The bright lights in Iowa are proposing to allow kids as young as 13 to work in various capacities - in factories and elsewhere because, I don’t know, not enough school homework?
Even better, the proposal disallows them from any workers comp claims and makes them rely on parent’s health insurance for any injuries.
Oh wait! Some companies are already doing it!
Why even be an adult?
And you folks laffed, when I proposed Plan Steve to “solve the burger flipper shortage”, by allowing kids to drop out of school after 8th grade, and work full time to “learn the dignity of work”. Presently, kids can drop out of school in Iowa at 16.
Steve
“We need to give our kids a chance, we need to give our kids the ability to learn life lessons,” he said.
Fortunately, smooth lines by lawmakers are always at hand when business interests are at stake.
My dad paid me for washing his car at around that age. I don’t think I suffered any lasting damage. After almost electrocuting myself by sticking a paper knife into a socket, I became the electrician in our house. Again, no lasting damage.
Want lasting damage? Shelter, shelter, shelter!
The Captain
A favorite sailor’s quip, “there are no plumbers at sea.”
The most amazing self reliant kids I have ever met were raised on board sailboats with all their attendant dangers and opportunities to be learn self reliance.
Some folks want to be gullible. Watching fox they wind themselves up into angry fits every day. I can get angry watching fox as well but for entirely different reasons.
So you washed his car between 4 to 10 hours every day 6 days a week? Or you washed his car on Sundays twice a month for half an hour? Slight difference. You were supposed to get a chance to grow up. 
Paid? Money? All I got was “shut up and do as you’re told”. I was slave labor. Washed and vacuumed car, mowed lawn, shoveled snow, ran laundry, for nothing. After I moved out, I still brought my laundry over to the house, and ran mom’s too, while she sat on her backside. After a few weeks, she decided she was doing me such a big favor, letting me run laundry, that getting her laundry done for her was not enough. She decided I was going to vacuum and dust her house too. After that attempt at extortion, I ran my own laundry at my apartment, and she had to lug her stuff up and down the basement stairs.
Steve…“traditional family values” this!
We made our kids do chores around the house as they grew up for no money. Our youngest once said “I’m not your slave”. I replied neither was his mother or me. I told him he was a working member of this family and as long as he lived under our roof he was expected to contribute to its operation. He asked what it would take to not be a working member? I thought for a moment and said “Money”. I offered to do his chores for him after we negotiated a price he would pay me for each chore. He opted to do his share of the chores.
That was about 20 years ago. All of the kids have turned out well. And they are all penny pinchers. Makes me proud.
My parents demanded very little of me till I was about 13, then I had things to do beyond school work. None of it was that demanding. I was never paid for any of it. But I had an allowance of about $2 weekly. I think one of my sisters got that up to $5 eventually. Dad never said how the $5 came about, just Sharon is getting $5 so should you.
My problem was being the oldest, Sharon would disappear to do homework after dinner. She never did the dishes. I never figured out why I was doing all the dishes.
Those are “traditional family values”, ie, children are property, and some parents never outgrow that mindset, still trying to use their spawn as slaves, when they are grown, moved out, and self-supporting.
I don’t know how old you are. I had an allowance, starting around 1963: 25 cents/week. I learned the value of bookkeeping at a young age, so I could tell at a glance how many months in arrears mom was.
In 1968, age 5, dad used to dig in his pocket for his change here and there and give us the coins. Eve was too young to get any change. Sharon began to pick out the coins faster than I was.
My allowance began in 1976.
You old.