SPEAKER_00 0:00

And if children were not helping, guess what?

SPEAKER_01 0:06

The axe. They got the axe. Get the axe.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention, and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host, and today, my guest is an extraordinary human and a friend who has stood with me through thick and thin Amy. Hello, Amy.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Hi, Ross. So nice to be here tonight.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

It's great to have you and welcome everyone. Please help us grow our community by sharing the show with anyone you can, any way you can. That is really appreciated. At the end, I'll suggest some other ways you can help us, but for now, let's get started. Now, Amy, several episodes ago, I think in the fall, we discussed hyper-involved parents and their kids.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

We talked about the cheerleader moms, we talked about parents who seem to have lost control over their own interest while serving their children's every need, sacrificing everything for the sake of the kids, chauffeuring them around, making all sorts of concessions. I basically made three assertions during that show.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Okay. Remind me of those.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Parents have nothing to do and nothing to live for.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

That was number one.

unknown 1:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

We talked about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

It's ringing a bell. It's starting to ring a bell, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

My second assertion was while it's easy to blame the parents for the weird stuff that they do with their kids, I say parents are the real victims here.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Just fair. A lot of a lot of parents would agree with you, though.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

My third assertion, which is of course overlapping with the first two, is that parenting has been ruined. All of these expectations. You're expected to do all this junk for your kids. It's crushing the life out of these parents and making them wiggy.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

But we kind of struggled to find a solution that made any real sense. I mean, our solutions were tongue-in-cheek at best.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

That that sounds like us.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

I gotta tell you, even for us, the people who aren't famous and don't know anything, I felt we were really not on our game. We we we couldn't crack the code. We couldn't we couldn't solve the problem.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

I'm just such an underachiever. I was willing to just leave it as it is, but I'm also willing. I'm willing to go back.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Lately, I have been made aware of a little uh loophole that might solve our whole issue here.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yeah, I'm excited to tell you, Bat. I want to know what you think. So lately I've come across some information that some states in this great nation of ours have or are trying to weaken child labor laws.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Let's hear it for America.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

For example, three Republicans and one Democrat in the state of Ohio have recently introduced a bill to expand the hours minors under the age of 16 are permitted to work.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

A lot of people have talked about, you've probably run across this yourself. We all have in some way or another, the great labor shortage caused by the pandemic.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

I've heard of that.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Especially in the service sector, restaurants and so forth. You know, there's there it's hard to find people to work with.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

It's hard to get an egg McMuffin hot and fast.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Right. So labor labor groups have agree that some of the labor issues are caused by COVID-19 safety, but they also point to low wages, poor working conditions, lack of childcare, many, many things related to that. There's definitely been an effort to get younger people into the labor force, at least in some states. And so here's what struck me as I was thinking about this. Throughout history, except in the last maybe 50 to 70 years, kids have always worked. Jobs like scaring birds away from corn, that was a job for kids.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

They were little movable scarecrows. Now we gotta have dumb scarecrows.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Pulling weeds, gathering fruits, spreading dung.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

That's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

During the winter they participated in threshing, stacking sheaves. What's a sheave?

SPEAKER_01 4:56

What's a threshing? I don't know what a threshing or a sheave is.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Cleaning the barn, plowing. Kids were used for all these kinds of things. And if children were not helping, guess what?

SPEAKER_01 5:11

The axe. They got the axe. Get the axe.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

But they were an economic burden. Ah. And society was mostly agrarian. As soon as kids could do stuff, they were asked to do stuff, and nobody thought about it. It was normal for kids to work. And then we had the industrial revolution, and then they realized hey, kids can do other things like be chimney sweeps, work in factories, such innovation.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Yeah. Yeah. Really innovating with the children here.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Since the beginning of time, kids have worked. Kids have always worked. They worked on the farm. They worked in the factories. And I'm not saying those working conditions were ideal. And then I'm certainly advocating for a living wage, health insurance for all. So I'm not talking about exploiting kids, but I'm talking about creating the expectation again that when you're in a family, your job is to help support that family. Like it shouldn't just be on the parents. And that will free up the parents to begin to have a little peace and quiet and a little time for themselves, because you know, it's not easy being a parent.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

No, it's very difficult to be a parent.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

For a kid to go like 18 years before they have to pull their own weight.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

It's true.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

It's not fair to the parents. Let's put the little nippers to work. And if we did, if we put them back to work, which throughout the history of human beings, kids mainly worked.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

If they we get them working again, parents will be free again.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Right. Because if they're if they're if they've out got a job, this frees the parents up to do their things.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

So if you get these kids working, okay, and let them do I'm not just talking about working in McDonald's and stuff. I'm talking about any kind of work. So lawyers, kid lawyers, kid doctors, why not? Sure. Public transportation, air traffic control, government officials, maybe especially government officials.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

President, kid president. I saw a movie about that one time.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Yeah, well, that was probably jokey, but I'm not kidding. Like a kid mayor? What's wrong with that? Probably how could it be worse?

SPEAKER_01 7:44

I see, I want to, you know, Ross, you know, I I love supporting you and going on your journeys with you, but I just think kid mayor, like, I can't get my kid to wash their dishes. I can't imagine having them run a whole city. I mean, have you seen what the under 16 crowd does for fun or work?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Actually, not lately, but I will tell you that if kids were socialized back to work again like they used to, like, do you think these kids scaring crows away from the cornfield? Do you think they were thinking about self-actualization or self-esteem? They were just chasing crows because that's what they had to do. And once they're used to doing it, what what's stopping them from taking on these other jobs? And by the way, a lot of these other jobs, they're not that hard.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Oh no, I I agree.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

How hard is it to be a mayor, really? What does a mayor do? Can you tell me what a mayor does?

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Uh, I can tell you what some mayors do, and what they do, my dog could do. So you're right. That's that's absolutely true.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Here's another cool thing. Forget about college.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

What's called what is college? Is you uh so a it's a place to store the kid for like four years or more, keeps them out of the workplace. This whole idea about kids going to college for four years, and that's where they, you know, that's the way they get better jobs. Forget about that. They should have better jobs right away. Yeah, and then that way, why saddle them with all this debt that makes them take bad jobs that they don't want to help pay off their student loans? What if we just didn't do it?

SPEAKER_01 9:33

No, that's that's right.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

I think this is brilliant. I think this is brilliant because it's like, what do you do to save parents from themselves if the kids are working? And I'm not saying, you know, you're not gonna put a toddler to work. I mean, and you know, unless they can do something.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Uh, but I mean, by the time a kid is like five, they can handle things. I'm not talking, you know, you just give them work that they can handle.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Here's my question, though. So there was this long, long period of time where kids kids were working. Uh yeah, always throwing poo and all of that. And then we have spreading dung. Yeah. The more recent period of time they were not. What happened? Was there some reason that we didn't want children to work? Because I feel like we may have been on to something. Because there was a long time that people smoked in movie theaters, and we stopped that, and there was a good reason for that.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

So why why kids get out of the workforce?

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Well, they got them out. There was some sentiment that grew over time about maybe uh kids ought to be taught something. Maybe they ought to have some time in school. Uh, of course, people reacted to the horrible working conditions that kids worked uh in, especially during industrial, you know, the industrialization of work.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

So we have to keep an eye on that. And then again, there were they were seen as competition, so people wanted to get them out of the workforce. Those are all factors that were influencing it. And again, I am not advocating for the exploitation of kids. I say pay them like any you'd pay anyone else, pay them a living wage, give them health care. But why keep I'm keeping them out of the workplace is a mistake because it places this ridiculous burden on their parents. What's threshing?

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yeah, I got you. Threshing is the process, according to Wikipedia, of loosening the edible part of grain or other crop from the straw to which it is attached.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

I have no idea what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

So it's the step after you reap it. You reap it and then you smash it on the ground and it breaks the edible part. So the you think about a piece of wheat, right? Yeah, you got that top part, that's where you're gonna get the good stuff you're gonna eat. So you smash the whole stock on the ground and that part breaks out.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Yeah, so kids can do that. That's threshing. They would like it.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Yeah. Would they like it? I don't think they'd like it.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

I'd oh, are you kidding? Oh my gosh, if I could have threshed.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yeah, but if you had to do it for a job, I mean you'd like it for an afternoon, sure. But if if you had to stop doing other stuff and go thresh for eight hours, that's not gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

What I'm saying, what I'm saying is I'm getting paid a living wage to do this. Yeah. This is built into my theory. You pay them, right? So now he's got from the from the from the job. He or she can, you know, stop by, pick up a oh.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah, I just don't pop an RC Cola and a moon by.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

I just pick up an RC Cola.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Yeah. Uh uh it's gonna take as you know, and I know you're not saying let's implement this right away, but it's gonna take Oh, let's implement it right away. But I just that I'm telling the generation of teenagers right now, and this is not every teenager right now, of course, and I have a certain uh group of people that I'm familiar with that live here in this household.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Well, it it's it's yeah, so you're saying it's gonna be hard to reel back the effects of 70 years of socializing of languishing, yeah. Yeah, do nothing, like teaching kids to do nothing.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

And now parents, the hyper-involved parents, have, as I'd say, have totally, you know, blown their wigs, you know, and and they're going to jail, they're cheating their kids in the college. It's like it's everything is distorted. And I think the parents are the victims here because the kids feel like they're not supposed to do anything except wear their bike helmets. So they would be a little disconcerted at first, maybe a little stress for them to suddenly realize that they're in the workforce. But it's sort of an all hands-on deck thing. We gotta save these parents.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Yeah, I can uh that's not gonna be motivating for my children, but I do believe there are people out there that might be willing to do that.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Do you think kids who are threshing or cleaning a barn or sweeping chimneys that anyone was worried about their self-esteem?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Was anybody given somebody working in a cotton mill at an eight-year-old in a cotton mill? Were they taking home a trophy? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Well, yeah, I I think we might be swinging too far. I don't know if I want an eight-year-old in a cotton mill. And I know you're not talking about in an exploitative way, but I think I think some emphasis on kids' self-esteem was probably helpful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Well, you know, I you know, I think it's a trap. But I mean the kids can if the kid if the kid is threshing wheat, okay, they're gonna feel they're gonna feel pretty good about themselves, especially when they're buying all that sweet, sweet stuff that they can buy with that big bankroll in their pocket because they're getting paid a living wage, and that's the key part of this, because uh the the model in the past was to not pay them anything.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

So they were totally being exploited and they were put in dangerous and unclean situations, unsanitary, unhealthy, dangerous. Most jobs today aren't that dangerous, they've been mechanized. I I I probably wouldn't let a kid work in a slaughterhouse. Really, no one should work in a slaughterhouse, but but why couldn't a kid in today's factories? It's mainly pushing buttons.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I haven't done a lot of factory work recently, but I don't I don't know if you want I feel like there's still a lot of like big gears and worrying things and heavy stuff and slippery floors, and I think I feel like people are getting their arms cut off still a lot.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

I mean, not like they were in 1901, but have you ever gone into a hotel?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

I have actually.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Have you ever noticed who the manager was, how old the manager was?

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Number of managers, yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah, they're they're often barely like 21 years old. They might not even be 21. Like most of the hospitality industry is run by extremely young people, and I say go younger. Can I speak to the manager? Yes. Hold on after he's done with his sippy cup.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

He's he's got he's taking a nap right now. It's his knip nap time.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Did you have to work as a kid?

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Oh, yeah. I had household chores, um, pretty robust. Well, what certainly it felt probably much more unfair than it was, but I had plenty of both indoor and outdoor chores. I was an only kid, so the labor was divided by one. I mean, except for all the labor my parents were doing, of course, which was abundant. But so uh and then yeah, I think when I was uh I babysat when I was very little. I I got my first babysitting gig at 12, and I worked in a clothing store through high school. I basically always have had at least one job.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

So when you were a little kid, did your mom or dad have you work around the house? Did you have chores? Did you do anything to contribute to the livelihood of the house?

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Oh, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Uh Saturday was chore day. We got up, we did, we cleaned the house, we um, you know, I had responsibilities daily. I I always fed the dog, that those were parts of my chores. Yeah, vacuum, clean toilets, whatever, all the things. I did them.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

And did you feel bad about it?

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Yeah, I hated it. No, I hated it. I felt very, very put upon. I'm that I think this is where this attitude is coming from. Is I I yeah, you know, I had when I worked at the clothing store, so this was would have been by the time I was in high school, so I was probably 18 or so, 17, 18. I liked that job mostly because I really liked clothes and we didn't have extra money. So being able to buy buy clothing was was gratifying. But I hated doing chores. I thought I was underpaid. I remember thinking I was yeah, that I was a victim of unfair labor rules in my own household. My mom was not amused, she didn't care, but I made $20 a week to do a pretty robust list of things. So I did get paid.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

What were what kind of tours did you do?

SPEAKER_00 19:39

My dad, uh, like a lot of Italians, he liked working in the yard.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

He liked yard work a lot. It was his favorite thing. What kind of yard work? All kinds, any kind. So the way it would work is the expectation was on the weekend you'd work in the yard. But my perspective was a little different. Mine was okay, I get it that I have to do this, but I need a schedule. Okay. I want to know what what are the tasks, and I want to know when quitting time is, because I got a life to lead. Right? Yeah. And my father said, I can't tell you that because I don't know. I don't know how long we're going to work, and I don't know how many tasks there are. And the reason he didn't know that is because he wanted to do it all day.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

So he would just keep thinking of new things. There was no ever, you never finished. He would always be able to think of the next thing that needed to be done. And that used to drive me crazy because I said, like, I get it, I'll do the work, but I need to know when I can get out of here. And I wanted to um my focus even now as a grown person has always been, hey, if I can get it done faster, yeah, I'll work extra hard to get it done faster. That gives me more time.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

But when you don't know, like it's it's more like a prison situation where you're just cracking rocks and there's no end to it. So, like, why hustle? But then he would get mad at me for not hustling to finish a job that has no end. He grew up working in uh my grandfather's meat market. My grandfather came to this country and he opened a meat market. Oh, wow. He spent his whole life cutting meat.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

And everybody, the kids in my dad's family were all worked in the meat market.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Doing whatever they could. Their whole lives. They worked, I mean, not their whole lives, but their whole kid lives. That's what they did. They all worked. They were part of supporting the family. So his point of view is what's that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to work with your father and do whatever your father says, and your father will tell you when you're done. So that was where he was coming from. He he was he had not signed up to any of these kids or special and special time and activities.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

No.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

I've told you before though, I could never get an inside job.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

I remember that. I remember inside jobs were the desirable jobs.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

I couldn't get I couldn't get an inside job.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

No inside jobs for you?

SPEAKER_00 22:43

What do you think that is? Why do you think that's a good job?

SPEAKER_01 22:45

I don't know. You're kind of an outside kid, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Like you're just really yeah, well. Is that how you see it?

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Well, I don't want to I don't want to box you in and make you feel like you couldn't couldn't have gotten inside jobs. Did you like the outside jobs?

SPEAKER_00 23:02

No, I mean I just I mean they were fine, but I really wanted to have an inside job because they always seemed easier. Yeah, outside jobs always seem harder. You got dirty. Yep, they're hot. Uh it was hot, you're dealing with the elements, you know. Danger. So what you're saying is back in agrarian times, I would have been one of the kids chasing the birds away from the corn.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

You really would have been.

unknown 23:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

I couldn't have gotten a job in a factory.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Uh I just feel like you would have lost a limb if you'd been inside a factory.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

That's probably true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

But a lot to be fair, a lot of kids lost limbs in factory jobs. So you're safer outside anyway, really.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

But I think when I think of my dad working in that meat market, I mean, I'm sure there was a lot of hours he spent there where he felt like, oh, I'd rather be doing something else. But at the same time, you feel like you're part of something and you're supporting the family.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Probably.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Because everyone in the family is depending on that money. That meat's got to get cut, it's got to get sold, and you're part of it.

unknown 24:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

That's where you get your self-esteem from. Not from not from going to dance class. I think that the idea that a family, one of the reasons people like having kids is to get some help.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yeah, no, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

And now when parents have kids, they have them so they can serve them.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

I know.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

It's it's really we have to bring we're bringing kids into this world so we can give them a perfect life. That's not how people, if you go back through the hundreds of thousands of years that human beings have been on the earth, it's just a tiny fraction, it's an aberration, this little tiny slice of time where all of a sudden parents started thinking, we want to have kids to come into this world and we will make them happy.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah, no, no doubt. Now is the time to be a kid. It wasn't even 20 years ago, it wasn't as good as it is now. It's a hot time to be a kid.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

How what's your what do your kids work?

SPEAKER_01 25:18

The youngest one who's 16, so fully capable of doing a lot of stuff. Just real hard to get get her to do a thing. She's very conscientious, she's a good student, yeah. Um, but doesn't care for the chore life.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

So what does she do? She does she done work? Nope. Does she do anything around the house? Is she like waxing the floors? Is she painting anything? She's no.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

She has a very small list of things that she does on the weekends that she makes a little bit of money for, but it's a it's it's small, it's real small.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

And and they don't care, they don't always get done on time.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

I'll be honest.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

I think we've missed an opportunity as parents to socialize kids at a young age that they are here to help the family succeed.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Absolutely, and they're not here to be catered to. They bring a certain amount of economic burden to the family, so they gotta, you know, make their nut.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Yeah, no, I 100% agree.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

You get a seven-year-old, you know, they should be wearing a t-shirt says that says, I'm making my nut.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Yeah, definitely. That's every every seven-year-old in America needs a t-shirt that says, I'm making my nut.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

The post-war generation, that first group of kids, was the first real kids, you know, it's the first crop of kids where parents were able to earn a little bit more money and have a little more leisure time. And some of that leisure time was given to kids too.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

And they got to, you know, they got to gravy train off this sort of unusual blip in history and this change in expectations, but not a lot. They got a little, but there was still a lot of old school stuff going on. See, before that, kids just knew they were there to work, and someday maybe they'd get to leave the farm or leave the home and make their own way, but maybe not. Maybe they'd always live there, be working. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, there was none of that. This first baby boom group were given a little taste, but not enough. So they still they they got a little taste, and they have just enough taste to start thinking about, man, I, you know, I have just enough time to think about whether or not my parents really are doing a good job. Do they love me? Do they really love me? I don't think they do. I feel like they're just using me. That was a mistake, giving them time to think about that because the kids working in a cotton mill and chasing chasing crows out of corn, they didn't have time to think about that. Right. They were exhausted. They come home, it would be dark, there's no electricity, they're just go to sleep. So, so now they get a little taste. So when they become parents, they're like, I'm gonna give my kids more. I'm gonna give them the love I didn't get. And if it was just the love, that would be okay. But the love gets translated into things, activities, and services provided.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yeah, no. My kids were better at doing chores when they were say five to maybe twelve or thirteen.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Well, my my argument is I bet kids would, if they got included right away in the in the work life, that they would actually feel differently about it. I think, yeah, when kids grow up and they're not asked to do anything, and then you ask them to do something and they're like, why should I?

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

But if they're socialized right away to help, to be part of it, be part of the solution, not the problem, pull your weight, make your nut, that it just becomes ordinary for them. And actually they feel they can it could be that they would feel better about themselves. If you're worried about self-esteem, don't give them a trophy, give them a job.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

No, you're you're you're on to something here. I think you're on.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

I might be.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

I think you're I might be.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

I think it's a lot better than the last time we tried to solve this problem. I know there are people listening going, no way it could never work, but it worked all the way up to 1945.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Kids were working. I mean, you know, and again, I don't I don't like the situations they were putting kids in.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

No.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

I didn't I do not like it, and they weren't paying them enough. But the idea behind that, which is why not? Why shouldn't they be working? Why shouldn't they be contributing? Some families didn't have a head of the household because of all kinds of things that would happen to grown-ups and still do. There's plenty of families out there right now in the world where kids are helping make the thing go. And I feel like that's good. It's not bad. As long as they're getting paid fairly, that's the that's the trick. That's to me, that's the hardest thing, is to just get pay people fair wages and provide them with health care. That's to me, that's the hard part. A nine-year-old mayor, I think it can work, but you gotta pay him or her. You can't have the mayor working for nothing at any age. And I really don't I don't know what a mayor does.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

It's not much. I really don't know. It's not much.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

They don't do anything.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

They don't do anything.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

They show up at things, they cut a ribbon.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

They preside over meetings. They're they're yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

I don't know. Have you the kids have done some incredible things? Kids are very smart. You know this. You have three smart kids. It's true. They can do incredible things. Their ideas about you know what what kind of world they want to live in seem to me to be at least as good as the one that uh politicians come up with, but oftentimes way better.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

I think you're right. There's a few bad kids, but you know, they could be rounded up.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

You could round up, you could round up the bad ones. And uh I think that that we have this great untapped resource, which we are letting go to waste, and they're not we're not helping them, and we're making parents sick over it, and we're overburdening them and stressing out the parents, and and we're ruining their lives. We're ruining the parents' lives. They're the real victims here. Where the kids have been getting a free rod, they've been gravy training, and it's time for them to step up. Yes, and I think they'll feel better about it.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

It's a win-win win, as we say.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

I don't know if I want a kid, I don't know if I want a kid pilot. That seems like it's too much. But how old do you got to be? I mean, there are kids that can fly planes at 14, I think, right? Probably some young It seems possible, and they and their reactions are gonna be super great. Sure. A lot of people say they feel good when they see their pilot, and it's a really old person, but uh because they look experienced, but it's like that person's reactions are like too slow. I want somebody who's got video game quickness.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

I hope it translates. If it translates, I'm I'm on board. I I feel like there might be some nuanced differences, but I think kids could do a lot of things. I don't feel good about a kid pilot. I'm I I have to have to say.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

What if the okay? Well, you're just thinking of a kid walking out in a baggy uniform. It's too big. The uniforms would be no the uniform, yeah. See, that would ruin it. But if the uniform was properly fitted to the kid, I think you'd be okay with it. The announcements would be a little strange.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

There are some wrinkles that would have to be ironed out.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

It's not all there yet. No more freedom.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Well, I mean, that's they ought to have some freedom, but they they shouldn't be, they shouldn't be cheated out of the benefits of putting in a solid eight.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

No, I think you're right.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Coming home, banging their lunch pail on the on the table, getting a turkey leg, and getting right into bed.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

I like I like the image. I like that even though it would be modern day, uh all of the things around them would just be still from the 1940s.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

They'd listen to a radio show and yeah, that they'd sit around with mom and dad and they'd all listen to a radio show with a turkey leg in one hand and a and a thresher in the other. Yeah, there it is. It'd be time to hit the hay. Yeah. All right. Well, I'm gonna leave it at that. I I do feel that uh I I didn't I felt initially that I didn't have you, but now I think I do have you.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

I converted. I'm a partial convert. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

You've got one foot in the circle.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

I I will I will lean into the circle. I am here to hear the process as it becomes more refined.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

We just go one kid at a time. And parents out there, uh, you can start reaping the benefits of this plan. ASAP, uh, just explain to your kid that it's time to put up or shut up.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Yeah, do it.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

And thank all of you for joining us for this episode. Please help us grow our community. As I said, you can share the show. That really helps a lot. You can follow us on Instagram or Twitter. We'd love to have you there. If you can give us the highest rating on sites that allow you to rate our show, that helps people find us. Sometimes they let you do a written review, and if you can give us a glowing review, that really helps people find us as well. So that is appreciated. We're completely independent, which means no sponsors, we're doing this all on a shoestring. So we're on Patreon. If you feel like you can afford to support us, we do need your help that way too. And mainly, we really appreciate that you come and listen to us talk about all things human. And we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are busy scaring birds away from corn or just someone in a baggy pilot's uniform, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody.