Why do middle class parents make their kids hold jobs during the school year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd rather have a kid who can grind out 10hr study sessions than a kid who's mediocre and can't compete when they get college. Acting like high-level academics isn't work is ignorant and short sighted.

Why do you act as if it's one or the other? So many have said here that their kids who have jobs are also great students. What kid in this super competitive DC area doesn't have to work hard to do well in school and get into a good college? High level academics is one kind of work, for sure, but it's not real life work that teaches life skills and responsibility, unless you're planning to be a professional student.

Though, tbh, my straight A student who takes all honors/AP courses has never ground out a 10 hour study session. Probably not even 5. I don't know how, because I was a studier, but he brings in high marks without a whole lot of studying. The thing is, some kids excel without putting in the amount of time others require. Therefore he has a lot of extra time for fun, which is how he views his part time job most of the time.

Because 99% of the time it is - there are only so many hours in the day. My kid is already too busy, so I don't know where your kids are slacking that they have 10-20 hours to spare a week. Too many people in this thread are middle class bootstrap types. So obvious.

Darn it, you caught me. He's a socially inept and unattractive loser with no friends, no sports and no life at all, really. The truth is, the only thing his 10-hour-a-week job keeps him from doing is numbing his mind on Netflix and porn. Never mind. I get it now.

[Anonymous]

In the future yiur super studious spoiled kid will have to work, run a home, multitask on many levels all the while keeping up with others in their income class. They might as well learn to do this young, unless you plan on subsidizing them their entire lives.

[Anonymous]

A lot depends on the kid. Having a job all through high school and college, prepared me for life and built my skills in time management and multi-tasking. I think it was my extracurricular activities including a job and school/community events that helped get me into my college, since it showcases an ability to handle life as a whole, rather than having to be singularly focused on one thing.

I worked 10 hours a week at a party supply store in 8th-9th grade, then 15-20 a week at a photo lab (later Staples) all through the rest of high school. I was involved in student government, a straight A student and a volunteer with the local FD junior company all through high school. It was a balancing act, but I had money to spend on my friends and myself. My parents provided my car (my dad's old car that as the youngest there was nowhere else for it to be handed down to) and my insurance, while I paid for gas. I received a weekly allowance for lunch, and anything spent beyond that was on me to provide. My parents took us shopping before school began for supplies and new clothes, but the rest of the year we were expected to provide for ourselves (or wait for birthday or Christmas).

I still had time to socialize and see my friends (actually made new ones at work from people I wouldn't have become friendly with at school due to our social circles). To be fair, I didn't spend time at home on homework which was completed in my study hall or in other classes (math was done in Spanish, Spanish was done in French, etc.), which is probably not the route to go if your student can't manage to keep up in classes while doing so.

But I think it's important to work while in school, it teaches more useful life skills than sitting in SAT prep classes and then meeting with a private tutor will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd rather have a kid who can grind out 10hr study sessions than a kid who's mediocre and can't compete when they get college. Acting like high-level academics isn't work is ignorant and short sighted.

I'd rather have a kid that has learned time management and can plan ahead so a 10-hour study session is not necessary in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd rather have a kid who can grind out 10hr study sessions than a kid who's mediocre and can't compete when they get college. Acting like high-level academics isn't work is ignorant and short sighted.

I'd rather have a kid that has learned time management and can plan ahead so a 10-hour study session is not necessary in the first place.

+1 I guess I didn't realize that this was necessary for many kids, barring a special challenge. My two teens are more fortunate than I realized. By paying attention and participating in class, they need relatively little studying time. Of course, there's homework, but prepping for tests takes only the night before. To head off the inevitable, I'll say here that their classes are all Honors and AP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd rather have a kid who can grind out 10hr study sessions than a kid who's mediocre and can't compete when they get college. Acting like high-level academics isn't work is ignorant and short sighted.

I'd rather have a kid that has learned time management and can plan ahead so a 10-hour study session is not necessary in the first place.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd rather have a kid who can grind out 10hr study sessions than a kid who's mediocre and can't compete when they get college. Acting like high-level academics isn't work is ignorant and short sighted.

I'd rather have a kid that has learned time management and can plan ahead so a 10-hour study session is not necessary in the first place.

+1 I guess I didn't realize that this was necessary for many kids, barring a special challenge. My two teens are more fortunate than I realized. By paying attention and participating in class, they need relatively little studying time. Of course, there's homework, but prepping for tests takes only the night before. To head off the inevitable, I'll say here that their classes are all Honors and AP.

But most parents push their kids beyond what they can do and make then study hours up hours upon hours. I guess that is why they don't have to work. Personally, I rather work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I grew up my father told me from a young age that school was my job. Yes my parents paid for care, gas, insurance and spending money. It was an older car and the spending money was not unlimited by any means. I had at least as much money as someone working 15 hours a week as pocket money.

I have a 17 year old and do the same thing with her. She get everything paid for and I give maybe $50 a week for incidentals.

She is a now a junior and will qualify for National Merit Scholar. She will be applying for some top schools that are very eager to get students with her great grades (perfect 4.0) and perfect SAT score (1600). I'm fairly confident that she would not have been able to do this if she was required to work a part-time job. During last summer she spent almost 20 hours a week during the summer (when not traveling) on studying for the PSAT/SAT. This was her job and she really hammered at it.

Every kid is different and I do not for a minute that everyone should do what I do. But the $5k that she might have earned is far less than the scholarships that she will earn for college.

Are you serious? Her job was to spend 20 hours a week all summer studying for one test to get into a college. That REALLY gets her ready for real life.

Larla, can you go photocopy these 10 pages? Um, but boss. I need a 2 hour tutorial on how to use the copier so I can make sure I do this right the first time. I am not allowed to live and learn, occasionally make mistakes, ask questions, learn from doing, etc... I need to studying this copier. I will get back to you in a few hours, okay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I grew up my father told me from a young age that school was my job. Yes my parents paid for care, gas, insurance and spending money. It was an older car and the spending money was not unlimited by any means. I had at least as much money as someone working 15 hours a week as pocket money.

I have a 17 year old and do the same thing with her. She get everything paid for and I give maybe $50 a week for incidentals.

She is a now a junior and will qualify for National Merit Scholar. She will be applying for some top schools that are very eager to get students with her great grades (perfect 4.0) and perfect SAT score (1600). I'm fairly confident that she would not have been able to do this if she was required to work a part-time job. During last summer she spent almost 20 hours a week during the summer (when not traveling) on studying for the PSAT/SAT. This was her job and she really hammered at it.

Every kid is different and I do not for a minute that everyone should do what I do. But the $5k that she might have earned is far less than the scholarships that she will earn for college.

So she will get into a college she is truly not meant to be in. When most of the rest with perfect scores can knock it out quickly and own their own, she will be falling behind looking for 20 hours a week to study for each final exam. Sounds dreadful.

[Anonymous]

I worked every summer and part-time during the school year. From the time I was 13 all the way through law school. Some of the jobs were fun, some of them were boring, some were hard work, but all of them taught me something--the value of showing up on time, how to get along with different kinds of people, how to solve problems quickly, how to manage my time, the value of money, budgeting, etc. I've never thought that I was better than anyone else because of my job or my income, and that there is nothing wrong with honest hard work. And it was pretty normal for even UMC kids to have jobs--one of the wealthiest kids in my class had to work at McDonald's--his dad owned the franchises in our town and the family was loaded, but all his kids had to flip burgers in high school. He did not want them thinking that they were too good to do what they asked their employees to do.

Working in a service industry can suck, but I'm much nicer to service employees because I know what it's like on their end. And I have contempt for people who think they're all that but treat those that they think are beneath them like crap. The snotty rich kids who did stuff like intentionally make huge messes on their dining hall trays (like gluing plates together with the nacho cheese) because they thought it was funny, never thinking about the people who had to clean up after them--I learned that people like that are shit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd rather have a kid who can grind out 10hr study sessions than a kid who's mediocre and can't compete when they get college. Acting like high-level academics isn't work is ignorant and short sighted.

I'd rather have a kid that has learned time management and can plan ahead so a 10-hour study session is not necessary in the first place.

Exactly.

+1. And don't be surprised when your kid who can "grind out 10 hour study sessions" is a complete failure at their first job out in the real world. Success requires more than being able to sit at length in a room by yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I grew up my father told me from a young age that school was my job. Yes my parents paid for care, gas, insurance and spending money. It was an older car and the spending money was not unlimited by any means. I had at least as much money as someone working 15 hours a week as pocket money.

I have a 17 year old and do the same thing with her. She get everything paid for and I give maybe $50 a week for incidentals.

She is a now a junior and will qualify for National Merit Scholar. She will be applying for some top schools that are very eager to get students with her great grades (perfect 4.0) and perfect SAT score (1600). I'm fairly confident that she would not have been able to do this if she was required to work a part-time job. During last summer she spent almost 20 hours a week during the summer (when not traveling) on studying for the PSAT/SAT. This was her job and she really hammered at it.

Every kid is different and I do not for a minute that everyone should do what I do. But the $5k that she might have earned is far less than the scholarships that she will earn for college.

So she will get into a college she is truly not meant to be in. When most of the rest with perfect scores can knock it out quickly and own their own, she will be falling behind looking for 20 hours a week to study for each final exam. Sounds dreadful.

Your so stupid its comical. There are a couple of tests that define where you go in life.

College - PSAT / SAT / ACT

Medical School - MCAT

Business School - GMAT

Law School - LSAT

These are in combination with your grades from school that you literally spend thousands of hours on. So spending 8 weeks (some off weeks for travel) at 20 hours per week is 160 hours plus maybe another 100 hours during August, September and October is lets say 240 hours.

Lets compare this to playing on the football team in high school.

10 week season plus 3 week preseason plus 2 weeks playoff @ 12.5 hours a week (2 1/2 hours a day which excludes travel time to away games etc) This is 187.5 hours in one season or 750 hours for a 4 year athlete. Makes the 240 hours sound reasonable yet?

Also if you believe that the high scoring students don't study, do you also believe that top tier football players don't lift weights? Practice during off-season?

Your thinking is WAY off-base!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I grew up my father told me from a young age that school was my job. Yes my parents paid for care, gas, insurance and spending money. It was an older car and the spending money was not unlimited by any means. I had at least as much money as someone working 15 hours a week as pocket money.

I have a 17 year old and do the same thing with her. She get everything paid for and I give maybe $50 a week for incidentals.

She is a now a junior and will qualify for National Merit Scholar. She will be applying for some top schools that are very eager to get students with her great grades (perfect 4.0) and perfect SAT score (1600). I'm fairly confident that she would not have been able to do this if she was required to work a part-time job. During last summer she spent almost 20 hours a week during the summer (when not traveling) on studying for the PSAT/SAT. This was her job and she really hammered at it.

Every kid is different and I do not for a minute that everyone should do what I do. But the $5k that she might have earned is far less than the scholarships that she will earn for college.

Are you serious? Her job was to spend 20 hours a week all summer studying for one test to get into a college. That REALLY gets her ready for real life.

Larla, can you go photocopy these 10 pages? Um, but boss. I need a 2 hour tutorial on how to use the copier so I can make sure I do this right the first time. I am not allowed to live and learn, occasionally make mistakes, ask questions, learn from doing, etc... I need to studying this copier. I will get back to you in a few hours, okay?

So you study hard for PSAT/SAT and now you cant operate a copier. Your too dumb for words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I grew up my father told me from a young age that school was my job. Yes my parents paid for care, gas, insurance and spending money. It was an older car and the spending money was not unlimited by any means. I had at least as much money as someone working 15 hours a week as pocket money.

I have a 17 year old and do the same thing with her. She get everything paid for and I give maybe $50 a week for incidentals.

She is a now a junior and will qualify for National Merit Scholar. She will be applying for some top schools that are very eager to get students with her great grades (perfect 4.0) and perfect SAT score (1600). I'm fairly confident that she would not have been able to do this if she was required to work a part-time job. During last summer she spent almost 20 hours a week during the summer (when not traveling) on studying for the PSAT/SAT. This was her job and she really hammered at it.

Every kid is different and I do not for a minute that everyone should do what I do. But the $5k that she might have earned is far less than the scholarships that she will earn for college.

So she will get into a college she is truly not meant to be in. When most of the rest with perfect scores can knock it out quickly and own their own, she will be falling behind looking for 20 hours a week to study for each final exam. Sounds dreadful.

Your so stupid its comical. There are a couple of tests that define where you go in life.

College - PSAT / SAT / ACT

Medical School - MCAT

Business School - GMAT

Law School - LSAT

These are in combination with your grades from school that you literally spend thousands of hours on. So spending 8 weeks (some off weeks for travel) at 20 hours per week is 160 hours plus maybe another 100 hours during August, September and October is lets say 240 hours.

Lets compare this to playing on the football team in high school.

10 week season plus 3 week preseason plus 2 weeks playoff @ 12.5 hours a week (2 1/2 hours a day which excludes travel time to away games etc) This is 187.5 hours in one season or 750 hours for a 4 year athlete. Makes the 240 hours sound reasonable yet?

Also if you believe that the high scoring students don't study, do you also believe that top tier football players don't lift weights? Practice during off-season?

Your thinking is WAY off-base!

The irony of your first sentence

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I grew up my father told me from a young age that school was my job. Yes my parents paid for care, gas, insurance and spending money. It was an older car and the spending money was not unlimited by any means. I had at least as much money as someone working 15 hours a week as pocket money.

I have a 17 year old and do the same thing with her. She get everything paid for and I give maybe $50 a week for incidentals.

She is a now a junior and will qualify for National Merit Scholar. She will be applying for some top schools that are very eager to get students with her great grades (perfect 4.0) and perfect SAT score (1600). I'm fairly confident that she would not have been able to do this if she was required to work a part-time job. During last summer she spent almost 20 hours a week during the summer (when not traveling) on studying for the PSAT/SAT. This was her job and she really hammered at it.

Every kid is different and I do not for a minute that everyone should do what I do. But the $5k that she might have earned is far less than the scholarships that she will earn for college.

Are you serious? Her job was to spend 20 hours a week all summer studying for one test to get into a college. That REALLY gets her ready for real life.

Larla, can you go photocopy these 10 pages? Um, but boss. I need a 2 hour tutorial on how to use the copier so I can make sure I do this right the first time. I am not allowed to live and learn, occasionally make mistakes, ask questions, learn from doing, etc... I need to studying this copier. I will get back to you in a few hours, okay?

So you study hard for PSAT/SAT and now you cant operate a copier. Your too dumb for words.

Oh honey, please proofread before calling other posters dumb. LOL.