Thread: Forced (child) labour!

When I married my first wife, she couldn't cook, sew, make a bed or clean up, do the laundry, nothing.
That soon changed but by crikey she pulled faces!

Her mother never encouraged her to lift a finger in the house, washing dishes, nothing.

She eventually got quite good at cooking, became a damned good seamstress and got into other creative pursuits, basketry became her favourite hobby and a good earner for her.

As soon as the kids got interested in whatever she or I were doing, they wanted to join in. so household chores became a way of playing for them.
This was before TV arrived in the house, of course.

Chores became a social activity for the kids, getting in the firewood, feeding the chooks, collecting eggs, working in the garden and so on, until the boys ended up in my shed ripping everything to bits and rebuilding crazy machines.
The only rules I had for them in there was to clean and replace all the tools in their racks and to sweep out the shed, leave it tidy for me to work in.

Those boys are now grown men , both self employed engineers and really tidy workers, and the girls are also self employed business women.
I never had to punish them, hit them or anything, it was a matter of explaining how things worked.

They knew that if they helped Ma and Pa to get work finished, the sooner we'd eat and take time out for story telling and other family stuff folks did before electronic entertainment took over and divided the family up into self isolated little idiots without a clue of what the word co-operation means.

Paying for chores is a good idea, as long as a basic minimum pocket money is also handed out. That way, even the littlest bkids got the idea that working made for increased loot .

I didn't expect too much from them, if they felt like throwing a "sicky" and not help around, I let them, but they missed out on the group activity, so they invariably got better quick and were tagging along in whatever we were doing.

Kids need to understand the social side of working together, need to contribute to the greater good, they get a lot of personal self esteem out of it.
Without that, they'll tend to feel outcast, and look for other things to boost their sense of self worth, and by teenage they'll find that in activities shared with other kids, outside the home, not all of it fair and healthy. Thieving being one of the first dumb things they get up to.

I can't call kids working at chores at home child labour,it's a bonding exercise, as long as it doesn't take up hours of their play time, they need to play.

Originally Posted by alwarner

Unfortunately my Mrs. doesn't quite share my point of view so she wastes masses of time chasing round after little lord Fauntleroy when she should be doing things for me.

When shall we start the 'Is giving your wife a slap, out of order?' thread?

^ Good idea.
Mine told me I need anger management classes.
Bullshit, she just needs shut the fuck up lessons.

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Originally Posted by alwarner

Unfortunately my Mrs. doesn't quite share my point of view so she wastes masses of time chasing round after little lord Fauntleroy when she should be doing things for me.

When shall we start the 'Is giving your wife a slap, out of order?' thread?

ha ha, things are never that bad...

Kids working for pocket money as in a paper round, or being rewarded for chores is a good thing, it teaches them the value of work and wages and if helped they will learn how to budget their money too.

Socially, where it all goes wrong is when young children are out working and their earnings are expected to contribute to the family income, in fact their wages are paying for their keep, at about 8 or 10 years of age onwards, or even before then.

This is no different from a working adult's situation, and the kids definitely don't have enough time to study routinely and properly as they grow, nor to play, which is what they need to do before adolescence, just to mature emotionally and socially.

After childhood, at the beginning of adolescence, a more mature and physically stronger sub-adult is capable of working happily at part time work, as in doing paper runs, weekend work at harvest etc and should be encouraged to do so and learn to manage their own money, but not t5o be physically or psychologically over-burdened and become a slave to family ambitions.

People under the age of 24 are routinely crippled from carrying back packs and heavy loads.

Scoliosis is developed in teenagers as a result of bad posture in sitting and carrying loads to one side and their musculature is also so affected. Back packs and school bags full of books carried to school every day causes a lot of spinal problems for kids.
Similarly children forced to work for long hours are conditioned into crippling postures as they work at routine tasks for hours on end.

The only advantage in child labour is gained by employers who get away with lower runnig costs in their greed for profits.

The human scapula (shoulder blade) doesn't finish growing the main protruding ridge on its outer surface, where important muscles anchor, until 24 yoa.
Carrying loads on the back before that time flattens that ridge causing muscular weakness in the arms and upper back. This condition is evident in hill tribe folk especially, who routinely carry loads that way.

After that point, no longer a child, he or she can start consciously becoming part of the family income pool, the kid is by now eating like a horse and has adult needs, time now to become independent.

Up until 10 yrs old, or puberty, kids need to play, not work. There's plenty of time for that in life.

Originally Posted by ENT

I never had to punish them, hit them or anything, it was a matter of explaining how things worked.

blimey

do you do hypnosis?

Originally Posted by ENT

People under the age of 24 are routinely crippled from carrying back packs

yes, plenty of those in Khao San

you make a valid point but I don't think it applies to anyone here....does it?

Originally Posted by ENT

Up until 10 yrs old, or puberty, kids need to play, not work.

well, maybe work is play to them

my 3 yo follows her mum around trying to help sweep

she always want to help me fix whatever is needing it

they learn from play

They certainly do learn from play, and ought to keep playing until at least ten years old, so playing at work and working as play is natural for them,

Apart from basic mental skills such as reading, writing and simple maths, a child really can't get stuck into academic work easily, only when greater curiosity arises at puberty, then all hell breaks loose with their enquirings and a thirst for knowledge really begins.

Kids are innately curious, about anything, but don't have the self discipline necessary to persist in set courses of training, job skills and knowledge as a rule until their teens.

Does what I say apply to others on the forum?
Yes, as some think that child labour is beneficial to kids, while in fact it's more of a money spinner for adults than anything else.

Seeing 8-10 yo kids in India at the brick works or carrying soil and concrete blocks at building sites or sitting hunched up at looms in Varanasi only told me that life was cheap and children's lives were the cheapest in Asia.
How they learned to be is how they'll teach their kids, so a slave mentality and exploitation of others is ingrained in them from an early age,

i dont think, life is "cheapest in asia"... the families sent their children to work, because they NEED to in order to survive... there is NO CHOICE...

what would you do?

its sad, but how can it be changed?

in general, when speaking about working children, most people dont think of such an extraordinary physically harming thing to do... (nor of prostitution)

Ingrained slave mentality and attitudes that force children to work are part and parcel of a non-egalitarian financial and social structure.
It's no use saying "but the kids have to work otherwise the family won't eat" or something along those lines.

That's not the cause of the problem of child slave labour.
The cause is in the greed of the employers who exploit child labour for profit, so making it a norm for kids to work by keeping wages down to exclude adult workers.
There's no under-supply of unemployed in those areas.

Kids are victims of an unjust society there. Traditional cultural values didn't demand of them to be exploited in factories, it was greedy manufacturers that started that practice.

In hill tribe areas and isolated farming communities throughout the world children do indeed help and take part in adult work, but no great demand is made of them to work from dawn to dusk as wage salves for a pittance.

Dickensian London was like that, as was the South Wales coal fields during the boom of industrial 1800s Britain.
It was just outright exploitation of the urban poor, the problem being greater and more rife in cities and large towns than in rural centres and villages where financial wealth is lower and so is regular employment other than farm work.

Go to Lao and stay in some of the villages there for a few months and you'll see even though the folk are poor, there's no forced child labour going on. Kids are well treated there, and although a rock bottom economy exploited largely by China, forced child labour is not a practice there.

That horror is as a result of the greedy rich exploiting manufacturer whose factories and work shops are where the child wage slaves are found.

Originally Posted by ENT

Ingrained slave mentality and attitudes that force children to work are part and parcel of a non-egalitarian financial and social structure. It's no use saying "but the kids have to work otherwise the family won't eat" or something along those lines. That's not the cause of the problem of child slave labour. The cause is in the greed of the employers who exploit child labour for profit, so making itv a norm for kids to work by keeping wages down to exclude adult workers.

you are just scratching the surface rather than looking a little deeper

yes, employers take advantage of cheaper labour, of course

but poverty is at the root of the problem

no family would send their kid to work if they could afford not to, obviously

that has been shown time and again when some charity or kind soul decides to help in one area where child labour is particularly bad; all the parents jump at the chance to be able to send their kids to school with the help offered

Poverty sure is at the root of the problem and poverty is a comparative term, rich vs poor.

In egalitarian societies poverty doesn't exist, as there is a common wealth and shared social values and expectations.

Once wealth starts to accumulate in one sector of society the perceived disparity is cause for dissent and competition for greater wealth.

So people can be coerced into doing almost anything for money, so bondage.
Child bondage as wage slaves is the worst form of social exploitation, and it's wealth, not poverty that encourages it.

Poverty is simply a factor in people's lives that's exploited by those able to do so, as in hiring kids instead of adults to do adult work.

The same kind of exploitation goes on where migrant workers are hired instead of vlocal labour as the migrants will work forv less and in fact harder for fear of poverty.

It's still the greedy rich manufacture or producer that's exploiting the comparative wealth gap created by the likes of himself that cause poverty in society in the first place by going for maximum profits without spreading some of that wealth in society through welfare for workers, accomodation and so on.

Some employers in Thailand do in fact look after their migrant workers, not exploiting child labour and setting up schools for them, all paid for from company profits. I worked for such an employer in Chiangmai.

There was no exploitation of child labour, workers were treated fairly and well, surpluses were handed out to them regularly, all the kids went to school owned by the owner and her family and the community of Burmese workers happily stayed on, now into their second generation there.

In return the Thai family have expanded their businesses well, and have a reliable work force that they can also hire out on contract to others in the district. No problems there at all, the employers also pay all the workers taxes and subsidise their medical costs and make sure that residency issues are regularised also.

A very cohesive and successful state of affairs.

Yes, bENT

have it your own way

no point in discussing the subject any more

Originally Posted by DrAndy

Yes, bENT

have it your own way

no point in discussing the subject any more

Too deep for you AnalAndy?

Originally Posted by Mid

Originally Posted by Koojo

Is it acceptable to force your children, under threat of punishment, (physical punishment, with holding of privileges etc) to perform labour?

yes , as this teaches children the value of team work and bonds the family unit .

Which is usually missed in this day and age.
Community and familial extensions/contributions.