Child Labor, was it in your family?

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My dad is a genealogist so I know all about my family. My ancestors were all child laborers or female workers who came down to the Lowell mills from Canada. My great-grandmother spoke French. My great-grandfather worked in the Navy shipyards when he was 16-17 (in the late 30's, I think), but he quit when the secretaries started to flirt with him...

It's a little weird thinking about how much things have changed!

I have no idea about mine. Mine passed away in 2007 and 2013 and the others are still alive and they never told me about any labors they did. But they did finish high school, my dad's parents that is. I think my mom's finished too but I never asked.

But my mom has had to help take care of her siblings and not doing anything after school or do any school activities because she had to watch her little siblings while her parents worked. But this is pretty normal in big families and she did have her first summer job at a store called Treasure Island when she was about 17 where she caught her boss stealing merchandise and she didn't eve report it because she didn't know he was stealing, she just thought "whoa, that is a lot of stuff he bought" and then after that her hours got cut and they kept getting cut until her father told her to just quit so she did. Then he was caught and he went to jail. I guess security cameras were new technology in the early 70's since they had them installed in the back room because of merchandises disappearing.

We lived on a farm and yes there were labors you can call it. My brothers and their friends would work and get paid and I would get up at six in the morning and start watering trees before it got too hot out and do it again in the evening and finish and I got paid for that. But I was an adult then not a child but my brothers were still underage and they did work on the land. It was part of their chores if they wanted money.

But my great grandmother (mom's grandmother, her mom's mother) worked and I heard she quit school just to work and her dad would take her money and he was an alcoholic. She worked to support her family because they were a big family of 14 kids. I don't know any other detail. But this was pretty common back in the days and she was born in 1907 and passed away in 2002.

It still happens today to an extent where a teen gets a job to help support their family and they give their parents their paychecks to help pay the bills but they can't work as much or earn as much due to child labor laws.

My mom worked on her dad's farm some when she was a kid picking things & selling things & such. It's part of the reason she resents me for not working & being on disability due to issues I was born with. She worked hard her whole life & cant relate to my situation

My father was working at age eleven in a factory, but only part time. his father wouldnt give him money, and he had to cut his shoes to let his toes stick out because they got too small. he had an evil stepmother who wouldnt give him enough food, so he had to work.

my mother did all the cooking, shopping, and cleaning in her house as a child, and watched over her sister four years younger, who never was asked to do a thing but always got all the candies and attention.

My family comes from a foreign country, so I don't really know