When Child Labor Laws Don't Necessarily Help Children

Jim Prevor's Perishable Pundit ^ | November 9, 2009 | Jim Prevor

[JimPrevor]

We have to guard against a kind of moral obtuseness where if we don’t see the harm, that means it doesn’t exist. These poor people can’t afford to send their children off to day camp in the summer so they can do archery and go swimming. They can’t afford an academic program so the children’s achievements won’t dissipate over the summer. They can’t afford to have Mom quit work and stay home to watch them, so they bring their children to work.

It is not in any way obvious that the children would be better off if their parents made them sit by the side of the field all day long doing nothing. By harvesting they get to be closer to their parents, they get to do something useful and feel like they are making a contribution to their family.

These people get paid by the piece, so a little extra money from the kids working, for a family at this level, means a new pair of sneakers before school, a chance to go the dentist or maybe a little something in a Christmas stocking.

In all the anxiousness of retailers to distance themselves from this morally “shocking” activity, nobody stepped up to say the only thing that would really make a difference, which would be to pay more for blueberries and set up an arrangement so that the money would go to fund a free summer camp for these children.

[JimPrevor]

News reports were uniformly outraged when word came out that a Michigan blueberry grower had children working in the fields alongside their parents. The buyers stopped buying. The government imposed fines. Clearly this work is illegal. But is the law, as written, actually helping the children?

[kenavi]

Child labor isn’t harmful if kept within bounds.

[netmilsmom]

Oh well.
Pick up your kids and go home. Let the Blueberries be picked by my teenagers like they used to be.

This year when we went to pick blueberries for ourselves, we shared the fields with migrant workers. I told my girls about how we used to pick raspberries for 25 cents a pint in the summers. Now the migrants do it. While we pay for their kids to go to school and their healthcare.

Bye!

[DennisR]

No, the law does not help. What is better for a child’s character - to sit around playing videos games, hanging out at the mall, or to actually earning a few bucks working?

[jimt]

Jim, you’re the poster, you wrote the article. Why the excerpt ?

[netmilsmom]

Hits for his blog