Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/work-chores-and-play-setting-a-healthy-balance/5016739/
I had my first job when I was nine years old at the end of the Depression. To get some spending money, I asked the owner of a corner Mom and Pop grocery store if he needed anyone to stack the returned empty glass soda bottles into the wooden boxes in which they were transported. He took me on; and after school and on Saturdays, (most stores were closed on Sundays) I worked putting the bottles into boxes and doing other simple chores. I earned 50 cents a week and spent it at the store on comic books, candy, soda, and potato chips. I never knew what an allowance was, and I worked to get a few childhood treats my parents could not afford. Fortunately, even during the Depression Era, my father had a job, foreman at a machine shop. Even so, we were still a blue collar family and you had to work, if you wanted anything more than the necessities.I start with this recollection because it illustrates a central point about children’s work, chores, and allowance, namely, social context. In many countries today, child labor is still all too common a practice. In my case, I grew up in ...