Child Labor Laws Have Been Broken

Thanksgiving is upon us. I have to say that this year has flown by. When I think of all the things that I was doing at this time last year it amazes me.

This Thanksgiving has been designated as a "family work weekend". We have a list of items that need to be completed at my grandma's house. We were provided with said list a few weeks ago and have had some time to prepare. Brad and I have had several discussion on the subject and ways that we can pawn off the work to others but as of yet we have been unsuccessful. We love helping my grandma and I am glad that most of my family is close enough for us to be able to do this for her. Plus there is the added bonus of all the monster cookies we can eat.

Pull out your Kleenex folks. I am about to tell you the sad story of my life growing up in rural Kansas. From the time us kids learned how to walk, we were bucking haybales, chopping wood, weeding gardens, chopping stickers, mowing and other various forms of manual labor. OK, I exaggerate on the age thing, but sometimes it sure felt like it. Not only were there farm chores but we of course had house chores as well, dusting, vacuuming, HAND washing dishes, etc...I used to tell my mom that the only reason they had children was for manual labor purposes. I used to think that all of our parents would sit around and plan on who would have the next kid and to make sure all of us cousins were spaced out in age so that as the older ones moved on the younger ones were there to take our place. Thus keeping the "work farm" striving.

I know my aunts and uncles are out there reading this and they are thinking that what us kids had to endure was nothing compared to what they had to endure. We didn't have to milk cows. No, but I have had to drive to town to get milk when we ran out. We didn't have to walk to school in the snow uphill both ways. No, but I did have to ride an unairconditioned bus for an hour with some pretty scary redneck farm kids and sometimes it was snowy.

See life was rough and unfair. Sounds like an episode of Little House on the Prairie doesn't it.