[primeval patriot]

I think treating teenagers as helpless children until age 18 or beyond, and then seeing them wait until their 30s to get married and have their own kids, is contributory to much societal disorder and individual unhappiness.

Having under 18's engage in hazardous work used to be the norm. And it did produce a hardier American.

Children perished at very young ages on farms and in factories and mines.

But that was expected because if you didn't work in those conditions you would likely starve to death, if you didn't die of disease.

This was a publicity stunt funded by wealthy, attention seeking parents...and now subsidized by taxpayers.

[John S Mosby]

Your reply made me think of the photos of little children who went down into the mines to pick up clinkers and guide the blind mine ponies. Brave little tykes often killed in cave-ins. You’re right, it is definitely not the same as deliberately placing a child at risk for the sake of the adult’s transcendental evocation of youthful “trials and challenges”.