Snow shovelers

Has anyone seen any kids shoveling driveways and walks? I don't drive around that much but you used to see lots of kids out shoveling their parents driveways to earn their allowance and doing neighbor's to earn extra. I don't see any anymore. Last night I heard someone say on the radio that the human body is not made for shoveling. Do they teach now that there were snow plows sitting just outside the Garden of Eden waiting for snow?

..same reason you can't find teens to help bale and mow hay...they simply aren't hungry enough for money..in our day we jumped at the chance to help a neighbour haying and make some money doing it.Kids are handed too much material stuff,including allowances that boggle the mind....the beginnings of welfare sowed at an early age

Didn't you know about kids being taught in school that if their parents tell them to do anything they don't want to , here's a lawyers name & phone number . Its Lawyers heaven out there . I'm disabled , can't shovel my sidewalks & my grandson could care less . Anymore , they show up when they want some money handed to them . That game is over for this guy (tough love) . God bless this messed up World

I don't see kids doing hardly anything like that any more. Same goes with farm work, like during haying season. Standard practice 20 years ago in my area was to always hire kids by the day, when hay had to be done. Not anymore.

But, you can't just blame it on kids. The way things are now-adays, I've be worried about a kid getting hurt (or at least claiming so) and having the parents sue me. It's also hard to keep up with all the labor-laws that keep changing.

From the tons of money I see spent on many kids now-adays, I doubt making a few bucks shoveling walks or roofs is much incentive for many of them.

On the same subject, how many adults do you see actually doing their own work and not hiring out - when it comes to "menial" tasks? Seems to get less and less as time goes on.

When I was a kid, every week-end you'd see adults with their hoods open, working on their own cars. Washing cars in their own driveways with a bucket and sponge. Cutting grass, shoveling snow, trimming trees, cutting wood, etc. Not so much anymore. If the adults are hardly doing it anymore, where are the kids going to get the incentive. That is, unless they want to be the opposite of their parents. That's what many famous shrinks call "paradoxical learning." If you want your kid to do something, tell him/her NOT too. That was a favorite of Viktor Frankl (famous head-shrinker).

I think it has to do both with kids already having too much money and with a de-valuation of work in our society. Work is seen by many as something to be avoided if possible or at best as something to do to get money, rather than being valuable and good for its own sake.
Zach

When I was a kid (a long, long time ago) my Dad always made sure one of the first things that my brother and I shoveled out was the mailbox.
Later, back in the sixties, I ran a rural mail route.
My observaton then; all the old people with no kids at home had their mailboxes shoveled out but most people with teenagers didn"t.......even when the kids were home on a "snow day". Things probably aren"t any better nowadays. LOL

I can hardly get my kids to help me when I'm out there shoveling.

I came home from work the other night and much to my surprise my son had the drive all cleaned out and did a VERY good job of it too. I made sure to comment to him of what a good job he had done.

kids getting too much handed to them is most of the problem. My uncle went to florida to stay with some of his daughters for the winter. They took a water taxi tour of the high end area of Palm Beach. The tour guide told them this story " This family sold their house, moved two lots over, and built a new house. Because they had bought for their 14 year old daughter's birthday present, a 145 foot (7 million dollar) Yacht. and there wasn't frontage in front of the old house to tie it up." what are the odds that girl will ever learn a work ethic?????

Funny this came up -- Just this morning My Grand daughter was going with Grandma to town-- 20 yr old
stood in the kitchen with her coat and boots on waiting for grandma to clean off the car so she could get some driving time in in adverse weather.

Talking yesterday about kids working out muscle builders, and walkers think a good days work is lifting weights or walking on a treadmill for an hour. but won't lift a finger to do any real productive work.

Can't even pay the neighbor boy to use my tractor and gas to mow my yard. too busy riding wheelies in the field on his dirt bike.

Need to find a Mexican illegal teenager that has been taught by parents to be useful or be deported back to Sonora. (Teasing Alert!- but slightly true) RN

with a 145 foot, 7 million dollar boat,...who needs a work ethic ???

As soon as i was old enough,my dad had me mowing the grass with a push type reel mower. Time went on and I turned that into a small mowing buisness of $1.50 per yard. I mowed yards for the older folks on my street and they appreciated it.
I taught my kids the same values of work and saving money. I agree that alot of those values are missing in today's generation of young folks. They are too busy with all the games and cell phones. But then again,here we are on the computer when we could be doing something constructive.

I love it. These are the people that a go getter can get money from. A person can get some good tractors and other things cheap because they are to dumb to fix them and to poor to get them fixed. I got a snow blower for nothing that I have used for five years and it works great. For that matter, I going out right now and use it. It sure beats spending money on this stuff. I have tractors of all sizes and never have to change anything to do a job. I'm looking for number 19 this winter.

My kids have figured this all out. They know that THEY are the rare commodity and are busy working every weekend. They help neighbors do odd jobs, shovel grain, babysit, house sit or what ever is paying. They dont charge allot as usually the "tip" they recieve makes the jobs really pay. People know that its hard to get help and really appreciate it. Whats even better is they want to invest it in some cows to make more and cause they enjoy doing it. Kinda proud of them.

I remember when I was 12 or 13 years old, walking cornfields with a 5 gallon bucket picking up ears the picker dropped--for 35 cents an hour.

The kids in my daughters subdivision must be fromn the Harvard school of business. They sent out flyers to advertise their snow removal service at $140 per house for the entire season. The snow will be removed within 4 hours after the snow stops falling on any given day. They have enough customers to make it work so well that they have to hire other kids as subs. They do it with snowblowers and it takes them about 15 minutes. Daughter signed up for it and is pleased.

My son makes 300/mo shoveling and blowing snow for neighbors. Jim

What kids do manual labor? How dare you, lil johnny has to stay in play on the computer, watch tv and play video games so he can go to college and get a high paying job that hes only qualified to have on paper.

Parents no longer control their kids, the kids control the parents. If dad/mom asks lil johnny to shovel the snow and he says no, we"ll he doesnt shovel snow or do anything else.

I remember one time as a kid me and my brothers got up at 5 am to start morning chores. We opened the door and there was 34 inchs of snow and colder then you know what. We decided that we were going to wait until later. We made it halfway into the kitchen and dad wanted to know why we werent doing chores, we told him. He thought a min and said you have two choices, start your chores or you can lay around the house all day if you want only after your a$$ beating. Boy was it cold out that morning.

As a kid dad never raised a hand to us, but of course we knew he was certainly good for it. Thats all we needed to know.

I used to shovel and shovel and shovel, a good way to get a strong back. Kids today are too fricken lazy. Its more fun to play video games, watch sponge bob and talk to your loser friends.

I remember shoveling driveways for money with a friend of mine. But money grows on trees for today's kids I guess.

Pa told me he's not like all my friends dads who don't give them a choice. No, he is giving me a choice. I can either stay home and do as he says or I can move out.

When my oldest was 12, he noticed that strawberries were $24 a flat in the supermarket, but only $12 a flat "U-Pick"- so he started picking berries and selling them around the neighborhood, until he had enough to buy a Nintendo.

To his credit, he played with the Nintendo for a couple of weeks, got tired of it, and put it away. But he never got tired of working.

BTW- The old Filipino who owned the berry patch found out what he was doing, and made him an offer- instead of paying $12 a flat, give me half the berries, and you can have the other half for free. So he earned the same money by selling only half as many berries.