Not a 9 to 5

I have talked about allowance (and all the ways to give it), and the financial education I have given my daughter. I haven’t talked about working. Most of you are saying, “Wait. Working is for when the child is done with college.” However, more and more teens are working real jobs and not just baby or pet sitting.

“Of the 167 million people in the nation’s labor force in 2023, approximately 3.81%, or around 6.36 million, were teens.” USAFacts This roughly translates to one out of three teens (16-19) working. In most states you need to be 16 to work. My daughter got “working papers” through her high school. There is a debate as to whether teens should work or not. “The prevalence of teenage employment has sparked lively debates over whether adolescents should work, for how many hours, and in what kinds of jobs. Most parents like the idea of their children working, as they think that employment instills a whole array of positive traits, including independence, responsibility, interpersonal skills, and a good work ethic (Phillips & Sandstrom, 1990).” National Library of Medicine On the con side: working too may hours that they come to school tired and/or with incomplete assignments, skip extracurricular activates such as clubs, sports, and/or student government. Add to this mix that some teens need to work to help support their families.

I got my first job in 8th grade walking a dog, weekday afternoons for a woman, Ellen in my neighborhood. As is par for the course in my family, she was immediately brought into the fold (for which I am grateful to my mother for doing). I did this job until I graduated high school, went off to college and was accused by Ellen of abandonment (she had married and had three step kids by then). The key things I learned with this job were responsibility, money management, and time management. It was relatively easy to balance the job with schoolwork. Since Ellen was at work, I often stayed after walking the dog to do homework in the quiet. Fast forward nearly 50 years and we are friends to this day. My daughter calls her and her husband, grandma, and grandpa. In a full circle moment, I babysat the step kids, and her daughter babysat my daughter.

My point, the friendship I formed with Ellen at age 13 is still going and she has been a trusted source of advice, comfort, and companionship for all these years. It was and is like having a second mom. The further point is that your kid may get so much more than a paycheck from a job as a teenager and that should be factored into your decision to let him/her work or not. If you are still unsure, then try a summer job or unpaid internship to test the waters.