You're 18, get out of my house! (Duggars)

[CanadianHippie]

Jobs a 14 year old could get in 1990: fast food, waitressing, construction help, farm labor. Those are all legal, paycheck-type jobs; I wasn't allowed to get one, so I just babysat for $1/hour, and did farm labor (walked beans - detassling corn paid better, but it was hard to get hired). 14 year olds with jobs or who lived on farms could get a driving permit for school/work only.

Jobs a 16 year old could get: retail clerk, lab assistant, receptionist, delivery driver, carpenter's assistant, nursing home aide. Random stuff - my little brother worked demolition, we have a friend who installed fencing all through high school. ALL of my friends were working by 16, some more than others. Now fewer kids work but it's because fewer of them can get a job. When I was in high school the really privileged kids, like me, worked one day a week or less; most kids worked 20-30 hours a week, and a few worked full time or more. The laws about school-aged kids working late at night are stricter now, but even they exempt farm labor and family businesses.

I don't think things have changed that much there, except for general unemployment going up; my neices' friends on Facebook, the 14 year olds are jobhunting.

The factories didn't hire under 18, but they do pay a living wage if you can get on with them - not a *good* wage, but the cost of living isn't high where I grew up, and it's higher there than where the Duggars live, I'm pretty sure. They don't hire much, though - a big chunk of my graduating class ('92) enlisted and went to Iraq.

A lot of the jobs you listed you either need to be over 18 or have some sort of post-secondary education is most places. Most places also limit the number of hours a teen can work in a week. Not many places let a 14 year old work 30 hours a week.

[marmalade]

Wow, $1900 here is a mortgage payment on a pretty nice house. My mortgage is half that and I have an old farmhouse on 3 acres.

I live in a pretty cush part of a city with a bad reputation, yet 2 br. condos and duplexes can easily run 2grand/mo. I know of 3 girls living in a 1+ BR apt a block from UC Berkeley, paying $2500/mo. One girl has two jobs to pay her portion of rent/utilities and is carrying 17 units including 2 seminars this semester.

My step-mother gave all 5 of us (her 3 bio children and my brother and I) luggage for our 18th b-days. They were all about self-reliance. You want a car? Buy it yourself and pay for the insurance. Clothes? Same deal. College? Figure it all out yourself.

This insanity that did throw us all into the world before we were ready has only produced one child with more than 2 years of college: me. And I am just finishing my undergrad in my 40's because my dad left me money that allowed me to return to school and live in our rent controlled apt on my husband's lower-middle class (for this area) salary and grants because they finally raised the salary ceiling so that I qualify for them with my grades. This year is a freebie. :)

Ironic, given Boob's argument, that my parents were pretty close to him religion-wise when they threw my brother and me out (they weren't together yet when my older sisters moved out, but the youngest was 21 and gone when they married). Remember, my parents were the people who thought Harold Camping was the bee's knees in the early 80's.

[MamaJunebug]

Acquaintances of ours told their two children, from the get- go, "Our responsibility to you ends when you graduate from high school. Have a plan in place to earn a living or pay for your education in full."

Beginning the day after graduation and Until the kids left for campus, they paid their parents rent when they lived at home. When one child married and had an apt. that didn't hold all her stuff, she & her hubby paid rent to keep it inthe patents' basement.

The O. Henry twist to the story: These parents are the closest to fundies I know IRL: Conservative Presbyterians, conservative politically, legalistic, judgmental, uptight. IOW, Duggars w/o skirts and AquaNet For Him.

[lilwriter85]

When it comes to jobs and working, I wonder what Jill and Jana would do if something caused them to have jobs outside the house. Neither one would do well on job interviews and the fact that they don't have any work experience would limit jobs to them. I can't really see them functioning well in workplace. Maybe they would be ok working hotel housekeeping jobs or office cleaning jobs. I kind of think some of the boys would be stunted if they had work outside of Boob's businesses. John David would probably do well but Smuggar probably wouldn't.

I think Boob has stunted his 18 and older children from a lot of things. His kids are way too sheltered.

[Trynn]

I disagree. I think some of the older girls could find work in daycare centers. Employers who knew them from the show would know they are good with kids, plus at least one of them, I think, has some background in medical knowledge.

But yeah, if they had to actually support themselves, I don't think a daycare would pay enough for that. They'd be screwed.

[mbeezer]

I wouldn't take any kind of advice from Jim-Boob at all. Guess I'm doing things wrong because my 20 year old son still lives at home and my 31 year old daughter moved back home for a while to get her life back together.

[bananacat]

I disagree. I think some of the older girls could find work in daycare centers. Employers who knew them from the show would know they are good with kids, plus at least one of them, I think, has some background in medical knowledge.

But yeah, if they had to actually support themselves, I don't think a daycare would pay enough for that. They'd be screwed.

I highly doubt they will find any daycare centers that advocate "blanket training" or any form of physical discipline. We've never determined whether the older girls are allowed to spank their buddies, but if I had kids I wouldn't leave them with the Duggar girls. They have a narrow worldview and would not be tolerant at all if I had a son that played with dolls or a daughter who liked trucks. They would probably be fine caring for infants, but I think they'd have a much tougher time with toddlers, especially those that haven't been taught to mindlessly obey. Working at a daycare is more than just physically caring for children, and I don't think they could handle the discipline part. I think their only real chance would be as a helper for some young Quiverfull family that doesn't have any older daughters yet. They would also never be allowed to work at a daycare center because they think daycare is evil.

I think some of them could get jobs as cooks somewhere, like fast food or a cafeteria, but they'd be too vain to put their hair in a hairnet. They could probably do well as janitors though.

[lilwriter85]

I highly doubt they will find any daycare centers that advocate "blanket training" or any form of physical discipline. We've never determined whether the older girls are allowed to spank their buddies, but if I had kids I wouldn't leave them with the Duggar girls. They have a narrow worldview and would not be tolerant at all if I had a son that played with dolls or a daughter who liked trucks. They would probably be fine caring for infants, but I think they'd have a much tougher time with toddlers, especially those that haven't been taught to mindlessly obey. Working at a daycare is more than just physically caring for children, and I don't think they could handle the discipline part. I think their only real chance would be as a helper for some young Quiverfull family that doesn't have any older daughters yet. They would also never be allowed to work at a daycare center because they think daycare is evil.

I think some of them could get jobs as cooks somewhere, like fast food or a cafeteria, but they'd be too vain to put their hair in a hairnet. They could probably do well as janitors though.

That is why I think they would never be hired to work in daycare centers. If the girls interviewed at a daycare center, the adminstrators would state their policies and the Duggar girls probably wouldn't like the policies or wouldn't know how to deal with them.

Cooking jobs are other things I could see the Duggar girls doing. But I think if Jana, Jill, and Jessa had to enter the work field tomorrow they wouldn't be able to get certain jobs because they have no experience, certain forms or training or education. I think janiortial or cleaning work would the best jobs for them if they had to start out in the work field.

[Austin]

. . . At 21, after graduation, I moved out. This my parents still interpret as "running away from home".

Florence, my MIL still considers my husand as having run away from home. He graduated from college at age 21 and was offered a job in a city three hours away and took it. That's her definition of running away from home. lol He's nearly 58 now and she's sticking by her story :roll:

She's whack.

[Letgo]

I would hire the older girls. I think they have a good work ethic, especially Jana and Jill. While they may not have any experience and very little education, they are not stupid and could learn. They could work in a department store, a fast food restaurant, as bank tellers, receptionists, cashiers, etc. I think they have a great deal of potential that just won't ever be discovered within their current lifestyle.

And they could always be hired as nannies. I don't think they would do blanket training on children to whom they are not related. They have a huge amount of experience with children of all ages, they don't do drugs or drink, they have no boyfriends, no criminal records, no outside interests, they cook and clean, and have nothing else on the horizon to lure them away from the job.

[SquirrelySquirrel]

My husband was made to leave home as soon as he graduated high school. His relationship with his (don't even get me started) dad was awful and it got a lot better once they weren't living under the same roof. That's the short version, anyway.

I moved out at 19 to live in sin with the now-husband (though my parents would certainly never have kicked me out), after extensive dating of many guys (Anyone seen the shattered pieces of my hymen, er, heart? They're out there somewhere.). I guess we are the poster children for everything that is wrong in Jim Bob's narrow view of the real world. :dance:

[dormouse]

Florence, my MIL still considers my husand as having run away from home. He graduated from college at age 21 and was offered a job in a city three hours away and took it. That's her definition of running away from home. lol He's nearly 58 now and she's sticking by her story :roll:

She's whack.

My husband and I moved in together in April 2009. We are in a poor but slowly gentrifying area. It has improved a lot, with many households similar to us (mid-to-late-20s DINKs who just got their degrees, just-starting-in-life lower-lower-middle class), but yes there is still a bit of violence, drugs, prostitutes, etc. It's going away slowly, but not overnight. Even to this day, whenever something like that in our neighborhood is on the news, the phone rings and sure enough it's MIL. And each time my husband tells her that this is a big city and things like that can happen in pretty much every neighborhood. She suggests neighborhoods in Montreal that we could move in, but what's hilarious is that they are just as bad, but in her mind they are better because they are in the West so mostly English-speaking, while we are in the East so it's more French so "worse" and "poorer" in her mind. I wish she would stop insulting the place I call home, and most likely the place her future grandchildren will call home. I grew up in the city and I like to think I turned out ok (well, at least not a prostitute or drug dealer anyway).