The whole point of my post was to illustrate that bc something happened in the past doesn't make it something to aspire or even acquiesce to.

If you're just a lonely stranger on the internet trying to have a discussion about the way things were, then yes, I started working at 15, worked with most of my free time, to pay for things like food and gas money, and I lost pace to my classmates who had more study time. Their parents cared more and understood how capitalism works. My high school jobs as janitor and worker in a book shipping factory only prevented me from getting into better colleges. How about we try to do better for kids today than yesterday instead of trying to brag about how hard we had it to justify backsliding into the bad ideas that flourished during the industrial revolution? Also, exploiting child labor reduces pressure to increase wages for adult workers (really just even keep pace with inflation), which is a whole nother basket of things that are fucked up. Corporations can afford to pay workers more. The adults working jobs should be paid enough that families don't need multiple incomes just to get by.