Last summer, my daughter got a job. She’s five. Now granted, this job was selling lemonade and homemade crafts on the front porch, but she did it for long, grueling hours in the sun every day. She also washed cars with her friends. After a month of this on and off work, she’d made enough money to purchase a Playmobil camper. Then she quit.
Poor child. If I hadn’t refused to buy her a camper, she would have spent her summer hours engaged in other endeavors. Or would she?
I think that even small children get great satisfaction out of achieving a financial goal. My daughter also had great fun working. The local kids got into the action, and they helped drive business to her lemonade stand and organized a neighborhood car wash one afternoon, all to support this poor child whose parents wouldn’t buy her a camper. Her plight gave a focus to their play for a couple of weeks, and after the camper was purchased they all moved on to other business ventures and donated money to a real charity, the animal shelter.
I got the same feelings of accomplishment when I got my first jobs. As a tutor in high school, I found tutoring rewarding, frustrating, and intellectually challenging. It taught me how to teach and taught me how others learned, which was an eye-opening experience for someone for whom learning certain subjects was easy. With the money, I funded travel, saved a little for university, and became independent of my parents and the allowance that they gave. I could buy my own clothes and entertain myself, all on my own dollar. Ah, the freedom. Oh, the responsibility.
Out of this experience comes a few opinions. For teens, I think that balance is important. I got scholarships to university, and if I had needed to work more I may not have received them. The scholarships were more valuable than many, many working hours. I also think that it’s important to choose a job that is engaging and respectful. Where I work now, we hire a 19 or 20-year-old student every summer. That student gets to experience a challenging, frustrating, and engaging sort of workplace with wonderful colleagues. It’s a great first job and a good introduction to the joys and challenges of work.
What do you think? Should we encourage our kids to get a job?