Catherine Paneral
Jour 4460
Blog Fourteen
When I was growing up, there
was nothing in this world that made my heart race like a country boy working on
the farm. I could just stare for hours watching them load up trailers with hay
bales, The sun shining on their back. Sweat beads slowly rolling down their
chest hitting every chiseled ab on its way down. Don’t even get me started
about what went through my head when I watched them drive a tractor. Oh dear
Lord.
My parents only had one son
and even though my two sisters and I were raised to work on the farm, the three
of us together were barely as strong as my brother. So to make up for the loss
of not having another son, my parents paid my brothers friends to work on the
farm.
It was a way of life where I
grew up. Most of the parents in my town didn’t believe in giving kids an
allowance. If they wanted money to buy things, they had to work for it. Some
kids even worked on the farm because they needed to help support their family. And
because it is pretty much impossible to get any sort of job before you’re 16,
maybe even 15 depending where you live, kids in my town worked on a farm.
Well, apparently the
Department of Labor is trying to take away the fond memories of the farm boys
that I had as a young girl. That’s right; they are trying to regulate “kids”
working on a farm.
“United States Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis rolled
out the proposal which calls for preventing anyone under 18 from handling raw
materials on a farm, including most types of livestock, [and anyone under 16
would be barred from operating a motorized vehicle that sits more than] six
feet above the ground (Hunter 2012).”
Who the heck do you think
you are Hildy? Working on a farm teaches kids how to run a business, work hard
and have discipline. It is almost like joining the army. I think every kid
should have to work on a farm at some point in their life.
So
my question to the above proposal was can they really do this? Can they really regulate
kids working on farms? My grandparents had 10 kids so they would have free
labor on the farm. “According to the Department of
Labor, the laws, which have not been updated since 1970, would not affect
children and teens working on their [families] farm, only those who are employed
elsewhere.”
OK, that makes me feel a
little bit better knowing the government isn’t trying to stop child farm labor
completely. But I still think it is just a way of life for country people. Kids
work on a farm whether they live there or not.
While farms are huge
businesses, they aren’t anything like huge corporations. There aren’t hundreds
of people in different departments running the business. On the farm mom and
dad are the boss. They are also the finance and accounting department. They are
the marketing, advertising and PR department.
Those two people coordinate how to run the entire family business.
Traits like that should be
passes down through kids working on a farm. “The only reason I have the work
ethics that I have is from the farm. Maybe our country could actually get out
of debt if people learned how to work. Obama and labor department need to put
kids back on farm,” says Jeremy Prudlick.
Source:
First thought as I started reading was "Dear lord leave it to Cat to write about farms! Hinnen was right you're the farm girl and I'm the princess." But I do agree country farm boys with those muscles are a lovely gift. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd I can relate to the no allowance factor. We sure didn't have a farm but we had household chores for money and yard work. I don't see the difference. Mowing the lawn for money and keeping the lawn in great care was a way to make money but would that be child labor? I helped my parents with their business stuff that they trusted me to do but I didn't see that as child labor.
I get that maybe it is to protect our rights as "kids" but what if we don't see it as hurting us. We chose to work on the farm. And it does teach good life lessons for the future.