By Eliza Daley, originally published by By my solitary hearth

September 8, 2023 READ

I have no doubt that kids complained about the work in these cultures, because kids will complain. I’ve also no doubt that there was and is abuse, but this happens more where the goal is profit rather than sustenance. But in all traditional societies, kids work in the summer — and through this labor, they enter adulthood with all the skills necessary to build a life. All the young adults I’ve known who grew up around farming are competent in the kitchen, in the shop, and in the fields. They can feed themselves, make their clothes, keep a house warm. Most can balance the books, rewire an electric fence, and fix the plumbing. Nearly everyone can build a sturdy, if simple, structure. And contrary to what is written in books (mostly by urban men with no direct experience), the task list is not and never has been particularly gendered. Households don’t have the luxury of keeping all the girls in the feminine home and sending all the boys out to the masculine world. Most families only have one or two children and can’t be bothered with silly ideas of ascribed roles. Everybody has to help with everything, whatever needs doing. Girls are just as capable of fixing the tractor engine and slaughtering the pigs as their brothers. Boys are just as adept at canning tomatoes and nursing their little sisters back to health. There are some tasks that tend toward segregation. Girls may be less inclined to take up hunting, and boys don’t seem to be much involved in fiber arts. But for the most part, what needs doing is done by whoever is present — because you can’t flail around trying to find help of the proper gender when you need the corn harvested now.