Anatomy lessons

Developing countries today or Dickens' London not long ago, the nasty, often gruesome sides of child labor are easy to see if we care to look.

How do we differentiate between child labor and all the other activities that bring in money and are performed by children?

We have identified several criteria governing these latter activities by children in today's Western world: Voluntary; for a cause other than supporting the family; not taking time away from school.

Think girl scout cookies and lemonade stands, frequently quoted examples of empowerment and work.

The boundaries get more difficult to draw in areas where children have traditionally helped with work in the family.

We found ourselves a local former working child (FWC) and asked for a short summary of these early experiences.

FWC: I worked in the fields, doing weeding, at a time when the handle of my rake extended a foot above my head. My parents told me that, one day, I asked my mother to send home an aunt who was weeding with us. When my mother asked why, I apparently told her that the aunt was not thorough and not fast enough.

K-Landnews: You do not remember this?

FWC: No, I was five or six years old. I remember later work. At age nine, I was stirring the blood flowing out of the jugular of a pig they just slaughtered. And I recall holding kidneys, liver, heart in my hands, rendering fat, cleaning intestines, all the good stuff. By eleven, I would drive the tractor in the field, mix concrete.

K-Landnews: You enjoyed this work, I take it?

FWC: Very much. Not all of it was fun, like loading potatoes in a downpour, or freezing in the early morning fog in fall. But  the funny thing is, all of it was so normal, because everybody around me did it. Only later did I realize that we were an exception, rather than a rule in the wider world. And the early anatomy lessons are still priceless -- I am a vegetarian, though.