Child labor laws are interesting to me because I was an illegal undocumented worker once, back when I was fifteen.  I’d work two or three hours at a time, after school.  Little did I know till I’d been doing this for some time that a minor has to go to his school and fill out forms and ask for permission from the school to work.  That’s right–a school bureaucrat named Mrs. Yingling was, according to the government, better qualified than my parents to know whether this job would be in my best interests, even though I had never met her before.  Of course, no insult is intended to Mrs. Yingling, who was helpful and understanding of my legal predicament and helped me get my papers in order.  My two younger brothers have also had similar problems finding perfectly reasonable work, because the legal situation is so biased against the 15-17 year old.

I was talking to a local police officer about this several months later, and he replied, “You have to get permission after school to work?  That’s ridiculous.  More kids should be getting themselves jobs, not less.”

I agree.