to do labor such as hoisting bales of hay onto trailers in the field and off the trailers into the barn's hayloft. I once got chased by a very annoyed sow that was building a nest in which to farrow. I planted, cut, and hung burley tobacco in barns to dry and then graded it for sale. I applied various pesticides and cleaned the equipment afterwards. Over their strenuous objections, I sheared sheep. I mention all these farm chores because while many them were apparently outlawed in 1970, most of the rest will be under the new regulations.
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3 comments:
That's just wrong in so many ways. At 13 I was chunking newspapers from my bicycle and had a car (that I paid for) and a real job the day I turned 16!
Many of those jobs are summer jobs for kids and it helps them learn about building a background of working hard for what you want.
I guess they are better off sitting at home playing X-Box?
This is ridiculous! My brother and I always did chores, helping in the chicken house, feeding the animals, etc. We loved helping. It made us more responsible. I'm not old either, only 26, and I expect my kids to help around our farm too, doing age appropriate chores. My two year old loves helping us clean stalls and feed the horses. Kids thrive on a sense of purpose. Of course there needs to be time for them to play also, but most families are fine regulating themselves.
This bunch in Washington want a nanny state.
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