Child labor laws…

Child labor laws…

Those of us who have children and are over 60 and maybe some younger, know that kids have picked vegetables and fruit for years… Every summer, kids have headed to the farm land to pick strawberries and etc. for farmers.

Probably more in the northern states.   I know it was true as a kid in Rhode Island.. and surely in Washington state..   They even had a bus pick up the local kids to take them out to the big farms.. They had to bring their own lunch bags… water was provided..

More of this happen in the 1910 to the 1970’s..  Kids picking crops… 

I think the south started out with mostly illegal immigrants who picked and followed the season earlier…  and the poor before that as family picked crops…  vegetables, fruit or cotton…. and then the immigrants headed back to Mexico..  with their meager wages.

For the kids, the wages were not much better than the immigrant… paid by how much and how fast they could pick… But they were doing it for school clothes and etc..  and having parent who may have depended on that child’s wages… for clothes for the whole family of kids..

So kids got to keep their wages..  My kids worked the fields..  the older ones worked the strawberry fields while living with my ex…  One of my son’s worked the field picking squash for a month at the age of 14..  He used the money for school clothes (he was in high school) so I had told him.. you want Levi’s and not Wranglers..  you pay.. and he did.

But all those years.. no one screamed CHILD LABOR LAWS.. 

Now I get it..  yes, they needed these laws in the sweat shops with 8 years olds and some even younger.. working in the factories..  .