Personal Narrative: Child Labor

According to Mother Jones, child labor is like slavery. It is incredibly tough and dangerous, especially for young children. Mother Jones begins by telling us how she heard “gruesome stories of little children working” in the factories. She wanted to see for herself if these terrible stories were true, unfortunately, she saw for herself how they were indeed true. Mother Jones first applied to a mill in Cottondale, that was the first encounter she had with the living conditions provided to the small children. She describes the house as a “sort of two-story plank shanty”, with broken windows and a sagging door. The place was small, and it offered no real protection. There were “cracks in the roof”, so when it rained it rotted the floors. She also talks about the downstairs’ “big open fireplace”, that had “holes big enough to drop a brick through”. This meant that if small children ran or played around the fireplace, they could fall and get injured. The living conditions alone were terrible and not adequate for children. The children also experienced harsh summers and winters. They were more prone to getting a disease and dying.

The speaker begins her speech by introducing the topic of child labor, stating powerful facts that support her case and using poignant diction to create sympathy; these devices work together to bring attention to the problem of children being overworked from very young ages, and attempt to win the audience’s allegiance to her cause. Referring to a census regarding the different groups of people making up the “wage earning class,” Kelley declares that “no contingent so doubles from census period to census period…as does the contingent of girls between twelve and twenty years of age.” The rate of young girls working, earning a living, increases faster than any other group of people. The reference to a census, tells the audience that, not only

Child labor in America was a major issue. Back in the 1900’s, children, as young as three years old, worked in factories, mills, on the streets, and even in the coal mines. Earning less than twenty cents an hour, these children were contributing to one-third of their family’s total income. The work conditions, put children in direct contact with danger, had deprived them of a proper education and revoked the child from having a normal childhood. In this summative response I will be discussing Lewis Hines- a photographer who ventured all over the states- and the immaculate photos he took of children working in harsh conditions and how one’s social class can affect one’s life-chances. I will also mention how child labor has improved over the

In conclusion there aren’t many child labor issues in America they are mainly in South America, Asia, China, and India. I have learned a lot about child labor throughout this research.

“Child Labor.” Eiu.edu. Accessed December 6,2015. http://www.eiu.edu/~eiutps/ newsletter_childlabor.php.

I have limited experience working with children. I have tutored children from my neighborhood and family members. I would help them out with their homework and prepare for exams, in social studies, reading, and some math. Tutoring included having discussions with the students, parents, and teachers to figure out what material to go over. After these discussions, I created assingments and study guides to help the students, out of the tutoring

The sweat dripped from the five year old’s face as he sent the parts down the assembly line. During the Industrial Revolution many children were forced to work in order to support their family because of the unstable economy. The hardships that these children suffered through ruined their childhood. In the factories, the working conditions for the children were terrible, they had working long hours for such little pay for their families. In the United States today, this problem is mostly resolved due to many bills that went through Congress, but in many third world countries child labor still exists. Although it was a very cheap solution for large companies, it destroys the life of children in an unethical manner.

I stared patiently watching the men walking up to the door, repeating the same act as the two days prior. Once again I waited until they were around the corner before quickly going outside and grabbing the flyer. It read:

Others suggest that real decline in child labor came with compulsory education laws. Again however, forged documents allowed families to circumvent that regulation as well. Basu also claims that prosperity increased and therefore parents no longer had to force their children into the workforce. If Baland, Robinson’s, Krueger, and Donohue’s assessment of education reform and the welfare system worked out as their equations predicted, the third theory seemed viable. Nardinelli claims that employers no longer wanted child laborers with the advent of new technology. Basu, referred to economist Carolyn M. Moehling and her question, “was [it] the legislation that caused the decline in child labor or was it the diminishing dependence of industry

What I learned about my ability to work with young children is that they need a level of patience for them to work through the problem on their own. I also learned that for the child to be most engaged you have to make it interesting for them to learn, and that children tend to have a short attention span, especially when doing math over a long break. For Ezra we made a deal that if we would complete all the math questions to the best of his ability then we would spend some time playing outside. By interviewing Ezra I found that addition comes pretty easy to him and that math is one of his favorite subjects in school. I learned that at this age children prefer to turn simple subtraction questions into addition questions and round the numbers up to 10’s for easier mental math. If I was going to do this again I would ask

The September 1906 edition of Cosmopolitan magazine includes a story of a Native American chieftain. He was given a tour of New York, and saw high rise skyscrapers and the Brooklyn Bridge. He observed people at the circus and in poor tenements. At the end of his journey, several men asked him “What is the most surprising thing you have seen?” He replied: “Little children working” (Schuman). Although this may have seemed surprising to the chieftain, it was not uncommon in 20th century America. Child labor is the illegal act of using children in industry or business, even when conditions are inhumane. According to the United Nations, about 168 million children aged 5 to 17 are engaged in near-slavery practices such as bonded labor, sexual exploitation, or in illegal activities like drug trafficking (Child). Therefore, child labor should be stopped because it is essentially slavery, undermines basic human rights, and has detrimental impact on any child’s overall well-being.

Although critics argue that lowering the age of child labor is a bad idea, some of the jobs are too dangerous for children. However, why in the world would we give young teens a job they can’t handle (because of the safety). To illustrate, Edmonds E. V. states that certain jobs could be hazardous or enormous workload would be unsafe for children. But notice that Edmonds said “certain”. We could give teens jobs such as a waiter(ress), cashier, paint job, etc, jobs that are not even close to dangerous. Also, another problem is young teens need to focus on school and school only. However, good students needn't focus on just one thing. Moreover, Dean Yang points out that if most of the young teens now had a job they would not participate in

Child labor is a broad term, and the exploitation of minors remains a global issue without a global solution. Divides in cultural acceptance and a misunderstanding of what the term encompasses results in far too many adults failing to recognize how child labor affects their country. First, we must recognize all areas of exploitation that child labor incorporates and how there are child labor *victims* being arrested on American soil. Yes, victims of child labor can be arrested, or fear arrest, due to their exploitation being rooted in prostitution. They know their actions may be deemed illegal, despite the fact they are coerced and existing in a non-consensual arrangement.

You are a single parent in an underdeveloped country. You work 18-hours a day, yet you still live below the poverty line, barely making a few dollars per week. Not only do you have to feed yourself, you have to feed your entire family. The worst part is, your 5, 8, and 11-year-old children are forced to work as well, at a local factory that employs your entire village. Today, 215 million children work throughout the world, many of them full-time. These children do not get to go to school, have no time to play, and receive poor nutrition and care. Ahmad Suleiman, a nine-year-old Syrian child, is one of these poor souls. Forced child labor is not only a cruel practice, but extremely immoral, and has been around for hundreds of years. Aside from

In the United States, child labor and sweatshops are illegal, and society frowns upon any business that exploits children in the production of goods. Though most would say that they would not support a company that uses child labor to produce its goods, almost everyone has, in fact, knowingly or unknowingly, supported these businesses in one way or another. Children are involved in the production of many of the everyday goods we import from overseas, including the manufacturing of clothes, shoes, toys, and sporting equipment, the farming of cocoa, cotton, sugarcane, and bananas, and the mining of coal, diamonds, and gold (The U.S. Dept. of Labor). Often, we are blinded to this fact.