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child labor vs. cute

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MrBlu:

--- Quote from: jhocking on 07 Jul 2009, 12:57 ---Further related point: Do I over-think things?

--- End quote ---
Yes...

Patrick:
@Joe: Nah man we don't let her anywhere near that thing, even if the fries have been in 20 minutes past their timer (this does not happen, but still, point made). We LIKE the kid, remember?

We never let her do anything dangerous, and she never asks us why. She only ever really takes orders from customers, and she asks us to tell her when the windows or stainless steel faces need to be polished. We're like "Nah they are fine" and we save it for later because the chemicals are not something I'd want to have anywhere near an 8-year-old kid. That and having a sweet little kid off polishing windows by herself would just plain look sad. We like keeping her out at the front counter helping our counter person take orders, and handing out condiments and drink cups and such as needed. She's got a hell of a lot of personality for such a tiny little person and people really love seeing her.

David_Dovey:
Hey I was just thinking how long it had been since Joe had posted. Hey Joe!

tania:
child labour is a lot more disturbing in the context of having to involuntarily do dangerous or mind-numbing work all day in order to assist in paying off debt which isn't even yours in the first place because you are a child. a child both voluntarily choosing to help out their parents at work and having a lot of fun doing it, on the other hand, would not lead anywhere close to the same sort of physical or emotional damage that forced labour would. i guess whether or not this constitutes exploitation could probably still be debated from a theoretical perspective, but i mean kids don't even understand or care about that stuff in the first place because they are kids and they have no attention span and they just want to do things that are fun, which probably occasionally includes things like working and pretending to be a grown-up, and i figure if i spent my time arguing about this they'd be like "wow tania seriously i am 7 years old i do not care about those things or know any of those big words, i just do what i want". so i just shrug and figure most of those kids are probably doing okay.

est:
Yeah, I see a very big difference between kids being forced into crap jobs for little pay and a kid helping out their parents, especially at a family business.  There's a lot of places in Sydney where the business is obviously a family-run store or restaurant and a kid will be working the till or packing shelves or something.  I mean, what is the difference between assigning a child chores at home or at a family-run business?  It's all stuff that needs to be done.

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