My 3 year old daughter loves work. She would like nothing more than to push buttons all day in a factory. And she would be good at it. Most toddlers would be. After all, we give them toys that develop the exact skills they would need for factory work. By playing with toys, they learn how to press the correct color button for a desired sound, how to endlessly stack pieces of plastic, how to sort different shapes into a box. And they have an incredible capacity for repetition. If they can sing the ABCs over and over without boredom imagine how much they will enjoy sorting plastic pieces into a box and pressing the same button over and over all day long. Imagine how much fun kids would have operating a drill press or an arc welder? They would be in heaven. What is a set of wooden blocks but a training tool for brick laying? But all these skills are put to waste.
Children aren’t allowed to work in the US because we have laws against child labor. We disparage countries who put children to work, dismissing their factories as “sweatshops.” But sweatshops aren’t so bad. They are filled with children pulling levers, pushing buttons, lifting heavy objects with minimal adult supervision. In other words, they are doing exactly what they want! And the name “sweatshops” isn’t even accurate. Kids don’t really sweat all that much.
We already have places where toddler spend lots of time, expending great physical labor. They’re called playgrounds. There is a large water playground in Brooklyn Bridge Park that looks like an outdoor factory. There are wheels to turn, an enormous screw-like device that churns water, little flood gates to open and shut. There is a long trough that carries water down a hill before dispensing it in a small pool. And kids love this park. They scoop, they lift, they operate the different waterworks with the focus of a US bomb-making operation during World War II. If North Korea has spy satellites peering down over Brooklyn, they would assume that we have children assembling munitions on the Brooklyn waterfront. And they’re thinking, “What a brilliant idea – hiding it in plain sight!” If you were an alien come down to visit Earth you would think, “What are they producing? Are these children being put to work harnessing water for energy? Are they operating the cooling system for a nuclear reactor? Are they drilling for minerals?” And the answer would be “No, they’re just playing.” And what is “playing” but work without a purpose. Children are already doing the work. We just need to harness it.
And the more opportunities we deny children to work the more their skills deteriorate. Children’s toys now have a screw holding the battery compartment on so that no child can change his own batteries. What a shame. Kids in the US don’t even get to change their batteries while kids in other countries get to MAKE batteries. And no child in the US even knows how to change batteries anymore because they have been kept from attaining that basic skill.
We recently took a trip to Home Depot and my daughter had a wonderful time sifting through barrels of wooden dowels, picking out paint samples, hauling around pipe insulation. But is she allowed to work at Home Depot despite her enthusiasm for home improvement? No (I checked).
I know what you’re thinking: if we put toddlers to work, it’s going to make it that much harder for adults to find work. But toddlers are like immigrants, they do the jobs the rest of us don’t want to do. Or can’t do. Children, for example would be great at cleaning the inside of cars. They have small fingers which are great for getting in all the nooks and crannies of a car’s interior. They can fetch the crumbs out of the cup holder and clear the dust from the dashboard vents. They could climb under the seats and find the missing sunglasses that had been given up for lost.
When my daughter is acting up, my wife reminds me to “give her a job.” She wants to work! And if she doesn’t have a job, she gets into trouble. She starts dumping her water cup out on the floor or trying to climb a bookshelf. Toddlers are like little felons. The higher the unemployment rate, the higher the crime rate. With the unemployment rate of toddlers at nearly 100 percent, the crime rate is sure to be close behind.
We have only ourselves to blame.
