>>>>>>What Your Neighborhood List-Serv Tells You About The Demise of America
>>>>>>http://thefederalist.com/2013/09/20/what-your-neighborhood-list-serv-tells-you-about-the-demise-of-america/
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I read the subject line for the latest message on my neighborhood listserv with interest: “Kids Cutting Grass?”
>>>>>>
>>>>>>A few years ago I’d used a post with a similar headline to find someone to do some yard work. My husband and I hired a neighborhood kid whose Dad had died the year prior after a long illness. Maybe 13 years old, he’d taken to doing yard work to raise much-needed money and have something to do.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>But this email was very different. It read:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>“We just had a group of adorable and entrepreneurial kids (young, maybe 9-11 years old) offer to mow our grass. Not to be Scrooges in the neighborhood, but what is the general consensus on this around [the neighborhood] re: safety? They looked pretty young, and we didn’t see a parent with them supervising. I realize kids want to earn spending money, but I was interested in getting the pulse on this sort of thing. Teenagers, maybe. But these kids looked like they may be older elementary school aged (guess). We had a family member lose a couple of toes mowing while a young kid, so maybe I’m just overly sensitive.”
>>>>>>...
>>>>>>
>>>>>Jake .I'm with you on this one.
>>>>>Kids should be out learning how to make a buck.
>>>>>Many of the jobs I had as a kid have been obsoleted.
>>>>>I set up pins in a bowling alley (pinspotters now), delivered papers on my bike (adults do it now.. that should tell us something too), caddied (golf carts) and shined shoes ("soft shoes" now)
>>>>>As a young caddy I came into contact with some wonderful people who helped me in many ways off the course.
>>>>>You can't do that for a golf cart.
>>>>>My son pumped gas ( he was terrible at arithmetic but the owner taught him how to make change correctly and that helped his grades) and mowed lawns. When he was 14 he could rebuild a lawn mower engine.
>>>>>His sons, though - both teens now- have never earned a penny.
>>>>>That's a shame, I think.
>>>>
>>>>I had a paper route, too. An excellent first job IMO. It taught the fundamentals of earning an income and doing it right. I had about 70 customers and put the papers inside the front door before 6, before hardly any of them were awake. I still get the paper delivered 4 days a week -- definitely stuck in the past there -- but as you say it has all changed.
>>>
>>>>> A guy drives by in a car at about 30 mph and throws it out the car window into the driveway.
>>>
>>>Same here. And when that guy is finished he goes to his day job.
>>>So.. maybe one of the reasons that kids aren't doing these jobs is that a steadily declining economy has forced adults to do some of the things that kids used to do.
>>>I went into a 24/7 Walgreen in wee AM hours once and a couple in their 40's were washing and waxing the floor.
>>>I asked them if that was their business. They said that they both would go to day jobs shortly but cleaned floors a couple of days a week to make ends meet.
>>
>>That is exactly what the problem is. Teenage unemployment rate is so high you'd have to research it to even believe it. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm
>>If I owned a restaurant I'd want teenagers being busboys and dishwashers - but if some middle aged person with kids at home wants the job too then that's who's going to get it.
>
>Sure. During the 80's most of the supermarket cashiers were high school and college kids.
>Now they're people in their 40's and that's their primary source of income.
>
>Technology is a factor.
>
>If Amazon has it way, there will be no checkouts and no supermarkets.
>
>Mark Twain began his career in journalism as an apprentice typesetter for a newspaper.
>There is no typesetting job today and eventually there might be no newspapers.

I had an uncle who was a typesetter for the Miami Herald. It was a good job. Changes in technology eliminated the need for that trade, as it has eliminated the need for many trades including ours. There will always be a need for software developers but specific needs come and go.