When I was growing up in corn/grain country, teenagers eagerly signed up to detassel corn because the pay was awesome. The work sucked - out in the sun, hot, dusty, and corn leaves are surprisingly sharp, but the money was great. Parents dropped off their kids or the older kids drove to a central meeting point where buses picked them up and took them to the fields for the day.
Of course, back then, our parents didn't just hand us $100 and the keys to a new car and send us off to Bridgestreet Mall to hang out with our friends getting our hair and nails done. So, we actually had some incentive to earn our own money. It's past time for us to get back to that ethic. The reason we have so many lazy adults in this country is because we make so many lazy kids. When you spend the first 18 years of life being indulged and pampered, you're unlikely to rush out the door on your 18th Birthday to find some good, hard work to do to earn your own way.
So, I guess my point is this: We need to send not the unemployed, not the welfare cases, not prisoners out to the fields to get the crops in. We need to send our teenagers.
(Now watch as the comments about child abuse and child labor pour in!)
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