For her Easter post, Mercedes Schneider wrote about the hypocrisy of those who loudly proclaim their love of Jesus, but also pass laws to put adolescents to work in dangerous low-wage jobs.
She writes:
The corporate world is short on workers, sooo, let’s see what states will pass legislation to loosen restrictions on child labor.
This drive reminds me of the blindside on K12 education that is Common Core– the justification (and assumption) being that the chief purpose K12 education is to “prepare students for 21st century jobs.”
Well, its the 21st century, and it seems that business is short on bodies, and any warm body will do.
So, on this Easter as I think of Jesus, who brought to the attention of his male-centric culture the importance of considering children as people valuable in their own right, I also think of the primarily-Republican push to feed children to the god of business and industry.
On March 14, 2023, journalist Jacob Knudsen published a piece in Axios, stunningly entitled, “Lawmakers Target Child Labor Laws to Ease Worker Shortage.”
Forget childhood. We must appease the god of business and industry.
Knudsen writes, in part,
Legislators in multiple states are invoking a widespread labor shortage to push bills that would weaken long-standing child labor laws.
Why it matters: Some bills go beyond expanding eligibility or working hours for run-of-the-mill teen jobs. They’d make it easier for kids to fill physically demanding roles at potentially hazardous work sites. …
Driving the news: A new Arkansas law signed by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) last week makes it easier for teens as young as 14 to work without obtaining a permit.
Between the lines: The laws and proposals have largely been introduced by Republicans but received support from some Democrats in Ohio and New Jersey. …
Zoom in: Iowa lawmakers are considering Republican legislation that would allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work in industrial laundry services and freezers at meatpacking plants. It’d also prevent many of them from receiving worker’s compensation if they are sickened, injured or killed on the job.
The Iowa law specifically excludes businesses who hire teens from any civil liability in the event they suffer harm or even death in the workplace.
Mercedes concludes:
This exploitation (make no mistake that this loosening of child labor laws in numerous states is exactly that) has at its center a lack of planning combined with the desire for a lower bottom line (and greater profits). Many of my teenaged students already drag themselves to school, only to fall asleep in class with the apology that “I had to close last night.” Therefore, making it easier for employers to squeeze even more out of school-aged employees even as society expects of them (and their schools) stellar academic results (dog whistle: test scores) is indeed speaking out of both ends of a hypocritical, corporate-adulating mouth.
Jesus loves the little children, sooo let’s exploit their labor potential, even for dangerous jobs, as we simultaneously absolve ourselves of any responsibility– even death.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When I taught ESL in a high school many years ago, some of my students dragged themselves into school after working an overnight shift in a factory or restaurant. When I talked to them about working fewer hours, they would simply say, “My family has to eat, Miss.” Recent immigrants often end up doing the jobs that Americans refuse to do, but immigrant children need to be protected from exploitation and hazardous conditions. Child labor laws were enacted to protect children, and they are still necessary today.
Definitely up there among the most moronic songs ever written!
Everything is beautiful. The libs just want to uglify! That’s why we gotta own ’em!
Ah. I hadn’t thought of it in this way. Thanks for clarifying. Or Clarencifying.
As long as you know your place, you’ll do fine. We have no truck for doubting Thomases.
haaaaa
The tension between work and education is real and unavoidable. Growing up on a small farm, I had responsibilities from age 10 relating to the dairy, and my brother and I assumed full responsibility for it when my father became disabled after cancer when I was 15.
There are many educational experiences I missed because of this. I still find holes in my education that l can identify as the result of what I did not get to do.
I would have loved to be a part of a chorale. I would have enjoyed living on a campus where plays and woodwind quintets made for a rich experience. By college that could not happen. It was only the benevolence of a society that properly funded education that I got to attend college at all. If this had happened today, I would have had to go straight to work.
All this story is about poverty in the midst of plenty. We still have that contrast. Loosening child-labor regulation is not about giving kids like I was a choice. It is like the school choice issue. Children do not get the choice. Industry gets to choose which children they want. Until some other child comes along who is cheaper. Then the young adult is cast off and must learn a new trade at his expense, his training paid for by society for the benefit of some new industry run by the new billionaire du jour
It’s like the actor/musician/intellectual/bon vivant Oscar Levant once wrote, “It’s not who you are, it’s what you don’t become that hurts the most.” Number one in my collection of quotes.
And despite this, you did not grow up to be one of those who says, “Well, if I had to do this, then it’s good enough for you, too.” And that speaks highly of you, Roy, of your decency and intelligence.
Bob: I never met a person who really had it tough who wished to consign others to their hostile experience. People who grew up on tough streets want safe streets for the most part.
Amen
At 9 years, I was leaving school, doing two paper routes, and then going to a local shoe shop to shine shoes until the shop closed at 9:00 PM. I also mowed lawns and ran a little neighborhood bicycle repair operation. At 14, I started working 4-5 nights a week as a carhop. At 16, I was the night manager, 5 nights a week, sometimes 6, at a root beer and burger joint with carhops and indoor dining as well. I worked all through college.
I know what it is to be from among the working poor.
A local barber shop. I was the shoe shine boy at the barber shop.
No silver spoon in my mouth. lol
Not to be a Richard (keeping in clean), but I HAVE met people who have had it bad and would gladly wish it on others. Many. That’s the primary reason poor whites support republicans in places like West Virginia and other poor white centers of reaction. On the one hand they are nice when you meet them (given that you are not Black or some “other”) and nice as they can be. But their vote is based on one factor: the politicians may not help me, but they’re keep me ahead of the n******s. So yes, if one’s skin color is dark, they’re more than happy see them do worse. And if it can’t be done economically, the police will take care of the rest. Driving while Black is still a crime in most parts of the nation. Just need a law to make it fit, which is the easy part. Hell, in Tennessee being a duly elected representative don’t mean squat.
Preach it, Brother Greg!
Bob
What you lacked in silver spoons in your mouth, you made up for socks in your ears.
Haaaa!!!
What Bob Shepherd said!
The lyrics of a song, Jesus Loves the Little Children, written in the late 1800’s, popularized a simplified version of the words that have been reported as Jesus’.
Jesus’ disciples thought children were a distraction which provoked one of the Biblical passages about children in the New Testament. Some of the passages about children are aimed at demanding people ignore sophisticated thought in preference to child-like thought- reliance and dependence on God. Children’s unexamined beliefs are an analogy for the correct way to gain admittance to heaven.
The old testament has a view about children that may be quite consistent with that of the GOP.
The music chosen for this children’s song was a Vivil War marching song, ironic.
Did not know that. Love it!
It was a song that the Union side sang.
From the Repugnican Hymnal
Jesus loves some little children,
some little children of the world,
but red and yellow, black (not white)–
they’re consumable in his sight.
He loves the wealthy white ones
of the world.
Everybody sing!
Bob, should next to last line read “mete out daily”?
Oh my Lord!!! Thank you!!!!