Ah, the way life use to be.
(gab.com)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (51)
sorted by:
Mum, can I have 10 bucks?
5 bucks? What do you need 3 bucks for? Here’s 2 bucks: share with your sister.
OMG I love this. I would have gotten a quarter not $2. You must have been rich.
No, I had to find a job to have money which I then had no clue what to purchase with.
That indeed was a job about how it was happening at a spoiled kid’s home.
My first job at 12 years old (1963) was babysitting for 6 children...the youngest a baby...for $.25/hour...and I even did the dishes and straightened the house...but for the quarter I could buy a nickel cherry coke at the soda fountain, a 5 cent candy bar, a $.07 scoop of ice cream and 8 cents worth of penny candy...quite a haul in those days...
My first non babysitting job was when I was 12. I lied about my age (I guess it was easier in 1979) and did filing and vacuuming at a Rent-a-Center. Even at 12 I had sense enough to know that if I wanted something, I damn sure couldn't burden my single working mom for it, I had to work for it.
I began distributing ads in mailboxes all around the area at 12, then I babysitted a little on Friday nights (which allowed me to view the late cine club show which let me discover the Marx Brothers, Harold Lloyd, and others stupendous oldies young French scholars could never know about. I also experimented working on markets, leading younger kids in camp, also cooking for them. I had less money than most boys my age I knew, but it was mine, not something my parents would give me to rid of me.🤓
Had a similar babysitting job in the same time frame. Five children, including a baby. I watched them from 9am to 5pm, nearly every week day in summer. The kids were great. In my early twenties, the family would still ask me to babysit on weekends occasionally. A lot of responsibility at a young age, but great experience in real life.
"You can wait for your birthday/Christmas," was always my parents go-to.
Then by 11 I started working under the table cleaning apartment lobbies.