I’d be interested in someone with legal expertise weighing in on whether the farm example is in violation of child labor laws. There are special regulations and exemptions for farms, especially run by a parent or person standing for the parent, but a nine year old driving that tractor seems very likely to be illegal to me. I broadly agree with all the stuff about letting children roam, and it comports well with my own experience, but tractors in particular can be very dangerous and 9 seems very young to be doing genuinely independent ag work like this. Would be interested in other people’s thoughts.
Even when the US considered banning kids from doing dangerous work on farms they still were planning to exempt children on their own family’s farm:
The changes do include a legal exemption for farm families that would allow children to work on the farms owned by their parents. But it would still affect many small farmers who hire kids in the summer or who have extended family members work on their land.
At the 20-acre farm of Julie and Scott Wilber near Boone, Iowa, for example, Drew, 14, and Jade, 12, could still do any work their parents ask of them under the changes. But the Wilbers’ employee, 15-year-old MacKenzie Lewis, would be prohibited from driving the four-wheelers used on many farms, mowing grass or working around animals.
I’d be interested in someone with legal expertise weighing in on whether the farm example is in violation of child labor laws. There are special regulations and exemptions for farms, especially run by a parent or person standing for the parent, but a nine year old driving that tractor seems very likely to be illegal to me. I broadly agree with all the stuff about letting children roam, and it comports well with my own experience, but tractors in particular can be very dangerous and 9 seems very young to be doing genuinely independent ag work like this. Would be interested in other people’s thoughts.
Even when the US considered banning kids from doing dangerous work on farms they still were planning to exempt children on their own family’s farm:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/11/02/141931995/should-farm-kids-be-allowed-to-drive-a-tractor-some-say-its-too-dangerous