Why I Support Child Labor
Today I stopped at a local Amish roadside stand (technically they’re old-order Mennonite, but that’s a discussion for another day) to buy vegetables for dinner. “Staffing” it was a young boy who couldn’t have been more than ten years old. He took my order, bagged it, and tallied my total and made change. It was a lot of responsibility for someone so young and he handled it well. As I was leaving, I stopped to think. Some people would say that it was cruel to impose that a child should be free to run through the fields, ride his bicycle, and play with his toys. But the plain folk don’t think that way. Their children are instilled early with a strong work ethic and a sense of responsibility.
I thought about what an advantage we would give our children, if we would develop that in them. The thought that kinds should be kids holds true in some sense, but we can also shortchange our kids by not giving them the opportunity and the requirement to be responsible. This, however, requires work. It requires teaching them how to do things like manage money, make well thought out decisions, and take responsibility for their actions. It also means that we must give them room to fail and allow them to be accountable for their failures. It has been said that experience is often the most difficult teacher but also the most effective. A poor decision can temporarily mean something negative for their lives and maybe even temporarily for ours, but it teaches them that actions have consequences. The final important step is modeling. As we hold ourselves to a high standard and intentionally allow our children to witness that, we give them a lesson in good decision making.