Did your parents make you get a job at a young age?

[cornimer]

My mom never mentioned getting a job until I was 18 - before then I was super busy between my demanding high school and extra-curricular activities. Fortunately, when she started saying I should get a job (the first summer after uni) I was able to find one!

 

[Bluebellie]

No
My parents made me get a job at an old age lol.
When I was 19.
I didn’t want to start working. Who ever likes working anyways?

 

[sleepydreepy]

My mom and her family grew up as immigrants from South America in a low income household and she worked various jobs growing up in high school and college. She told us that she took a paid internship position in college but had to quit the job after a semester because she got way too stressed out trying to be a good student and a good employee, even if that meant her student debt would pile up. Because of this my mom never allowed my sister and I to get jobs while we were in school because she strongly felt that education is more important. She believed this so much that we never even had to do chores growing up either. Even during the summer my mom would have us do math workbooks and sometimes extra summer school classes to get ahead for the upcoming school year. My sister and I didn't mind not having our own money since we were pretty content kids. Plus having the summers relatively free in between school years gave us more of a chance to just be kids. I got my first job the summer after my freshman year of college which I think is pretty ideal honestly, and I'm really thankful I was able to do that.

 

[Watchingthetreetops]

I started working at 14, detasseling corn. It was only a summer job, but I kept at it until I was sixteen. After I was sixteen I got two jobs. My parents never made me but if I didn't work there were a lot of passive aggressive comments about finances and how I was lazy. I ended up having two jobs.

 

[riummi]

My parents were actually against me getting a job early on since they wanted me to focus on school work. Even in college they didn't want me to work in case I would get too distracted. My parents both had to work numerous jobs growing up (like giving newspapers, cleaning, McDonalds) so I guess they wanted me to not have to do that. I ended up getting a summer job though one year just for extra spending money. I actually wish they pushed me more to get another job during school, since I was thinking about it but was a bit intimated at the thought of doing school full time and a job part time.

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

No but I wish they did! Then again my grades would have suffered even more.

 

[_Rainy_]

No, they really didn’t seem to care if I did my homework, much less a job.

 

[Bobbo]

I was delivering newspapers every day of the week while in junior high/middle school.

I hated every minute of it. No extra curricular activities, no sports, nothing. Had to come straight home from school to deliver the newspaper.

And worst of all, no sleeping in on weekends! Papers had to be delivered by 8am on weekends.

 

[warrior_kitty]

I was delivering newspapers every day of the week while in junior high/middle school.

I hated every minute of it. No extra curricular activities, no sports, nothing. Had to come straight home from school to deliver the newspaper.

And worst of all, no sleeping in on weekends! Papers had to be delivered by 8am on weekends.

8 am on the weekends what?

 

[Bobbo]

8 am on the weekends what?

Yup. The weekend papers had to be there for breakfast.

 

[Mick]

Not forced, but they definitely went on about it until I eventually got one. I think I was 14 or 15-ish at the time?

I ended up working on the outdoor department of a garden center, which was kinda fun actually (especially helping people pick plants for their garden and sometimes planning the whole thing out on the ground) although I did hate how it robbed me of my Saturdays.

 

[rianne]

I was very fortunate to have the privilege to not work a part time job when I was in high school because my parents wanted me to solely focus on my studies. However, they also were saddened by me not wanting to get my driver’s permit (then eventual license) because I let my driving anxiety commandeer me for a good bulk of my adolescence.

Now, I have my driver’s license and was able to get a job that required way too much driving (to me). My driving anxiety is still present though, so I am trying to figure out what to do because I’m not fully comfortable with driving after like 4/5 years of doing it. I keep trying to do it little by little, but having an anxiety disorder that has driving as a trigger makes even short drives a possible panic attack in the making.

Maybe if I had a job in HS I would’ve built that self confidence and driven more, earned a bit of money to save idk. But sometimes I wonder what could’ve been. In any case, I still maintain that my parents are very generous and I managed to do pretty well in school because I wasn’t trying to bring in income for expenses like gas, phone bill, car payment, etc.

 

[ChocoPie22]

My mom actually did not want me to get a job because she was afraid that I would get sexually harassed or assaulted while at work. When I was 13 or 14 I wanted to babysit for some extra cash, but she wouldn't let me. Finally, when I turned 16 she seemed to have let me do more stuff on my own. I ended up getting a job at my school's cafeteria and tutored my best friend's little sister.

 

[k e r f u f f l e]

No, they never forced me. Though at around 15 I freelanced and took on tasks from my mom's business. I enjoyed getting paid, and it took away the guilt of "mooching". lol

 

[moo_nieu]

my mom wanted me to start babysitting other families kids when i was 11 and even enrolled me in a course for it and made business cards for me. i babysat a kid my own age once and that was kinda awkward lol.. didnt enjoy the job as im awkward around kids and also felt like way too much responsibility and needing to follow the parents rules while also being fun for the kids. i probably only babysat a handful of times before stopping. i ended up getting a job at 15 at brusters ice cream to make some money for hanging out with friends and seeing movies. we lived in a pretty affluent area so kids were always going shopping and eating out and seeing movies in theater, but my parents didnt grow up that way themselves so they didnt like the idea of just giving me money for fun haha i understand that sentiment though, and i got job experience early on so thats something. i also worked at michaels craft store while i was in high school, but i didnt have to get that job, i just wanted money. my little brother didnt have any jobs in high school though (or most of college), but he spends most of his free time practicing to become a professional golfer so my family considered that to be his job, so i definitely wouldnt say getting a job was forced on me. i worked several jobs throughout college as well, but i wouldnt have had to if i wanted to live at home with my parents (i just wanted to be independent and live apart from them so i chose to work alongside school). now i force myself to have a job because otherwise i couldnt afford to live lol c;

if i ever had kids, which i dont want, but if it happened i wouldnt force them to get jobs in high school. if i didnt have a lot of money to give them for fun though i would understand if they wanted to get a job, but i think childhood should be more about having fun, learning life skills, and learning about yourself. theres plenty of time to work for the rest of life!

 

[Foreverfox]

Well, I was an American Red Cross certified babysitter at 10 years old lol, but my first actual job was at 15. I worked that job all through high-school at $5.25/hr, saved up $2,000 and bought my first car out of the local newspaper. My dad told me not to get a red car or a sports car....I came home with a red sports car .

 

[Sidney]

Actually, my mom was very insistent about me NOT getting a job as a teen. I got my first actual job at 19 while in college, while being a full time student, against her wishes lol. She believed that if I got a job I wouldn’t want to do school anymore.

 

[CherryApplePie]

As soon as I was old enough to get working papers-the ripe age of 14- my mom would take any oppertunity possible to get me to apply somewhere. Not that it mattered because no one would hire a 14-year-old girl anyway.
I was 16 when I somehow landed a summer job at a daycare center;working four-hour-days three days a week which wasn’t bad. My parents had been overjoyed that their persistence finally worked. I’ve had another summer job a year later before getting the job I have had now since I was 19-years-old.

 

[TheWildShadow55]

My parents had the opposite take and really didn't want me to get a job at 15 or 16 or so, I wanted one at the time because I wanted money and was already yearning for independence but neither of my parents were okay with it, therefore they refused to let me get a work permit. I didn't get my first job until this year, barely a month after I turned 18. On a related subject, I do want my driver's license but my parents are not letting me progress with that either

 

[Stikki]

Yeah from 12 (which was actually illegal) I was forced to take over my older brother's paper round. But it was one of those weird ones where most of the week I'd be leaflet stuffing and then delivering papers to 200 houses on the horrible council estate we lived on after school. I was always very small for my age and 200 papers were heavy. It was hard work but I kept it up for years Then I got attacked by a group of lads on rollerskates when I was 14. (kicked me whilst wearing them, hit me with an iron bar and stole one of my shoes). The police were involved, but barely did anything beyond tell them off. All my mother cared about was that I didn't quit it. She took a hefty cut of my pay "for rent" (who charges a kid rent?) so maybe it was that, cos we were poor. But I will never forget how she treated me when I told her I didn't feel I could continue. We were in the car - an old landrover, quite high from the ground - and she just started screaming about how bad I was. Then when she got out the vehicle, she started trying to tug me out by my arm screaming "GET OUT YOU LITTLE *****" over and over again, still pulling til I fell from that height to the ground, with her still dragging me by my arm. Then started loudly crying "I HATE HER". My dad thankfully didn't join in, cos he was extremely violent and I ended up needing medical treatment once thanks to his temper. But he did start hugging her and telling her she was right to hate me and that they should "get rid of me" and "wanted me out of their house" which wasn't an uncommon thing for them to say before or after. So I continued til I able to get an evening supermarket job. Some parents shouldn't have children.