Chick-Fil-A's Summer Camp Of Horrors Is Here To Teach Your Kids How To Wage Slave!
It's not child labor if you pay *them!*
Child labor — is it good or bad? That’s a debate that many of us kind of just naïvely assumed we’d never be having again in the these here United States. Alas, for the last year or so, Republicans in many states have been scrambling to prove us wrong about that. Faced with a labor shortage they very specifically do not want to fill with either immigrants or people hoping to make a living wage of some kind, many on the Right have been looking at kids to take over.
In the “let’s get those kids back to work!” spirit, several Chick-fil-As in Louisiana and Texas are hosting “summer day camps,” at which children ages 5-12 will learn how to work at a real Chick-fil-A. The sessions, which have reportedly sold out in many if not most locations, are $35 for three hours and include “a kids meal, T-shirt, name tag, and snack.”
Now, I can see how childcare for three hours and a meal might be appealing to parents — and children are known to love a little play drudgery — but I do need to point out that $35 for three hours is more than most low-level Chick-fil-A employees actually make in either Louisiana or Texas, so that’s … neat.
According to a Facebook post from the West Hammond, Louisiana branch, the children will get to:
Spend some time with the Chick-fil-A Cow and Chick-fil-A
Team Leaders.Get a behind the scenes look of Hospitality and Service.
Have a fun time getting a behind-the-scenes view of what it's like to work at America's favorite quick-service restaurant.
Enjoy a VIP Lunch.
Go home with some goodies.
On the other hand, this is happening in states that are rather keen on forcing children to go through the other kind of labor, so perhaps they’re onto something?
While most comments on this Facebook post and others were from folks who were relatively skeeved by the idea of paying for one’s child to work at Chick-fil-A, there were more than a few who were rather delighted about it, imagining it would give the kids a real work ethic and understanding of customer service, the latter of which is, of course, a very important skill for any kindergartener to have.
Others scoffed at the idea of this being child labor, on account of how they did even worse child labor as children.
“Should have seen the farm work I was ‘exploited’ on as a child then …” said one lady.
Yeah, no, she definitely should not have been working on a farm as a child. That is not “exploited” in quotes, it’s exploited without quotes. Children should not be working on farms, for a variety of reasons. Last December, for instance, a 16-year-old was killed working on a poultry farm that just so happened to be one of the farms supplying Chick-fil-A with their chicken.
It’s a small world after all!
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On the other hand, I, a supposed adult, would pay the euro equivalent of $35 to spend three hours at a Parisian haute couture house. Where’s my summer camp?
“Should have seen the farm work I was ‘exploited’ on as a child then …” said one lady.
Ah yes, the "I suffered, so you should suffer too" philosophy of parenting.