SO you think you can drive a tractor.......

Pixguy · Jul 11, 2014

Shouldn't he be in a car seat?

swick1 · Jul 11, 2014

Good lessons in parenting which more of our citizens should acknowledge and apply. Nothing like a little danger and lots of responsibility to make a boy into a man.

jdzaya · Jul 12, 2014

Hopefully he had the door open for the photo op. I would feel better with the door shut!!

lilranch2001 · Jul 12, 2014

At least the seat will never wear out

Pixguy · Jul 12, 2014

jdzaya said:
Hopefully he had the door open for the photo op. I would feel better with the door shut!!

If it is indeed child labor, I doubt they're worried about him. Doors? We don't need no stinkin' doors!

Sodo · Jul 12, 2014

dirt ditch said:
He is probably the son of the plant owner who is teaching him to have a good work ethic early.

Agreed. I bet the kids clothes (cost) could feed his buddies for a month. A cement plant owner who trusts that kid to not ruin his livelyhood (in one second) probably knows more about the situation than any observer could. Must be a sharp kid. But if he fell out the door he'd get squashed & that would be the end of Dad's prodigy.

Teaching (all) kids that we don't want (or need) any contribution from them doesn't sound like a good way to compete in the world. Some kids gotta just do it, and I'd hate to squelch that. The "other side" of child labor is sad though.

swick1 · Jul 12, 2014

Sodo said:
Teaching (all) kids that we don't want (or need) any contribution from them doesn't sound like a good way to compete in the world. Some kids gotta just do it, and I'd hate to squelch that.

So much this! No wonder nobody wants to learn a trade. Most kids are in after school programs or left to their own devices instead of learning useful skills. Of course parents aren't 100% to blame. How many workplaces would let a kid hang around the shop?

Creamer · Jul 12, 2014

I remember back in the early eighties. My Dad on the farm was having some concrete poured and about 7 AM the first tri-ax concrete truck rolled in and it looked to be grossly overloaded. The truck comes into our yard and stops and out pops this little girl who asks if we could take her to school when we go. She was second grade. She had just driven this truck 20+ miles and down a US highway. She thought nothing of it - it must have been fairly normal.