Well, not completely banning 17-year-olds from all farm chores (it appears, like city kids, they could still take out the garbage), but ..... well, .... see how you interpret
the news:
The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a
rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family
farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own
families’ land.
Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the
storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”
It was also noted that the education and training traditionally provided by 4H and FFA will be replaced by a 90-hour federal training program. A normal week of school provides about 30 hours of education so I assume we are talking about a 3-week training program written by bureaucrats from DC. Why do the letters USSR keep crossing my mind as I write this?
I assume this also means that the royal daughters would not be allowed to work in the White House garden. It will probably be up to the legal profession to decide. If they are allowed to work in the garden, I assume they, too, would have to take the 90-hour training course. We're talking planting seeds and weeding, aren't we?
Every time I go back to North Dakota I try to take in a county fair. One of the highlights is seeing a 12-year-old (weighing all of 100 pounds) leading a 2,000-lb bull around the auction ring. Under the proposed rules, as I read it, the 12-year-old would not be allowed to "store," "market," or 'transport" this bull.
Sad.
