Snarky Brides

Child labor laws = US family farms?

http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/25/rural-kids-parents-angry-about-labor-dept-rule-banning-farm-chores/

What say you?

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I think this is a steaming load of horse shiit.
panther
«1

Re: Child labor laws = US family farms?

  • edited April 2012

    I certainly don't think that having your children out 14 hours a day doing hard labor is what needs to happen, but there is nothing wrong with them participating in the day to day activity.

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  • AATB, I think you and I must have similar opinions.
  • This pisses me off. It's just going to add to the entitlement mentality of people nowadays. I speak from experience when I say you're more likely to get hurt working at a gas station or restaurant than on a farm. I can't tell you how many times I burned myself working at the restaurant and gas station, or how many time I cut myself on utensils.
  • I don't see this as being effective. It's not like the Labor Dept is going to go from farm to farm (especially small family farms) and check who's actually working. BUT I think the whole idea it idiotic. I don't see how I could have learned to work on our farm without ya know, ACTUALLY WORKING. And if kids don't learn how to farm as kids, how are they suppoesd to take over from their parents.
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  • You're right.  That's crap. 
  • Oh goodie another way to bring up a society of entitled, snotfaced, too good for a little hard work, brats. Eff this shiit. Kids need to learn a good work ethic at an early age.
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  • Oh, this is annoying. We have to stop coddling kids. 
  • I worked on our farm from about 12-15 and I have never worked so hard in my life. I just think that without that kind of experience I would definitely take of lot of things for granted. Plus it was kind of cool as a kid to know I was doing the same thing that my dad did and his age.
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  • I just don't think they have their heads on particularly straight in the conception of these laws.  I mean, yes.  Protect the children hand beading shoes in sweat shops, for shite's sake.  But to a kid, working on the farm is the fucking coolest thing ever.  And yeah, it can be dangerous.  But farm kids learn that shiit and they take it seriously. 

    My dad started taking me to work when I was 10, but I think if I were his son instead of his daughter, I may have started earlier.  And I was with him the whole day.  6-7am til whenever he came home.  I packed my lunches, same as him.  I learned to drive his truck when I was 10 and a couple years later I was driving everything.

    panther
  • reilsreils member
    First Comment
    This is a load of crap. How are the nest generations going to learn how to farm if they aren't helping out? How would this even be enforced? 

    I like and agree with these lines from the article:

    “What would be more of a blow,” he said, “is not teaching our kids the values of working on a farm."

    Losing that work-ethic — it’s so hard to pick this up later in life,” Clark said. “There’s other ways to learn how to farm, but it’s so hard. You can learn so much more working on the farm when you’re 12, 13, 14 years old.”

    “The work ethic is a huge part of it. It gave me a lot of direction and opportunity in my life. If they do this it will prevent a lot of interest in agriculture. It’s harder to get a 16 year-old interested in farming than a 12 year old.”

    Farming is doomed if this law goes through. People who don't live on farms (I am going to assume the people who had this brilliant idea didn't) just don't understand the lifestyle. 


  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_child-labor-laws-us-family-farms?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:17Discussion:95cafafd-7fc8-4373-ad06-f2653eb66bc3Post:1fceaa7c-8786-47c4-ab4f-2b99f794e612">Re: Child labor laws = US family farms?</a>:
    [QUOTE]I don't see this as being effective. It's not like the Labor Dept is going to go from farm to farm (especially small family farms) and check who's actually working. BUT I think the whole idea it idiotic. I don't see how I could have learned to work on our farm without ya know, ACTUALLY WORKING. And if kids don't learn how to farm as kids, how are they suppoesd to take over from their parents.
    Posted by justlove16[/QUOTE]


    On another front, the EPA thinks they can regulate dust that farmers put in the air.  Not pollutants.  DUST.

    So yeah, I don't think our government is completely idiotic but as far as understanding rural America, their heads could not be further up their stuffy asses.
    panther
  • This is just weird. Way to make the family farm totally extinct and raise food prices along the way. Free labor is a good thing. Teenagers with marketable skills is even better. 
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  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_child-labor-laws-us-family-farms?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:17Discussion:95cafafd-7fc8-4373-ad06-f2653eb66bc3Post:94a6671d-f8b6-414c-847f-f5655dcf6adf">Re: Child labor laws = US family farms?</a>:
    [QUOTE]In Response to Re: Child labor laws = US family farms? : On another front, the EPA thinks they can regulate dust that farmers put in the air.  Not pollutants.  DUST. <strong>So yeah, I don't think our government is completely idiotic but as far as understanding rural America, their heads could not be further up their stuffy asses.</strong>
    Posted by AllAboutTheBenjamin[/QUOTE]
    I couldn't agree more. I always thought it funny that the people making these kind of laws were centered on the coast and that most of them haven't the slightest clue how family farms actually work.
  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_child-labor-laws-us-family-farms?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:17Discussion:95cafafd-7fc8-4373-ad06-f2653eb66bc3Post:8d36ef1a-9269-405d-82ef-0eb4f04e90f7">Re: Child labor laws = US family farms?</a>:
    [QUOTE]I almost sent you this link yesterday and asked what you thought. Personally, I think replacing hands on learning on the family farm with a 90 hour government training program is a great idea.  <strong>(please note sarcasm)</strong>
    Posted by djhar[/QUOTE]


    Lol thank God :)

    Because yeah, when I was a kid I would much rather have learned all that stuff from some Labor Department rep than my dad or my grandpa. 
    panther
  • edited April 2012
    I think the fundamental problem here is that the people writing these proposals are thinking of their own kids/kids local to them (in the suburbs/cities where they live) when they're thinking about what a 12 year old can/can't do, rather than taking into account the fact that the kids this regulation would affect are being raised on farms

    Would the ultra-suburban 12 year old version of me have been able to safely go about doing farmwork?  Heck no, because I'd never stepped foot on a farm in my life.  That doesn't mean it's inappropriate for kids under the direct supervision of their experienced-farmer parents to be doing these tasks. 

    Edited for paragraphs.
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  • First off.  You don't become an adult and then decide you want to be a farmer, you are born and bred that way.  Farm struggle enough these days, this will totally eff them up beyond repair, land will be sold and we'll have a bunch of apartment buildings in cities that have no values left b/c their value and livelihood was in farming.   Second.  Who is the government to interfere with how parents raise their children? 

    STAY THE FUUCK OUT OF OUR LIVES GOVERNMENT, I mean honestly. 


    this is dumb.
  • edited April 2012
    My BIL stacks, actually, didn't grow up on a farm and he's a farmer now.  When he started dating my sis in high school, he took a huge interest in farming because of my dad.  Halfway through college he changed his major from accounting to ag systems management and he's a farmer today.

    That scenario, though - NEVER happens.  That kid is a diamond in the rough, lol.

    Ugh I've actually heard about this proposal for a while now but seeing it again today really lit a fire under me.  My blood is so hot right now.
    panther
  • Also, can't non-farmer parents ask their kids to do dangerous chores too?  My brother had a friend growing up whose dad had him chopping wood for their fireplace when he was like 10.  The kind of activities this regulation would prohibit seem a heck of a lot less dangerous than a suburban 10 year old wielding an axe.
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  • Yea, I can see it happening, but like you said, very far and few between.  This is just hurting the kids and parents so much though.  Kids need to learn to work and help their family and sometimes farmers need some cheap help.  it's not free work, the kids get a roof over their head, clothes, food and many other things they need by keeping the family farm working.  A parent is going to purposely put their kid at risk, they're going to teach them how to be safe. 

    The land by my house is just disppearing more and more every year and it's just so sad.  The small town feel is now most definitely a suburb with one or two family farms left in the middle. 
  • This is completely absurd.  I didn't grow up on a farm, but I did grow up in a rural area helping all my friends whose families had farms.  I don't know a single one that ever regretted helping their family. 


    It's crap like this that makes me wonder what the difference is between the farm chores and my parents making me help landscape our yard when we moved?  I helped excavate and dig and plant and lay sod.  I also helped build a massive deck with my dad.  Or what is the difference between my mom making me clean the bathroom? 

    Is the government going to start regulating that? 

    I saw MUCH worse injuries on teenagers working in restaurants than I ever saw from the ones performing outdoor physical labor.

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  • I say that I was exploited because I had to take out the trash all the time when I was a kid.

    In all seriousness, what a load of manure!
  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_child-labor-laws-us-family-farms?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:17Discussion:95cafafd-7fc8-4373-ad06-f2653eb66bc3Post:fe2a8a52-cd3b-4213-b353-7ccf02a2e483">Re: Child labor laws = US family farms?</a>:
    [QUOTE]I say that I was exploited because I had to take out the trash all the time when I was a kid. In all seriousness, what a load of manure!
    Posted by Bkseller13[/QUOTE]


    For real, I hated doing dishes and cleaning my room a hell of a lot more than I hated picking rocks or sitting in a combine for days, lol.
    panther
  • I'm always wary of things like this, because so many people don't understand farm life. My grandpa has a farm, and I would spend a lot of time up there in the summer picking rock, fixing fence, feeding the cows, driving equipment, etc.

    I can't find exactly the things that the law is trying to change, but at least according the info on the Dep. of Labor's site, it says that it wouldn't take away parental exemption, meaning kids could still do any job on their family's farm. (link)  But it's not clear to me on regulations about working on a farm that isn't your parents. i.e. Could a teenager work on a farm performing "hazardous tasks" for a relative that wasn't her parents? Or for a neighbor's farm?

    It just seems like it isn't thought through, and wouldn't do any good but has the potential to really mess things up
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  • This is so bunk.

    Where the hell am I supposed to send my kids someday then.  I've already resonlved that if i raise bratty kids with any over entitlement issues, they're living out on the farm with grandma and grandpa every summer until they build some "character".  Because hell, waking up at the asscrack of dawn to muck stalls is nothing compared to hauling calves out of knee deep mud in the pouring rain because that's where the dumbass cow decided to drop her calf.  And they always do.  it was hard work and I sure as sh!t don't want to do it now, but that taught me the value of earning my keep and being a part of a family.  it wasn't all bad though.  Bean-walking all day and having my aunt show up in the truck in the middle of the day with jugs of lemonade or sweet tea.  Maybe we'd get lucky and she'd bring a watermelon or strawberry shortcakes.  It was overall the best of times.  Hell.  It pisses me off that someone wants to take such an awesome childhood away from my hypothetical children.

    *end rant*

    AATB:  If they do, I'll start my own country in the middle of SD and you can send your kids to me to build some character and operate a combine.
  • 4-H is tits. It's a great program for kids. It's huge where I grew up and it lead to our county having one of the best fairs in the state.
  • this is so ridiculous. I want to show this to J (grew up working on other people's farms and is proud of doing so) but I think he would explode with anger.
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  • also? a 90 fucking hour govnt training program for safety training? Are you effing kidding me? That is so stupid.
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  • Wow.  I guess Pioneer Woman is going to have to stop posting pictures of her kids working on their ranch soon. 

    Ridiculous. 
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  • Lol Mara, according to a kid on my FB (who unfriended me after the fallout) 4-H is this - "Those clubs are great places for your happy little white kids running around and playing farmer to have social interaction, but they don't address the issue at hand which is that poor children working to support their families are put at much greater risk on farms than informed adults."

    Yeah.  That just happened
    panther
  • Ugh, that's crap. I grew up working on horse farms and it's the hardest I've worked in my life - but I learned SO much. I know it's a huge reason I have the work ethic I do today.. and I know I'm not the only one.

    There's not one single thing wrong with teaching kids the value of hard work, within reason. It's the entitled little snots who expect everything to be handed to them we have to worry about.
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