Does Your Child Have a Summer Job Lined Up?

An interesting email came my way today, encouraging youthful summer job seekers to “look outside the box.” The story pitch noted that the most traditional jobs for teenagers are retail, recreation, and food service. Done, done, and done—between me and my children, at least, we covered those bases.

How nice for kids to use summers to experience a bevy of different kinds of jobs!

But it made me think of some of the more unusual jobs I held during those magical summers when I wasn’t yet employed full time year-round. How nice for kids to use summers to experience a bevy of different kinds of jobs, including the ones we usually think of as menial—to see how hard some people work and how well they’d fit! Or not. I had some of both kinds of jobs.

One of my first jobs as a young girl was doing ironing and babysitting for a family in town. Over the years I also cleaned houses, painted, picked up pecans (while living in Florida), pruned shrubbery, and drafted blueprints for mobile home manufacturing (at a plant my father helped run for about five years with three other men).

My worst job was working the night shift at a lumber mill in Florida. I was a “runner” for a huge plywood drying machine, and there were no coffee or lunch breaks. When I asked what I was supposed to do about that, my coworkers said, “You just have to get fast enough to grab bathroom breaks or eat your lunch.” After two nights, I decided there had to be a better job in town. There was: packing flannel shirts in bags at a sewing factory.

But by far my most interesting and “out of the box” job (at least for me) was that summer drawing those blueprints! I learned on the job by copying previous blueprints, and Daddy told me what he wanted to put where in the next design, and I drew it in. It was fun! But I knew better than to pursue that for a living. Lucky are the kids who are able to benefit by working in a family-owned or operated business or store part time.

I asked friends on Facebook about their most unusual or favorite summer jobs. Jane, who is now a retired RN, says she loved the summer she was a leader at a summer camp as a teen. She said she often thinks about those days. A friend volunteered with her and they had about eight little girls in their cabin. “It wasn’t unusual, just rewarding and fun.” Jane had stayed in the same sweet cabin herself when she was a young camper; years later her son attended during the boys’ session, so she loved that continuance of tradition!

JoAnn is my niece and a stay-at-home mother. She recalls the summer she was 15 and had her first real job with a paycheck. She was the full-time babysitter for a family from her church that had three children, ages 13 months to 6 years. They walked every day (baby in a stroller) to a playground at a nearby school for fun and a picnic, and visited a nearby aunt in our family. JoAnn recalls how she lost weight that summer with all that healthy walking, and how she spent her first paycheck—on an afghan for her mother, who had to have surgery. Her father was proud that she decided to spend her first check so wisely.

Ronda was a nanny one summer for a family with four children. “The parents gave me money and told me to do lots of things with their children. It was more like a vacation for me as well, and so fun. We went to the beach, to Disney World [they lived in Florida], and museums. We also did ordinary things like picnics and monopoly and puzzles. I had the best time that summer. I was 17 and I remember it fondly.”

A cousin’s husband, Wendell, said he worked one summer at a poultry plant (which we have a lot of in Virginia) but “I wouldn’t count it as creative or fun. But it was educational in many ways.” Bravo to Wendell, who went on to quite an interesting career as a journalist working some great beats, including Washington, D.C.

My second cousin Melissa enjoyed working at a golf course one year, but it wasn’t a glamorous “pro” job: she cleaned shoes, bathrooms, and “set out cold water for the ladies. I made double minimum wage, so I was quite happy,” she recalled. Sometimes that is all it takes to keep kids happy in a job: their own money to spend and, we hope, save.

Some great late “fun job” additions to my Facebook question on this topic were: server at a hotel on Mackinaw Island, Michigan; go carts handler; playground director; greeting cards sales door to door (remember those days?); cave tour guide; and counselor at a conference center where she and another counselor created their own “Indiana Jones Game.” All of that, save the selling greeting cards, sounds fascinating!

Some of my colleagues had a discussion recently on whether it is even good for teens to have summer jobs. Is it better to expose them to a variety of educational opportunities that may help them get into good colleges, even earn scholarships and, eventually, better jobs? What kind of experiences are best in preparing young people? Perhaps a variety—some years investing in educational opportunities, and others learning what it means to punch a time clock or sweat 10 hours in the sun. What do you think? I’d love to hear more!

Comment on the website www.thirdway.com/aw or the Facebook page for Another Way Newspaper Column; you can also email me at MelodieD@MennoMedia.org or write to me at Another Way, 1251 Virginia Ave., Harrisonburg, VA 22802.