How did you earn money as a kid?

[MindPilot]

Since this whole issue of kids-should-be-working issue has come up it got me to thinking how I made money when I was young. I mowed lawns, raked leaves, shoveled snow, scraped paint, washed cars (never had a paper route though--although I sometimes helped out my friends who did--and mercifully never worked fast food or retail). Started doing that kind of stuff about age 9 or 10. I was also good at fixing things. I always liked taking things apart, after a while I figured out I could oftentimes make them work again, clean them up and sell them. I would canvass the neighborhood for any toasters, mixers, record players, vacuum cleaners, table lamps, radios...anything that they were tossing out because it didn't work. The first actual punch a clock, get a paycheck and have to pay taxes job I had was at a company that refurbished construction equipment, especially cement trucks. Part of my job was to climb inside the drum of the cement truck and break out the hardened concrete. I was 14.

So what did you do? And if you have kids, how do they earn extra cash?

[malthaussen]

1. My answer is now obsolete

My brother and I earned our spending money collecting and returning pop bottles. One cent a bottle. At the time (circa 1960-1965) a candy bar was a nickle and a comic book was 12 cents.

-- Mal

[MineralMan]

7. It's not obsolete. Collect aluminum cans, instead.

They're everywhere. Truly.

[blueamy66]

16. We used to steal bottles from carports

and get cash for them....until my Mom found out and punished us good!

[TexasProgresive]

42. In Texas and Louisiana soda bottle deposit was .03.

Beer bottles were .02. It was great-we'd find them on the way to the store were we would redeem them-buying candy, comix and yes cigarettes!!!

Aluminum cans, meh! A kid to young to drive is not likely get to the place to sell them.

[lynne]

63. My money making evolved with age. Began collecting soda bottles -

- then went to babysitting - at 15 began working at local factory during the summer. Also did typing.

[WildNovember]

129. Babysitting (at 12) and started working fast food age 15. Before that we got

allowance, for which we were supposed to do chores, mainly clean our rooms,help with yard work, empty the dishwasher, etc. Or whatever our parents told us to do.

[seabeyond]

2. babysitting. at 12 my dad bought a couple small businesses and i worked there

for three, four years.

[Raven]

3. I baby sat. Will started working at a local golf course when he was

9 years old picking up litter and raking sand traps. When he got older he worked at an ice cream store and at a department store during the Christmas season. My brothers and I also shovelled snow for neighbors.

[yellerpup]

4. I took in ironing, I worked in the school cafeteria,

washed pots and pans twice a week for a local restaurant, I waitressed, I milked cows, separated the milk and churned butter for a neighbor and babysat and cooked for my younger brother and sister while both my parents worked.

[BrendaBrick]

89. Did you churn butter by hand?

Using one of those wooden butter churns?

[yellerpup]

109. It was metal, I think.

My grandpa tried to make one using a half pint jar with a small motor on the lid, but that contraption only made whipped cream. I do remember a small wooden hand churn with the dasher that I used once--tiring, boring work. He only had a maximum of 6 cows at any given time, so we skimmed enough cream off the milk and saved the cream for a few days before we had enough for a batch of butter . We sold the butter for $1/lb. and ate margarine @$ .10-.25/lb. (mid 1960s) Cleaning the separator (milk from cream) was the trickiest part of the job but beyond that everything had to be washed, rinsed, scalded with boiling water and dried with a clean towel it took a long time and a lot of effort.

[RebelOne]

5. Babysitting when I tured 13. And I couldn't stand little kids. n/t

[REP]

98. My mother refused to do that to me, for many reasons

She believed that if people could afford to go out, they could damn well afford more than $2/hr for someone to keep their child safe. Also I don't like being around babies/children.

I only sat one kid, for $10/hr - and despite being the adored only child of older parents, was a very good kid.

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. Prior to age 15, chores, then farm work then retail starting at 16.

The evil genius of republicans is this: they take the kernel of truth (jobs for youth are nonexistent) and use that factoid to justify some element of their perverse antisocial dickensian world view.

[MineralMan]

8. I mowed lawns and did minor gardening in the neighborhood.

When I turned 16, I went to work for the local dairy, delivering milk from 5-8 in the morning, then went to school. The dairy truck dropped me off and I changed out of my milkman whites in a restroom. 1962. I got $1.25/hr and worked six mornings a week for two years.

[ret5hd]

9. i did much of the same plus a paper route...

but this all misses the point that what grinchgrinch is proposing is completely different. a child shouldn't have to work to attend school. a child shouldn't have to clean up his classmates messes just because he's poor.

a childs "job" is learning...going to school. a childs "job" is homework, textbooks, socialization, etc. not mop buckets and the unstated but perfectly obvious implication that "you might as well get used to it now 'cause this is your future".

the jobs i did were empowering. they made me feel better about myself. when i finished a job and pocketed the money, i went home with my head held high.

the jobs grinchgrinch is proposing are enslaving. they will make the kids feel worse about themselves. when they finish the job they will face the taunts of their peers and will walk home with eir head hanging.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

10. I babysat my cousins, mostly

washed dishes in my friend's parent's restaurant, my little brother used to fish the golf balls out of the pond at the course near our house, wash them and sell them back to the golfers. :)

[Skink]

11. Paper route

Also had a job cleaning tthe concert hall 5 nights a week at music camp in the summers. That went toward tuition.

[otohara]

12. Babysitting n/t

[Wounded Bear]

13. First job at 14, IIRC.....in the public library

in Auburn Washington. That would have been around 1967. I still have my original SS card. :)

Went from there to bagging groceries, then worked at a gas station (there's an obsolete job, except in Oregon) until I graduated.

After graduation, I joned the Union Street Marble Champs. :)

[Bluenorthwest]

114. People are also paid to pump gas in New Jersey....

as well as here in Oregon. I see adults doing that job.

[Graybeard]

14. Worked in neighborhood drug store after school.

Mostly it was to deliver prescriptions but also stocking shelves and sweeping the floors. The druggist, who we always called "Doc", was a kindly old fellow and it was just for a few hours.

[blueamy66]

15. babysitting

nt

[brewens]

17. Moving irrigation pipe and setting up watering in commercial

cucumber fields. Then we got into the cucumber business because we had a huge garden. First selling to a local pickle maker and then selling from our house through ads in the paper. In jr high school I pretty much did the whole thing on my own. It started out as a spending money project for my older brother and sister and I but they had gotten old enough to get other jobs.

I was the cucumber king for a few years there. For a kid I had a lot of money but I had to work my ass off. I also set trap the local gun club. At 16 I got a boxboy job at a grocery store. That was the end of the cucumber racket.

[ensho]

18. baby sitting - .25 cents before midnight, 50 cents after

I started when I was twelve in 1947

[ensho]

26. one of my kids cleaned UPS trucks at night

nt

[ensho]

121. my brother's first job was going in a skiff, poling for soft shelled crabs

in inlets of Chesapeake Bay. he would dip a bunch and sell them to a man who drove a large milk truck down to the small stores by the Bay. he would keep them wet and cold and sell them in Wash., D.C.

[Morning Dew]

19. You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank.

We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.


Ooops, that wasn't me.

I babysat until I was old enough to get a job at KFC.

[malthaussen]

28. And you try to tell the people that now

... and they won't believe you. Aye.

-- Mal

[winstars]

104. SHEER LUXURY!!! nt.

[Old Codger]

20. For me

I did a variety of things, baby sitting and caddying at golf course from about 12 on, also set pins at bowling alley, mowed lawns, ran a trap line, had a paper route.... lots of other minor stuff cleaning fish at local boat rental place, dug worms and sold for bait I too collected bottles to turn in... at 13 I knew the fishing spots on the lake so would hire out to help people from town with fishing places in summer..

[kudzu22]

21. Paper route

Made me really hate waking up early...

[awoke_in_2003]

72. I did it in Cleveland, OH...

really learned to hate snow, too.

[hughee99]

22. When I was 14 I made some money writing computer programs for horse racing..

It was years and years ago, and a friend's father was big into horse racing. He had researched several "systems", but they were usually somewhat time intensive. You had to look up a lot of stuff and do math just to get info on one horse. I wrote him a program that would look up all the relevant data and do the math for him. He'd create a text file with the info for a race or a bunch of races, I'd read in the file and give him the results. I have no idea if the system was any good at picking horses, but the program worked fine.

I think you could do almost all of this in excel now in about 5 minutes.

He had me write programs for several other systems as well, and paid pretty well for it.

[grantcart]

23. anything I could including mowing lawns but the best was picking fruit

you were paid by the pound not by the hour and you could make as much as an adult.

In E washingtion it was mostly cherries and apples, I didn't like strawberries or other stuff on the ground.

You could make 4 times the minimum wage, a great job for a teenager.

Weather there wasn't too bad. Outside in the sun. I enjoyed it for a couple of summers but as a full time job it would be hard.

[amandabeech]

80. I picked cherries, too, but in Michigan.

We were paid by the lug, which was an oblong box that took 2.2 buckets to fill.

I also did a lot of work around the house. I scraped paint, weeded the large garden, ranked leaves, and most importantly, at age 12, I planned the meals, made up the grocery list, made out bank deposit tickets and took out as much cash as the family would need during the week, went to the grocery store with Mom and pulled food off the shelf, and then cooked almost all the meals. For that, I got an itty-bitty car when I got my driver's license. I figured at the time that I had made $1.60 an hour, which was the going minimum wage.

[Hamlette]

24. Would you let your kid do the same things now?

I wonder if some of these jobs have given way to our paranoia about the world not being so safe? We used to run like wild. City, country, didn't matter. We'd get on the bus and go downtown at night to see a movie. I would not have let my son do that when he was 10 although it was probably just as safe.

What do kids do now?

[surrealAmerican]

25. Babysitting and dog sitting

I actually liked small children and dogs, and was pretty good at it. Raking leaves, mowing lawns, shoveling snow, cooking and cleaning were unpaid chores I did at home: I didn't like these enough to try doing them for people who would pay me.

The first real, paycheck I got was when I was 18, and got a summer camp job.

[LWolf]

27. I babysat. I did yard work. I cleaned barns. I excercised horses. I cleaned houses.

Chores at home? Sure. I got a very small allowance, but the chores were considered mandatory, allowance or not. I did my part to keep the place going as part of the family, not for pay.

My kids? They did whatever chores I required of them. They got a small allowance. If they wanted more, they could request some extra, bigger jobs that were not part of their assigned chores. They sometimes helped their step-dad with his business. We didn't live with a bunch of neighbors to do yard work or babysitting, so those avenues were not open to them.

When they got old enough, they got jobs out in the world. My oldest son's first job? He was Chuck E. Cheese. My younger son's first job was helping maintain trails at a local state park.

[DotGone]

29. Yardwork, food service, retail

I mowed lawns, picked weeds, raked leaves, picked up trash, moved rocks, shoveled snow, etc...starting at the age of 7 for less than min wage. I'm probably gonna die of skin cancer from all the time I spent in the sun as a kid. Moved up to min wage at 14 when I could work food service so I had the pleasure of cleaning people's shit (the toilet kind). Retail for slightly above min wage came at age 16. Been there ever since.

[Frustratedlady]

30. Baby sat and detasseled corn. Detasseling was tough, but fun.

I might add, I was paid a quarter/hour to babysit.

[safeinOhio]

31. By age 12 I was a

loan shark, fence, collections agent, pornographer and bookie. Of course I was a republican back then.

[malthaussen]

33. Sounds like a well-rounded childhood

I never had that kind of fun.

-- Mal

[safeinOhio]

38. both parents worked and I

was home alone a lot.

[ret5hd]

41. drawing boobies in your notebook does not make you a pornographer!

[safeinOhio]

52. Selling them did.

[Ichingcarpenter]

32. Delivering the Washington Post at 4 in the morning

shoveling snow, moving lawns, collecting bottles.

Then I went to a catholic priest and the Vatican ..... bad joke.
But the rest is true.

I had a job at 14 working as a flag man for a local paving company
that paid me federal wages in the 60s because their contracts were federal.

[waddirum]

34. I delivered newspapers from age 10 to 14

I had to work every single day of the year, including Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sundays were the largest papers, and I had to make multiple trips back home to collect more papers.

I was responsible for collecting subscription money from houses on my route. If a customer did not pay, it came out of my pocket.

Of course, there was no insurance, paid vacation, or workers comp. Luckily I never was injured, as I would be shit out of luck as a "private contractor". Never mind child labor laws, minimum wage, or anything else.

[Ichingcarpenter]

37. I couldn't wait tell the Christmas season to collect

I got some good bonuses to make up for the shitty job
in the dead of winter, ..... oh yes when they didn't pay..
that sucked.

Remember your bike? You need to rear baskets and a front one
and the bike weigh a ton....

Now of course we walked 5 miles through the snow....LOL

[Throd]

35. Paper route. Aluminum can recycling.

[pipi_k]

36. Knocked out all my teeth. After that, I was unemployed n/t

[Hutzpa]

39. This is something that should not even be open for discussion

the problem is some of us on the left tend to buy too much into the right wing
narrative that it takes us away from the real motive that is at play.

[flpab]

43. worked on the farm

We did chores,milking cows at 5 am and pm before school, cleaning out the barns, pulling huge weeds, mowing grass but didn't get paid or an allowance. I did baby-sit when I turned 13 and made money, then at 15 got my first job at the local fast food place for a whole 1.00 an hour! I am still working, 44 years later...I loved having my own money and buying my own clothes. It was very ok with me.
But, I never had kids so don't know if i would have let them do what my parents did. I heard the other day that they want to prevent kids from driving farm equipment. Yes to that. My brother almost lost a leg when he fell off the tractor and onto the plow at five. My cousin lost an arm, drove the tractor back to the house before he bled to death. But dang, I learned to drive a John Deere tractor at 7 years old and was very proud of that. I think things have changed. We didn't have seatbelts and we drove in the car with my Dad puffin on a cig.

[MindPilot]

67. Not sure what you mean...

My OP has no ulterior motive. Just curious about other people's experiences...

[Hutzpa]

71. My point is taking a topic that should best be left

with the discretion of parents and turning it into a political football.

I'm not saying your thread has an ulterior motive, I'm saying the subject
if pursued can be taken out of context by those with hidden agenda and use
as another method in creating minimum wage. When you bring up the subject
of kids being paid to do a job you open up another can of worms which is,
how much can you pay a child to work? when is it acceptable for a child to
work? You also go into the territory of age discrimination whereas a child
can be seen as most affordable by big corporation than adults whose wages
will be a lot more higher than kids.

And the argument will probably be expanded into questions such as -- if
some parents are fearful of their kids working, does that make them lazy
kids? Does that mean the parents should be held accountable for not allowing
their kids to find a job?

Do You now see how it can quickly get out of context? That's my point.

[greiner3]

118. I do not agree with your post;

For several reasons. All the posters here voluntarily made do with what was available for them at the time and at the particular point of US's history. What Newt is proposing is another matter. He wants children to HAVE to 'dance for their meal.' Compulsory education will come with a caveat; poor children will only be allowed to go to school if they do the work of semi skilled workers; adult janitors. I can see it now; hundreds, if not more, janitors would be laid off of their decently paying jobs. Those jobs would be manned by children as young as, well to put it into context, as Newt puts it, "Child labor laws are stupid." He mentions children as young as 14 doing this work but with no child labor laws to protect our children, it could mean that age could be approaching zero; see reductio ad absurdum.

So what you are proposing by your statement, "if some parents are fearful of their kids working, does that make them lazy kids? Does that mean the parents should be held accountable for not allowing their kids to find a job?" is that it will be ok to force these children to get those jobs? The OP does not say that that the parents would even have the choice of saying yea or nay. It would be mandatory. Also, for the truly poor sector where this is being proposed, I would imagine the parents would be mostly in favor of this new idea for the fact that it would bring in a bit more money; their children working be damned.

[Hutzpa]

124. You must have misunderstood my post,

because I'm not proposing anything. My advice to you will be to
go back and reread my post.

[MADem]

40. I did all of that, and had a paper route (shared w/siblings).

I even did a little babysitting. When I got older, I did a lot of restaurant work--from the crappy clean/slop/dishwashing jobs to waiting on tables for some nice tips. I did a little landscaping work, but that sucked--long, hot days.

The now grown youngsters in our family have done everything from house cleaning to all of that sort of yard work to child care to hotel/restaurant work and beyond. It's helpful to have a few siblings, and attack those neighborhood jobs as a unit. Safer for the kids to go in a group, and the job gets done faster, too, which makes the 'employer' happy.

[TexasProgresive]

44. 1st job with a real paycheck was on our family farm

We had a large egg laying operation. I fed, cleaned waterers, gathered, candled, cleaned, graded and packed eggs. When we moved from my uncle's farm to the city I could not stand to eat an egg (unless in cake.LOL) for about 4 years. We had a bucket to toss cracked eggs and the smell of raw eggs all day was overpowering.

[polly7]

45. Babysitting and riding horses for a horse-trainer. The babysitting

was safer, but not nearly as much fun .. both paid pretty good for a 12 y/o. With nine kids, we never got an allowance, and most of us bought our own clothes and paid for whatever extras we needed once we were old enough to find jobs we could do. I admire your entrepreneurship!

[Hotler]

46. Paper route, yard work, dog walking, sold night crawlers. eom.

[HuckleB]

47. Delivered newspapers, mowed lawns, trimmed hedges, dug ditches, hauled bricks ...

My kid is five, so he's not quite ready to head down the street and rake leaves, but he does help me rake leaves. He does empty the dishwasher. He does help fold laundry. He does help pick up around the house. Etc...

[roody]

48. I didn't have money and I didn't need it when I was a kid.

[MilesColtrane]

49. Bus boy/oyster shucker/dishwasher at age 16

Before that I got an allowance for household chores/yardwork.

Also, painted houses one summer in there somewhere.

[shanti]

50. babysitting

until i was 16, then i worked fast food.

[ladjf]

51. I sold Christmas trees, fireworks, delivered newspapers and successfully

played poker with my friends.

I once asked my father if he was opposed to my gambling. His answer was that judging from my success , I wasn't gambling.

That inspired me to write a poem, "The Ballad of Poker Face Pete"

I still recall the entire poem but for brevity will just type the prologue,

"It's been often said and many times read,
that to gamble for money is a sin.
But, I ask of you, your point of view,
What if you gamble and win?"

Ok, I'll put in the second verse.

"Now Poker Face Pete needed money to eat,
but to play those cards was his goal.
Not a day went by, that his wife didn't cry,
The Devil's going to get your soul."

[Obamanaut]

53. Middle school and junior high mowed lawns. In the summer between 11/12 grades

was a janitor in a church.

Senior year in high school (graduated 1960) delivery boy for drug store. They had those in the late 50s - early 60s. I don't think drug stores deliver anymore.

Four days after graduation was in basic training, retired 28 years later

[stevedeshazer]

54. I picked strawberries.

The season was 3-4 weeks. We'd pick six hours a day, six days a week, starting at six a.m.

I got paid fifty cents a flat. On a good day, I picked six flats. I listened to The Beatles on my transistor radio (before Strawberry Fields Forever). I was nine years old.

$3 a day.

I also hauled hay after berry season. At ten I was driving the tractor. Then, you move up to stacker on the trailer. By 14, I was bucking bales.

I used to set irrigation pipes for my grandpa's dairy farm in the summer. Up at 4 am every summer morning.

My family was poor. I needed the money to buy my back-to-school clothing.

At fifteen I started working for the county fair, painting buildings, hauling chicken and rabbit cages around, taking garbage to the dump. I didn't even have my driver's license yet. My favorite was plowing and raking the rodeo arena with the county-owned Ford 8N tractor.

That said, Newt Gingrich is crazy. This isn't the 1960's, or the 1860's for that matter. I don't want my grandkids to have to do that kind of shit, despite my nostalgia. It was damn hard work for a little kid.

[Generic Other]

123. $3.00 you were a GOOD WORKER!

I usually got in berry fights, so I made less money. Had more fun though! :)

[ThomWV]

55. First job at 14, at an auto dealership as a gofer.

It was a great job, I got to drive cars off the lot when they sent me out for parts and when not cleaning up the shop I was assigned to help the mechanics. That helped out a lot because by the time I was 16 or so I was making pretty good money rebuilding transmissions on the side. All that led me to my first real job, a Union job with benefits and such, that I got at 19 as an assembly mechanic working on jet engines - I rebuilt fuel control assemblies.

[Mojorabbit]

56. I sold tomatoes from our garden

I had regular customers and rode my bike. 25 c a bag for cherry and 1 buck a bag for big tomatoes. I babysat starting from when I was 10 for 50 cents an hour. This was in the 60's.

[Gregorian]

57. I was the neighborhood bycycle repair kid.

25 cents per tire puncture repair.

[Speck Tater]

58. Paper route and in the summer a killer Koolaid stand at the beach.

Back around 1953-55 me and my best friend used to make $20 a day each peddling cold Koolaid to hot swimmers at the lake that was a mile from where we lived. For kids back then that was BIG money.

[treestar]

59. babysitting

50 cents an hour at the time

[newspeak]

60. babysat when I was twelve years old

was a motel maid when I was thirteen (short stinit-oops, found out my actual age). Oh, and no child should be a maid at thirteen-the things I found in those rooms. In highschool, junior and senior summer worked for the telephone company on one of the old switchboards. During school of senior year, worked in the snack bar of a casino by hoover dam.

Oh, and I worked without Newt's idea of getting rid of child labor laws.

[eilen]

61. Babysitting, paper route, waitressing

and I even took in laundry-- washed and pressed jeans and shirts for the carnies who came with the different festivals and the state fair during the summertime. I also worked jobs at the state fair.

For a while it was difficult when we lived in the country and had no transportation to get any work. So I mostly just did chores and begged money from my parents.

[Nye Bevan]

62. As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.

To me, being a gangster was better than being president of the United States. Even before I went to the cabstand for an after-school job, I knew I wanted to be a part of them. It was there that I knew I belonged. To me, it meant being somebody, in a neighborhood full of nobodies. They weren't like anybody else. They did whatever they wanted. They parked in front of hydrants and never got a ticket. When they played cards all night nobody ever called the cops.

At first, my parents loved that I found a job across the street. My father, who was Irish, was sent to work at the age of eleven, and he liked that I got myself a job. He always said American kids were spoiled lazy. And my mother was happy after she found out that the Varios came from the same part of Sicily as she did. To my mother, it was the answer to her prayers.

I was the luckiest kid in the world. I could go anywhere. I could do anything. I knew everybody and everybody knew me. But it wasn’t too long before my parents changed their minds. For them, the cabstand was supposed to be a part-time job, but for me, it was full-time. People like my father could never understand, but I was a part of something. I belonged. I was treated like a grown-up. Every day I was learning to score.

[flying rabbit]

87. Goodfellas?

[laruemtt]

64. i made clothes for a

rich classmate (i had won a national sewing contest). also did babysitting and envelope stuffing.

[Codeine]

65. I wrote book reports and term papers.

My classmates had cash and were seemingly illiterate.

[NNN0LHI]

66. My brother and I shoveled the neighbors sidewalks and drives for cash in the winter

We cut grass in the summer.

First paycheck job was as a busboy/dishwasher at a local restaurant when I was 14. Think I was supposed to be at least 15 or 16 at that time but I lied on the application and they never asked for any proof.

Next job was a midnight shift union stock boy job when I turned 16 at a Jewel Food Store. They asked for proof of age.

Started working in a factory right after I turned 18 and a couple of months before I graduated High School making top union wages and benefits. Retired from there 30 years later.

Never had any kids come by this house asking if we were looking for someone to cut the grass or shovel the snow in the 22 years we have lived here. Don't think they do that any more. Even the kid who delivers papers around here has his mom drive him around his paper route.

Don

[Blue_In_AK]

68. I did some babysitting,

plus I got an allowance, but I had to use it for everything I wanted -- including clothes, school supplies, etc. -- so it wasn't really a giveaway. Also had my weekly chores at home. My mom would present me with a list every Saturday morning, and nothing happened in my life until I had finished everything on it.

[Are_grits_groceries]

69. During the summer,

I worked on bright-leaf tobacco farms in NE South Carolina. We worked from can't see to can't see. The most I got paid was $10 a day.

[gulliver]

70. Mowed lawns, helped paint. Started working in fast food at 14. n/t

[williesgirl]

73. Dog walking, baby sitting, cutting grass, til I was 16 and then retail.

[spanone]

74. paper route, the winters were tough

my brothers and i cut lawns and trimmed ...way before gas or electric trimmers

and never a riding mower.

[woofless]

75. Mowed lawns and washed windows and shoveled snow

from age 10 (early 60's). Started working for large corporations at age 16 while still in school.

[The Genealogist]

76. Various chores

Getting dinner started, watching my sister, cleaning house, dishes, yard work, helping Dad at his construction sites, one summer I helped my uncle build an addition onto his house.

This was a pretty good idea that my grandmother had. She had me do chores around her house like these, and had me keep a tab on the chores I was doing in a little notebook: how long I spent doing them, how much I earned doing it. Kind of like a time card. I thought this was kind of fun! I felt a sense of accomplishment, looking at what I had done, and it taught me some rudiments of how work would be tracked as an adult.

[chowder66]

77. Dug up weeds for a penny each,

took papers up to older residents and did odd jobs for them, shoveled snow, lawn work and did a tiny amount of babysitting.

[dionysus]

78. mowing lawns until i was old enough to get a job at a grocery store...

[CrispyQ]

79. I had chores that were required as being part of the household & not paid for,

such as feeding the dogs & cats, dinner dishes, helping Mom with Saturday morning cleaning.

Then there were extra things I could do for money, if I wanted to. Ironing was my favorite cuz I could watch TV. :) We lived on a farm so so there were lots of ways for me to help out & earn some extra money.

[sendero]

81. I mowed lawns..

.. which was a typical thing for a 12 yo to do in TX. I got $2 to $3 per lawn. One time a friend's mom got us a job mowing what amounted to an estate taking up an entire city block. We got paid $30 to do that and believe me we earned every cent :)

When I was 12 I got a "cash" job at a donut shop cleaning up the kitchen. That was a lot of fun, and I just can't remember what it paid other than I did get to take home all the leftover donuts I wanted.

[madmom]

82. Babysitting and mowing lawns. When I got a little older i did the

neighbors ironing. They both had office jobs and had to dress professionally so needed the ironed shirt and slacks "uniform".

[Downwinder]

83. Haying.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

84. I broke the Union and became a janitor at 13.

[Prometheus Bound]

85. Shovelling snow, raking leaves, started babysitting at 11.

Operated a punch press in a factory at 15, including furnace work wearing some sort of asbestos suit. Man that was hot.

Babysitting for neighbors was the biggest moneymaker from 11 to 14.

[kohodog]

86. I cleaned the bathrooms in my elementary school. n/t

[JoePhilly]

88. Paper route ... some baby sitting ... and then worked in a Cemetery.

I also occasionally worked work with my father in construction and home renovation.

Newt's assertion that poor kids don't work, and that their parents don't work is nonsense.

I was a lower class, just about poor, kid.

I recall my mother flipping the cushions off the couch hoping to find enough change to buy milk. When she found that we were about 10 cents short, she sent me (alone) to the corner store, telling me that if they say "this is not enough", that I should say "Oh, my mom thought this is how much the Milk would be."

They let me take the milk ... and I then said what my mom also told me to say if they did let me take the milk ... "I'll tell my mom she didn't give me enough, I'm sure she'll give it to you next time she is here." Which she did. She apologized endlessly the next time we were there.

In any case, I had to work. Of my friends from youth, who were close to poor, or lower middle class at best, who also worked as kids ... most of them are still there.

I've been very fortunate.

Most of my friends could not afford college. And their grades while good, were not stellar. My grades were a little better. I was one of the top three in my 8th grade, my friends were in the top half. A teacher helped me get into a different (far better) high school than my friends. Having gone to that high school (graduated in top 3rd, so not so stellar) still helped me to get accepted into a good college.

And via a few grants, big loans, and working in a Cemetery ... I was able to pay tuition.

I suppose that I could use this story as a "Look at how awesome I am" story ... but would be false.

I remember how hard it was to simply navigate the process. The system was then, as it is now, stacked to make it so hard for a relatively poor kid to get into college, that they can't do it.

If that teacher in 8th grade had not helped me with the application for the better high school, I'm probably the smartest guy working in that Cemetery.

There is no reason that having good grades in 8th grade should determine your future economic status in life.

And yet, that is the key thing that allowed me to go from being on the edge between poor and just lower class, to being very successful.

Thank God I did not have to spend my school day cleaning the school.

[HipChick]

90. I took it out my dad's wallet

A fiver, couple of pounds here and there, he never noticed it..

[BrendaBrick]

91. Lemonade stand in South Florida...

when I was about 10 or so. I remembered thinking...Yeah - year-round sales! I'll never forget when a van of my parents' friends pulled up with their 4 kids, I thought I hit the "mother-load" with an instant 6 sales - cha-ching! :-)

At 15 I spent the summer in Iowa de-tasseling corn. Sun up to sun down. I remember walking to the place where the bus would pick us up with a flashlight because it was still dark outside. Just when ya thought your row had ended...it was actually a hill and the row kept going and going. (I was so naive because I was from FL that about 2 weeks into it - I finally asked if the de-tasseled part was what turned into corn? It was then explained to me about the merits of preventing cross-pollination.)

Got paid NOT by the week, or semi-monthly...but by the season. I think it was a whopping $250.00 back then and by that time, I was back in Florida and I guess they could have forgotten about me - but they didn't. They sent my check to FL. Went out and spent it all on my first stereo system at the local Zayre's.

Did some baby-sitting too, especially for the 'better clients' who always seem to have some great snacks in the fridge for me! Sara-Lee cupcakes - Variety Pack was the best!!!

[Synicus Maximus]

92. Bus boy, marker at a shooting range, and at Christmas I had

a job wearing a animal costume

[REP]

97. Husband worked at a range, too

I kinda worry sometimes about how much lead he inhaled.

[lunatica]

93. Like most girls I babysat

[dana_b]

94. paper route, babysitting, school cafeteria

the usual stuff.

My daughter got a job at 15 at a Safeway grocery store as a bagger. She hated it and quit after 8 months (when she was 16) and went to work as a food server in an old folks place.

[Raine]

95. My parents gave me money when I asked for it or they bought me what I wanted,

yeah I was spoiled. Inspite of that I didn't grow up to be a selfish republican, go figure. :shrug:

[REP]

96. Washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant; just another illegal worker there

[marlakay]

99. Babysat, turned in coke bottles

washed windows and did extra cleaning for my parents, when i was older teen my gramma paid me to clean her house. In high school a friend and I modeled some dresses for a local store in Yountville vintage 1870 at small club in napa I didn't get paid but I got free clothes, the lady I babysat for owned the club.

I used to be skinny with long hair down to my behind in 1972 when I did that…oh those were the days!!!

I grew up in Napa before any tourists came when it was a quiet small town…I used to ride my bike to Yountville…now they have spa hotels that charge $1200 a night….what a change!

[boston bean]

100. I started working as a waitress at the age of 13. It was a fried seafood joint with an ice cream

window. The inside restaurant had about 30 tables/booths. I worked there, making about 40 dollars a shift in tips.

Then when I turned sixteen, I became a nurses aid and my starting wage was $4.34/hr.

and edit to add that my son who is still in High School works at functions and off site catering for a really nice restaurant a couple of towns away.

[Generic Brad]

101. Finding golf balls that went into the weeds

Then I would sell them back to the golfers.

[TNLib]

102. Before age 16 I baby sat. Also allowance

My step dad was a mate on a party fishing boat sometimes I'd go out on the boat help clean up the boat and sold my fish in the fish house or back to the captain for bait for the evening fishing exersion. There aways seemed a way to make a few dollars here and there back then. Money seems allot harder to come by these days.

[KittyWampus]

103. Worked since I could walk at my family's business. Let me tell you, a lot of DU'ers SAY

they support family business... but in reality they do not.

[Nikia]

105. Despite being poor, my parents did not want me to work during high school

My job was to do well in school and extra curricular activities so I could get scholarships to go to a good college. I doubt that I could have gotten a job in that town anyway for various reasons. I got $100 right before school for supplies and clothing. I also got $10/week allowance and running shoes whenever I needed them. I did not drive so my parents usually drove me to and from school and activities. I went to "cheap" academic camps, volunteered, and college visits during the summer. This was when I lived with my dad and stepmother sophomore through senior year and got reduced lunches.
When I lived with my mother and stepfather, who were better off financially, they confiscated most of my paper route money to build their $300,000 dream house during the 1990s in rural Ohio. My stepfather was a typical unethical businessman who treated my sister and I like servants. Luckily my mother eventually divorced him, although it wasn't until I was in college.
Anyway, I think that paid work for most kids is over rated, especially during the school year. I think that it is better to concentrate on school and positive extracurricular activities. I know that in many cases it is helpful financially for teenagers to work, but I don't think that it is usually helpful as far as preparing them for a future beyond their high school jobs.

[HeiressofBickworth]

106. Babysitting

I had a standing job on Wednesday nights (35 cents/hour) for an attorney and his wife who were in a bowling league. Started out with one kid and then they just kept having them. I upped my rate to 50 cents/hour when I turned 16. By the time I was 19 and getting married myself, they had three kids. What I remember most is that it allowed me to be up late enough to watch Steve Allen.

[Rhythm]

107. Between the ages of 12-15, i had 2 paper routes, mowed lawns, -and- regular babysitting clients

At 16, i got a job at a fast-food place, where i worked anywhere from 30-40 hrs a week, sometimes getting home at 2am on schoolnights.
(Yes, this was before the Department of Labor places restrictions on the times/amount of hrs that high-schoolers could work).
I also worked for my dad's sideine business. He made rubber stamps for assorted small local printshops - i learned to hand typeset, and also rode my bike to deliver finished goods to our clients.

My parents agreed to let me work essentially full-time as long as my grades weren't affected, and as long as i agreed that 1/2 of each paycheck went into a savings account, where it would remain until i needed the money for educational expenses, to buy a car, or to move out on my own after i turned 18.

Because that sort of workload is what i got used to, it doesn't bother me as much as it should that i now work two full-time jobs in order to make sure that the bills get paid and that Lyric and i have the things we need.

[applegrove]

108. I got an small allowance when I was a young teen. I got $20 a month for clothes.

Then I started babysitting when I was 16. My mom insisted that I write down for her how much i spent on cigarettes every month when I did accounts and that I bank all my babysitting money. I said that was none of her business. She said then you are not getting your allowance or your clothing allowance. I said fine. And I worked from then on every summer. Sometimes I had three jobs. I've never been unemployed for long. My mom did buy me clothes occasionally when I was a young adult.

[kgnu_fan]

110. I was not allowed to work for money as a kid, but had to study, study, study

Yes, we kids had to help out for cleaning the house, washing dishes, doing laundry, help out for yard work, baby sit for siblings and neighbor kids, shoveling snow, etc because those work are done to be a part of our own family and neighborhood and community. Rest of time, kids' responsibility was to study for school work because we were expected to become useful workers when we grow up and we had so much to learn...Only time I had money when I was kid was on New Year Day when every aunts and uncles gave us cash as their good will and blessing....I started to work for money when I was in college...

[sylvi]

111. Mowed lawns, raked lawns

until I was about fourteen. Then spent a summer cropping tobacco. You know, one of those jobs that "Americans won't do". We actually had fun despite the blazing Florida heat and coming home covered in tobacco tar every evening. Then again, when you're fourteen, you can have fun doing just about anything as long as it's with your peers.

After that and until I graduated HS, I worked at my uncle's gas station after school, on weekends and during the summer. Pumped gas, did lube jobs, tires, tune-ups, all kinds of little minor repairs. It was really a cool job for a teen back in the heyday of the muscle car. People were always hanging out, working on their hot rods, gathered around in the office telling jokes and talking trash, that kind of shit. Ah, I could go on for days waxing nostalgic. :-)

[JoeyT]

112. Sold drugs.

Just kidding. I worked on the family farm starting when I was 10ish. Picking blueberries wasn't so bad. Chopping sugar cane is the suck. Cooking it into syrup is worse. 20 years later the smell of cane syrup still turns my stomach.

[Name removed]

113. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Le Taz Hot]

115. I started babysitting at age 12

for .50 cents an hour. A few years later I learned to macrame and suplemented my income pretty well by selling my macrame items at school. Roach clips were particularly popular at the time. When I was 17 I got a job doing Accounts Receivable for a local first aid supply business. I thought I was hot shit because they paid me $1.65 an hour when the minimum wage was $1.60 an hour.

[laylah]

116. I had a paper route

at 9, baby-sat starting at 12, and I did errands/chores for elderly neighbors. My first "real" job started at 15. I worked in the kitchen at a local restaurant. I was responsible for the onion rings, which meant I cleaned and sliced (pre-contact lenses) 50-75 POUNDS of onions every Saturday and Sunday. :cry: At 18, I started working in a factory, punching the clock.

My kiddos started with babysitting at 14, and went from there. Fast food joints, coffee shops, waiting tables, etc. They are adults now but were certainly raised with exemplary work ethics without being required to clean the school bathrooms.

ETA: We/I also collected pop bottles and returned them to the store. At the time, there was a 5 cent deposit on each one!

[dipsydoodle]

117. When I was about 7 years old

I used to go round collecting newspapers which I'd swop for crackling from the pans at the local fish and chip shop.

By the time I was 12 it was a newspaper round and by 14 doing business card drops at night for my Dad's tv repair company which he was running to supplement family income.

Most productive I've ever come across was Joe Bussard of MD who started collecting 78's when he was a kid and then went on to producing new recordings of old-time music. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Bussard
This is his : Long Cleeve Reed & Little Harvey Hull-Down Home Boys Original Stack O'Lee Blues BLACK PATTI 8030
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CfmZ1-CQbo

[demicritic]

119. Sell fruits

I used to sell fruits I ask and get from a neighbors mango tree when I was a kid.

[trof]

120. Mowed lawns, bagged groceries, stocked shelves, posed.

For a brief time in my late teens I was an artists' model (semi-nude).
:-)

[Generic Other]

122. berry picking

I can still pick more in one hour than many can pick all day.

[T S Justly]

125. The usual -paper route, selling art, summer stock, lol. (nt)

[Snarkoleptic]

126. I used to make $1/ hour babysitting.

For a couple of summers in the late 70's, I made around $2.50/hr detasseling popcorn for Hunt/Wesson foods.
This was in Valparaiso Indiana (home of Orville Redenbacher)and the work went on rain or shine.
Walking the rows would mean that each foot would be caked with a few pounds of mud, which would really slow you down.
I did it willingly and it was a character-builder.

[Ikonoklast]

127. Train and Bank Robbery.

Of course, as a kid, I went by the name 'Billy'.

[FailureToCommunicate]

128. Wow,I'd forgotten, till now, about some: Splitting firewood, raised mice for

a family that had a snake(!) lawn mowing, yard work, snow shoveling, window washing, paper route (ugh!) house painting, census taker, warehouse monkey stacking and mailing phonebooks (remember them?) even tried golf caddy one week (and hated it!)
and of course we brothers all had (unpaid) chores around the house. Maybe the best money making endeavor was several winters a couple of neighborhood kids and I would wait near the bottom of the slight hill in front of our house waiting for the big cars from the rich town next to ours and when the car got stuck, we'd kindly offer to help push... for $5, $10, or $20 bucks. (We only thought of collecting the money FIRST after the first several drove off without stopping to pay what they'd promised!)

Fond as those memories MAY have become, I still think Gingrinch's "idea" is idiotic!

Thanks, MindPilot, for the thread.

[Old Troop]

130. At 9 I worked as an assasin for the CIA. They never expect the little

ones.

[kiranon]

131. Babysat and worked at Woolworth's on the weekend through h.s.