395 Comments
User's avatar
Gary Seven in Space's avatar

Meh...I get the Child Labor issue in States like OK, but this particular "thing" strikes me as , meh at best.

More like a "it's better than having the little shits at home..."

Expand full comment
Bagels of Doom's avatar

it's okay when Jesus chicken does child labor, I suppose? not exactly subtle way to normalize it right in front of our noses.

Expand full comment
JCfromNC's avatar

//

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.

//

I'm pretty sure she wasn't referring to working on a factory farm, but a family farm, just like I did as a child. At 13 or 14 years of age, I was regularly driving a tractor around, either plowing or hauling tobacco sleds to and from the fields and the barn, feeding cows and other livestock, repairing fences, harvesting produce, and probably a lot of other chores I have since repressed the memory of. Our tractor -- the one I did the plowing of the garden on -- was an old Farmall A (don't think it was a Super A) that had an electric starter that seldom worked, so I'd have to hand crank it like some car from the 1920s. And I was warned multiple times that the crank could easily break my arm if it were to kick back and hit me.

I was pretty lucky, or careful, or some of both, and never had a serious childhood injury. I didn't get my first broken bone until I was in my 20s and biking on Topsail Island. I *think* I must've hit a pothole, but all I remember was suddenly going headfirst over my handlebars and ending up with the bike on top of me rather than the other way around.

Expand full comment
Bagels of Doom's avatar

farm work is something else. what it isn't is romantic.

Expand full comment
JCfromNC's avatar

Oh, fer sure. I couldn't wait to get off the farm and away from that shit. No such thing as weekends and holidays on a farm, either. Just busy days and not quite as busy days, and during the latter you're trying to get all the shit done you didn't finish on the former.

Expand full comment
Bagels of Doom's avatar

exactly. it literally never ends.

Expand full comment
Bagels of Doom's avatar

back in Germany, we had our summer break cut short by two weeks but had those two weeks in fall during grape harvest. it was a good way to make a quick buck in fall for for everyone who wasn't a vintner's kid because we worked for a few hours and went home.

Expand full comment
Jen's Sparkling New Year's avatar

you were very lucky. When I lived in Iowa, everyone farmed, and so did the kids. Most the ones I knew already had broken bones or deep cuts, and in one case, missing a finger and a half.

Tis why early farmers had so many kids- to replace the ones that died a lot.

Expand full comment
JCfromNC's avatar

My middle brother got run over by the tractor and broke both legs. He spent his summer in bed in casts.

Expand full comment
Zyxomma's avatar

Ta, Robyn. Do they have to memorize bible verses to chant while they're learning to work?

Expand full comment
Lionel “8647” Hutz's avatar

It may seem silly, but my coal mine has found that its summer program where, for just $100 a day, small children get to see how far they can dig with their hands in the small, out of the way sections of the coal seam has increase our revenues 15% over the last few summers.

Private Equity Rules!!!!!!

Expand full comment
Kenneth L Gallaher's avatar

Nick name is Chick-fulla-hate.

Expand full comment
Wookiee Monster's avatar

It’s all fun and games until a kid gets drenched in scalding hot grease.

Expand full comment
Ward From Cali's avatar

Yeah, I was one of those parents who wanted to teach my kids a good work ethic.

1) I never asked them to do anything I wouldn't be doing myself.

2) They always got paid for it (except picking up their own room) because I wanted them to learn about earning and managing their own money.

3) I was NOT being lazy or saving myself work. TBH, showing them how to do the jobs, checking them, and making them do it over if they half-assed things took longer than just doing the jobs myself. The point was to teach them how to take care of themselves, not get free mini-slaves.

Expand full comment
gene108's avatar

Has to really suck with whichever Chik-fil-A worker gets stuck taking the kids on the three hour tour.

Expand full comment
Wookiee Monster's avatar

The last time someone took a three hour tour, it didn’t go so well after the weather started getting rough.

Expand full comment
bluePNWcats's avatar

The plans that they have for all of us are becoming ever more apparent to the naked eye. And to see half the population just following that pied piper like the rats they are, is extremely troubling.

Expand full comment
Zyxomma's avatar

It's NOT half the population. It hovers around a third.

Expand full comment
bluePNWcats's avatar

I know that. I think it just feels like there are so many because they're so damn loud and obnoxious and just persistently evil.

Expand full comment
Dorothea is a Democrat's avatar

"many on the Right have been looking to kids to take over." Very specifically, NOT THEIR KIDS. They know whose kids will be working. Peasant kids. Poor kids. The permanent underclass kids. BECAUSE THEY WANT THE WORK! The Right is just doing those families a favor. They don't like public schools so its best if they just go directly to WORK. Learn early the life they're expected to live for the rest of their sad, needy lives. That's why you can't have books teaching kids to challenge their authoriteh! Mother, Sarah Suckabee Sanders, was the first to sign that legislation, surround by smiling white children who won't be working in the chicken slaughtering plants. The gross cynicism is disturbing.

Expand full comment
Mark Linimon's avatar

tl;dr: "Are threre no work-houses?"

Expand full comment
Bitter Scribe's avatar

There's a "Simpsons" episode where Bart goes off to juvie. One day they have a "job fair" with a bunch of booths with names like Burger Flipper, Fry Salter and Order Taker.

This was back around the time when their jokes about Trump being president one day were still funny.

Expand full comment
Jim Parker's avatar

Many Simpsons episodes have predicted the future. It's actually kind of scary how right on they were.

Expand full comment
Dorothea is a Democrat's avatar

Local joke in Washington State: What does the Washington State Cougar graduate say to the Washington Husky graduate; "do you want fries with that?"

Expand full comment
Sherry's avatar

Typical saying about actors too.

Expand full comment
Bitter Scribe's avatar

Yeah, that's the kind of joke Huskies fans must tell each other when the Cougars beat them again. I went to a school like that.

Expand full comment
Dorothea is a Democrat's avatar

That rarely happens but when it does it makes Mr. Dorothea very happy. But those are past days. We're not even in the same conference anymore. College sports is history as we once knew it.

Expand full comment
Bitter Scribe's avatar

Yeah, ain't that the truth? I can't even remember which conference Stanford is supposed to be in now. The Big 10 or 11 or 12 or whatever the hell, something like that.

OTOH, I don't mind the system of free "amateur" labor from college athletes being history. (And I used to stick up for it!)

Expand full comment
Dorothea is a Democrat's avatar

Agree. These colleges were just plantations where you raised NFL players. In the face of all the money they were making and all the money they were paying coaches, etc., it was gross and absurd not to pay the players. But leave it to the money grubbers to find the worst possible way to do that.

Expand full comment
Trystan's avatar

Radical Centrists demand child labor continue to be nonexistent.

le sigh.

Expand full comment
Cajun Kid's avatar

I read the Facebook comments on a local outlet's story about this. Most were of a similar tone to "this is a great experience for the kids! They'll learn valuable skills! It isn't really work! I would have loved to do this as a child!" In other words, delusional.

But one comment was just weird. "How can CFA be homophobic? They hire gay people!" Why yes, that was the entire argument. The company and it's founders support and donate to causes that are explicitly anti-LGBTQ+, but it's totally cool because they hire a few queer people for crap pay.

Expand full comment
oscarphile's avatar

Those gay employees are presumably, in fact almost certainly, not out.

Expand full comment
Satanic Pancake's avatar

Did all the kids get a chance to milk the cow?

Expand full comment
Zap's avatar

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

Expand full comment
Daniel O'Riordan's avatar

They get a huge influx of little kids in their workforce, and they're going to give the churches a run for their money.

Expand full comment
LunaMoonstone's avatar

Honestly, this sounds less like child labor and more like a crappy summer camp. That being said, for what they’re charging I’m sure they’re just going to force some regular employee into the cow costume and not get anybody with actual childcare experience, and if any of those kids gets seriously hurt there’s going to be hell to pay. Those kids would be seen as customers, not employees, and even the laxest of child labor lovers would have a hard time arguing otherwise.

Expand full comment
Furiouser and Furiouser's avatar

I hope this isn’t happening in states that mandate water breaks for employees, otherwise the person in the cow costume will be killing the vibe with all their “I’m suffocating in here,” “can I please take this off before I pass out” Marxist nonsense.

Expand full comment