Anyone watch 60 Minutes tonight

about children working in agriculture? I did it at the age of 14 and I am hoping to pick some jobs up this summer, due to finances.

I also suspect that I'll see more and more kids doing this.

50's. I've never had a job since that humbled me more than that one. When I hear "jobs Americans won't do" I always think of picking cotton, with my hands bleeding and my knees killing me.

Soybean-pick all the weeds. It's horrible work but it's something I can do while off this summer. I've received a summer lay-off from work and won't be back until mid-August. :(

I really do suspect I'll see more kids talking to the local farmers then usual. It's work that no one asked for ID or papers and most of the pay is under the table.

Some of her earliest memories were of picking cotton. They picked for food and shelter and a few clothes. Very hard life. :(

A very hard life indeed. It's like when I see a homeless person pushing a grocery cart that is totally loaded with stuff, I think to myself "he's working harder than I have every worked in my life". Bless them all.

:yourock:

possibly survive under the same circumstances. I really doubt it.

I walked the bean fields but I had classmates who worked in corn. My town was the host town for the statewide Cornhusking Festival so lots of fun times there.

a cut she got from a corn husk became infected and then developed ino tetanus.

Agricultural work is hard and often dangerous in surprising ways. I am always amazed that so many people look down their noses at those who do work--essential work--that the snobs themselves would never be able to handle.

Low pay, brutal conditions, walking the rows detasseling rain/shine in White County, IN.
Not too bad when you've got dry conditions but kinda rough when you have 5-lbs of mud caked on each boot.

If you're looking to save a buck, Jolly Time popcorn is Orville Redenbacher popcorn that slightly sub-premium.
Still great stuff, but the smaller kernels fall through a sorting grate and are sold on the secondary market.

help bring in the hay crop. Spent many a summer on a wagon behind a baler with a hook in hand to wrestle bales onto the wagon so the guys could stack them.

and I've also worked the orchards. I'm trying to get some bean jobs lined up this summer, though they usually go to the young kids. I might have some orchard work-peaches, pears, and apples-lined up. And hopefully the grape job will come through, since that's a weekend gig later on.

I've thought about detassling corn but there aren't as many in my area with cornfields-it's more soy.

City kid here. Spent my summers typing labels. Sigh.

Knocking out any stray corn plants in the rows or burrs or major weeds. Hot and exhausting job.

Weeding and such. It's hot, exhausting work that's rough on your back.

Get paid in produce.

Imagine being out there with acre upon acre upon acre staring you down. Imagine it's 100 degrees outside.

It's not fun. You're burned and you ache at the end of the day. And they don't even have to pay you minimum wage.

Pretty easy work compared to the other things we did - and we were GIRLS! I was wondering where all the females were - lol. Out of 11 kids in my familia, more than half have degrees and the rest have good paying technical type jobs. I never saw it as something that would hold me back.

but it's all rough work. Fast food seemed like a step up after walking beans!

Sounded like a horrible job.

but I walked beans. Not all that fun.

My church youth group did some weeding to raise money for their trip to Chicago (where they saw Jesse Jackson (in the late 1970s). I wasn't part of the group but my little sister was complaining about how hard it was. But I understood they were using hoes.

My parents are from Germany and Lithuania met in Switzerland while working and came here. My in-laws are from the Philippines, one from the big city Manila, the other from the country.

I'm thinking of how hard both our parents worked to make our lives better and how easy it was for both of us and how easy it was for both of us growing up, well it seemed easy.

Now, just tonight, we're struggling with our kids, just trying to get them clean up and appreciate all the shit they have and it's not easy all while watching this story. They just don't understand how good they have it, good schools, a nice house, new cars, eating out, a big yard, never wanting for clothes, shoes, computers, gaming systems, whatever. Their grandparents give them whatever and their college is already paid for.

Makes you happy and sad at the same time.

that we aren't that far off of living like this. She has no idea.

You know, even now I still love working outside in the hot sun, shoveling dirt, compost, tilling, pulling weeds, getting covered in dirt. I love it. All that hard work as a kid didn't turn me off to manual labor as an adult.

my mother in law partly owns and teaches at last summer. Light office work, answering the phones, that sort of thing. She was 13 at the time. She got a laptop out of the deal and a ton of clothes. Wasn't a real job experience at all. The kid is smart as hell too, which really pisses me off when she just doesn't get this stuff. Seems like no amount of stories, grounding anything makes it sink in. It just won't happen to her, and barring a real catastrophe, it probably won't. At least she's empathetic, that's a plus.

but I wonder if it wouldn't be better to make my kid do one summer out in the fields when she's 13/14? Maybe she'd finally learn to appreciate what she really has.

I don't expect anyone to do it.

yet it still sticks out as maybe a few days in an orchard.

I still can't do it to her, even though I'll take whatever they have right now.

A seasonal job, it lasted 2-3 weeks, six days a week, they worked us six hours a day or so.

Pay was 50 cents per crate picked. So I made about thirty bucks. It paid for my school clothes from JC Penney and I had enough left over to buy a couple of movie tickets and a 9-volt battery for my transistor radio. 1964.

It was honest work.

she started working in the fields at the age of 5, played in the fields with her parents and siblings as soon as she could toddle out there.

when I was 11 or 12.

I don't see anything wrong with kids working IF it isn't in place of school.

I've known migrant farm families my entire life. They turned out very well.

around the house they'd have a better grasp of reality.

if I wanted anything new. Others have to do it in order to survive.

I don't know-it's just hard work and though it's good enough for me I don't know if I'd want my daughter doing it.

washing dishes etc

My child and I fight about this all the time. She constantly questions me about why she should have to when none of her friends have any kind of chores.

I think when she turns 12 she will help me can everything so she knows what I go through. She'll also help me prepare everything to freeze and dehydrate.

and I was gathering eggs in the 4th grade after school every day and started shoveling chicken shit starting in the 9th grade. Never had one holiday off until I was in college..

It never hurt me one bit...

you weren't out there working as a migrant worker, like the children on the show did. You stayed in your home and didn't have to travel to work. It makes a difference.

migrant workers in the hot Sacramento Valley. My hands turned green from the tomatoes and the itchy peach fuzz would cover your whole body. Picked up on a lot of Spanish also...

I've walked bean fields and I wouldn't recommend it. Looking back I realize exactly how little I was paid (less than minimum wage) for exhausting work.

Work is fine but sometimes kids still need to be kids. These kids had the weight of the world on their shoulders. If they missed even one day of work they would have to worry about their families not having bill money.