I haven’t read the whole thread, but I do think kids/college kids, should have some sort of job at some point. I worked fast food, arcades, and department stores. Those all gave me a basic understanding of what goes on at those places. And I don’t really mean how the places work, but more how bad customers can really be.
Customers would get upset and yell for reasons outside of my control. Now when I go anywhere I remember those times and understand it probably isn’t the fault of the front line person. I remember a year or so ago at an amusement park getting food everything was going wrong. It took forever to get food and a number of people were really mad at the front line people. My kids asked me why I wasn’t mad and I told my kids about what I went through.
My 13 year old is starting to work with horses soon and I’m glad she is. It’s volunteer, but I think it will be good for her to deal with different people. So I do think parents should at least encourage their kids to get some sort of job at night/weekend/summer time.
It amazes me that people don’t think that school already teaches you all the bullshit people are listing off already. Show up on time, check, only take breaks when told, check, sometimes your boss/teacher is an idiot, check, sometimes your workload is unfair, check, learn to take orders even if they’re stupid, check, check, AND check. If you kid hasn’t internalized all that stuff from school already (and the average school is definitely designed to make you that obedient stay-in-line cog ready for drudge work), then your kid’s not going to learn anything extra from a job. Now, they might get more confidence or be more interested in doing well at a job since hey, you actually get paid for a job as opposed to in school where it feels like slavery, and it actually counts for something out in the real world, unlike high school. But the actual life lessons a job can teach you over school is really financial management and drawing boundaries.
I can tell you that my experience taking a part time job while in school devastated me. There’s nothing like having an emotional breakdown at 11pm because you feel like everything about you is stretched to your limit, at 16. Of course, I had depression, and my parents didn’t give a shit about me, so it’s not like my experience comes from all these glowing homes where well-adjusted kids get taken care of by well-adjusted parents and things are normal. I could barely handle school without extracurriculars, much less an additional job, but damn did I want the money. I thought it just about broke me; what I hadn’t realized at the time was that I was broken already and nobody was helping me to get better. And so, again, for the 50th time, I learned life lessons on my own without any input from my parents, and feeling like once again my parents had left me to the wolves in order to have me learn it. If I think ANYTHING preps you for a better future life, it’s having actually conscientious parents who care for their kids, and the ability for the kid to problem solve and take initiative. It’s not the job, it’s the parents.
I think for a lot of us, we’re not talking about teenagers having actual jobs during the school year, but rather summer jobs. What you describe is the reason for that- high school and college admissions are tough enough without having to worry about whether or not your petty tyrant boss at your job.
No, of course not. She’s currently headed overseas for training in her particular niche of salvage (wreck) diving. I am covering all costs now to ensure this opportunity is available to her. I certainly wouldn’t want to skip this for a part time job.
I don’t view the crappy McJob as some sort of Doctrine-of-Equal-Suffering rite of passage, but I want to be sure both kids are acquainted with starting at the bottom and handling an unpleasant job environment. I won’t be here forever, and they might have to start over sometime. I’m not exactly confident of the economy for the next few decades. Another reason is that it’s very easy to isolate them “inside the walls” of the affluent 'burbs. I want them to be familiar and at ease with a wide swath of the population. And I guess there’s a small part of me that wants them to understand where we started from (Mizpullin more than myself).
I think the point is less about having kids learn the rules of operating within institutional systems or that “work sucks” as it is learning the lesson that money doesn’t grow on trees. Your standard of living is a direct result of your ability to find and prepare for a particular vocation.
Although I would much rather my kids find a job like pullin’s daughter that is relevant to a career they want to pursue. Ultimately, I think that is much more helpful than harsh and vague “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” lesson of working a crappy job.
