Do you think it’s wrong for parents to force a young child into heavy labour work? READ FIRST

Question

So my husband had what seems to me an unusual childhood.  There’s lots of different things but I’m just curious on what people think about this scenario in particular.
His parents built their own house and it took years because they did pretty much everything themselves.  
From around the age of 8/9, my husband was made to “work” and do all these things to help build this house and he had to do this in order to “earn” going out with friends or whatever he wanted to do.  And it wasn’t easy work like sweeping floors it was like heavy, dirty building work.   
He wasn’t really allowed or given the option to say no either.  I just think it’s so wrong to put that on a CHILD.  Like ok fair enough he learned a lot of skills from it but he should have been just doing what kids do, no? 
Meanwhile his older sister never had to do anything.  His parents always act like they did my husband some huge favour for getting him to work so young.

Answer

i mean, i don’t necessarily think it’s wrong. I was expected to contribute in my house, even heavy labor, like removing shingles and stuff like that. i don’t think it’s fair that he had to earn his free time though, and that his siblings weren’t held to the same expectation. i don’t think i’d called it abuse though.

Answer

My husband grew up on a dairy farm. He was up milking cows before school at a young age. He was in the fields working the land for crops as soon as he could drive a tractor. He didn’t get an allowance or anything. It was just expected of the kids, especially the boys. It continued beyond college - if he was home, he was expected to be in the barn.

Answer

Honestly, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. When you are a child your reality is skewed. My family also built a large addition onto our house. My three older brothers were expected to help after school every day because they were part of the family. We made the decision as a family to build it and as such everyone was responsible and expected to help. I was a bit too young to help outside but I was held responsible to do all the inside chores(clean, wash dishes, laundry, etc). We were expected to get all our work done before we could play. To a child that might seem like “earning” it. It in reality it was just learning responsibility.  A child might twist that experience because it doesn’t seem “fun” but looking back now I see it built character.

Answer

While I wouldn’t consider it to be child abuse, it’s not how I would raise my own child, regardless of their gender.
I had chores I had to complete before I was allowed to hang out with friends or play my video games, so that alone isn’t really all that odd, and I don’t consider it to be wrong either. The type of work is different, for sure. But my brothers were mowing the lawn and helping my dad with things like changing the oil in the car when they were about 10. I learned how to change the oil and tires on the car by myself when I was 13.

Answer

That's how my childhood was. I was about 8-9 by the time my dad expected me to help build our house, and a garage, shed, and barn to go with it, on top of my daily chores of carrying or pulling on a small wagon hay into the field for our horses, taking care of our chickens and thier coop, our meat rabbits and thier cages, and in the spring, bottle feed the calves we'd buy every year. I was also expected to help during haying season. All of these expectations still existed during the school year as well
You got screamed at if you were physically incapable of doing something, or if you got sick from the work (yes, I actually threw up sometimes from having to do too much because I was a very small sized child and obviously doing a grown mans job was hard on my body), or if you didn't do something up to his standards
Basically, my dad was a flaming asshole for the entirety of my childhood who didn't believe that children are children. You were expected to work as much as him, as hard as him, and as good as him while being a little 9 year old underweight girl 🙄
And yes, the extent I was forced to work I would count as abuse. Some of it felt fine, I can handle feeding some animals and cleaning up after them. But no, you shouldn't scream at your child because she threw up after you made her work for 10 hours with no break lifting hay bales that way a good percentage of her body weight 
Some parents are shitty

Answer

It's wrong. Labor, chores, tasks and such should be proportionate to the child's age and ability. At 8 or 9, things like loading and unloading the dishwasher or washing machine or folding laundry or making lunch would be much more appropriate. Heavy labor...not ok.

Answer

I’m kind of on the fence. I don’t see anything wrong with him helping, but making it so he had to earn doing anything else is what crosses the line. 
& his sister should’ve had to help as well.

Answer

Well I can’t really say that it’s wrong. I personally think it was wrong in the terms of him helping but not his sister, but then again if she was younger than him I can understand that. I was 7yrs old, 54 pounds and had to carry a 50 pound bag of horse feed. I know this was wrong at the time but this was how I was raised. I am very strong today and I definitely need to be with the job I have. I personally think that the parents were right to have him help build the house before he could go out with his friends or do whatever he wanted. I was always taught that work comes before play, so I see nothing wrong with that.

Answer

I grew up on a farm. We worked outside (and had indoor chores) before we went to kindergarten. We had heavy responsibilities at a very young age. When we were teens we had lists of job to complete in addition to our regular work. 
Most people today do not know real work. Its sad. I have my 3 year old help me with household chores and gardening outside.

Answer

Also if we want to say look at  he Amish a lot of their children chores are also help building the house but that age depends on the age of child

Do you think it’s wrong for parents to force a young child into heavy labour work? READ FIRST

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