When my eldest daughter Kissable turned 13, she asked us to help her find a part-time job. So, we talked to the catering manager of the ski club at the base of Pipesmoke Mountain, about five miles west of the farm, and he invited us to bring her over for a chat. When Kissable heard this, she was incredulous, but not in a good way. Things were moving too fast for her and now she didn’t want a job after all. She went to bed in tears and woke up wailing as soon as she remembered that we were supposed to drive over to the ski club for her interview.
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“Get in the car,” I said grimly. “We’re just going to talk to him.”
Kissable shrieked all the way to the ski hill and called me every name in the book. She said that child labour was illegal and I could be arrested for forcing her into a sweatshop kitchen. It wasn’t safe, it wasn’t humane, none of her friends had been sold into slavery the way she was and besides she didn’t have the right shoes… By the time we rolled into the parking lot I had given up. I shut the car off and turned to face her.
I said, “All right. You don’t have to take this job. But we do have to walk in that door and tell the man, ‘thank you but we have made other plans.’ Then we will go home.”
She nodded, dabbed her eyes with a Kleenex and opened the car door. In the club, a cheery Englishman named Philip greeted us warmly and told Kissable he was just thrilled she wanted to learn the restaurant business. His wife gave her a white apron and without a word to me or even a backward glance, Kissable went off to clear tables in the dining room. That was 10 years ago and she has never been out of work since.
None of my children has ever handled change peacefully. It seems whenever they are asked to try something new, the turmoil is enough to curl the shingles on the house and send the dogs and cats scampering off to hide under beds. Public speaking in the gym, an overnight school trip, the high school musical, a run for fair ambassador… each fresh challenge is preceded by several days of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. And when the moment finally does come, and the rest of us have abandoned all hope, they sling a backpack over their shoulders, set their jaws and go and do it.
I wish I could say that even a little bit of the money the kids have earned from their jobs has gone to a good cause, like university tuition or saving a rainforest. The truth is that most of it has been blown on handheld gadgets, flat screens, junk food and appalling video games. I suppose I should be grateful that they are wasting their own hard-earned money instead of mine, but when they misbehave, how do you confiscate stuff that they have bought and paid for with their own money? What’s the point of sending them to their room when it’s decked out like a Las Vegas hotel?
“Easy,” my wife says. “Don’t send them to their room. Send them to your room.”
They make nine dollars an hour at their jobs, which is nine times more than their mother and I were paid back in the last century for tossing bales, shovelling out cattle pens and cutting wood. They get tips and rides to work and staff parties, none of which had been invented when we were young. They even get little prizes for attendance and cheerfulness with the customers.
Over the March Break, while many of their classmates are sliding down the hills or heading south, my little darlings are chained to the dishwasher in a steamy kitchen or waving cars into spaces in a frigid parking lot. They bicker with each other about switching shifts and who gets to clean out the deep-fat fryer. They moan about dishpan hands and surly customers.
But they do actually work and they are stronger for it. As my mother used to say, “Child labour isn’t just for people who read Dickens.”
Dan Needles is the author of “Wingfield Farm” stage plays. His column is a regular feature in
Country Guide.
