As it stands in 2014, my kids eagerly look forward to this day. They can begin to feel it coming once we flip the calendar to April. I couldn't hide it from them even if I tried. They ask me, "Mom, when is Bring Your Kid to Work Day?" Funny and all together fantastic, my big kids love to meet my little kids. And, at this point at which my two full-time careers happily intersect, that of Mommy and that of teacher, few things make me happier.
Come spring, I Google the date. When I find it, I share the news with many of my colleagues who have children of their own.
I realize the nature of work has changed a lot in the past couple of centuries.
We are now living in a modern world with so many more machines to power us forward.
Yet, despite the safety valves now in place in society, the chances given children to escape the drudgery and dangers of nineteenth-century-style industrial life via the guarantee of a free public education, we are sadly slipping backwards.
When parents bring their children to work in the future, what will be the nature of the conditions? Will parents want to have their children at work with them? Will work once again be overtly dangerous and demeaning?
There was a time when people earned their dignity at the workplace and carried it home with them. Now, I am afraid, that is being lost.
There is a startling 2011 article at TIME, "The Dirty Work: The Creeping Rollback of Child-Labor Laws" that make my fears seem all too real. Businesses court minors as sources of cheap and more malleable labor. States like Maine and Missouri have attempted to rollback child-labor laws. They want increasingly younger children to work later into the night at less than minimum wage. The fast-food industry has been particularly vocal. They claim it provides children with "greater flexibility" in their work lives. And, they gain more experience. As the author so aptly points out, "it is not clear how valuable the experience of handing burgers out of a drive-through window after 10 p.m. on a school night actually is." I say the job is better left to someone else.
People make many of the same arguments about temp. workers. I am not sure though how many people actually want to live without vacation, sick days, insurance or a pension (NBC News: "For Many Americans 'Temp' Work Becomes Permanent Way of Life"). Temp. workers live as bedouins. Before they can grow roots, they are ripped from the soil. From a purely capitalist standpoint, they are temporary, disposable and fully dispensable human beings. How unsettling! They are like ATRs, except with the added stress of living without any job security, benefits or pension.
Those who seek to rollback child-labor laws have little consideration for the importance of education. According to the study in TIME, children who work more than twenty hours a week are more likely to dropout. They also experience higher incidences of academic and behavioral problems.
Wouldn't it be nice if the paperboys and girls of the world could actually throw us some good news in the future, and not on school time, or at the expense of their education? Wouldn't it be nice to read about a world in which teachers are not used as the scapegoats for increased poverty? Wouldn't it be nice if businesses and legislatures set about protecting human dignity at the workplace instead of relegating teachers and others to the status of temp. workers? Read all about it! Read all about it! Society thanks its teachers! Society thanks its workers!
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