Where I was living the 14 year boys were doing the work of a man in the fields. The 14 year old girls were doing the work of a grown woman around the house while momma and daddy worked in the fields. They kept house, planned and cooked the meals including washing dishes. They babysit their younger brothers and sisters. They washed, rinsed, and hanged the clothes on the clothes line with a wringer washing machine. But that was a different time. Neither boys or girls had to have their diapers changed every 2 hours like they do now. I could walk into a grocery store and buy a box of .22 bullets. Or go to the hardware store in Plant City and buy a .22 rifle or shot gun if I had the money. You told a 14 year girl that she was not a woman, she would get mad. Same thing with a boy. Tell him he wasn’t a man and he would say, “I can do just as much work as you can”.
All family ranch-kids had chores after school and on weekends-and in Summer, your parents and other relatives paid you for that ranch work-I’m Hispanic-from W Texas, but kids of all ethnic groups in the country lived that way-you assumed the responsibilities of an adult along with the privileges-this was in the 60s-it still goes on in the rural area where I live now-but more kids are homeschooled or in the local Christian school than in public school now...