Kids Shoveling Snow, Mowing Lawns

[Pryderi]

Does anyone remember going around the neighborhood shoveling snow on snow days and mowing lawns in the summer in order to make money?

Today I never see any entrepreneurial kids going door to door.

Is it because we're such a transient society that people don't get to know their neighbors? Are kids lazier today?

Whatever the answer is, I think it's a real shame.

[Warpy]

1. Adults bang on my door and ask to rake leaves, shovel snow

and since my back is trashed, I'm happy to hire them.

I even feed them.

Kids only bang on my door to sell me something to raise money for their school. I usually don't want any of the crap, but I'll give 'em a buck for making the effort.

People in the "better" suburbs take pride in not knowing their neighbors, like the silly people who insist on acres of granite and stainless steel pride themselves on never cooking.

Something tells me that's all about to change.

[AnneD]

34. Raking leaves .....

We have no snow in Houston......was all that saved me in the 80's. I also gave plasma ever chance I could.

[Regret My New Name]

47. My brother and I used to shovel snow...

I was in my early 20's and he was in mid 20's... Never saw any of the kids doing it.

We usually wound up doing a lot of the driveways for free since we're just so damn nice (for the older folks)..

[TheWraith]

2. People have been terrified into never letting their kids be in public alone. nt

[Pryderi]

5. hmmm...true. I think part of it is the media that hypes every child molestation case. Makes e

everyone paranoid thinking there's a child molester lurking behind every tree.

[TheWraith]

10. Statistically speaking, nearly all child abductions are committed by parents or family.

Usually as part of custody disputes over the child.

Likewise, only about 2% of child molestations are committed by a stranger. Most are by family, next most by trusted authority figures.

[Winterblues]

37. I know that is how my wife feels

She doesn't think a child should ever be outside the house by themselves or the absolute worst will happen to them. We can thank sensationalistic TV for that attitude.

[GentryDixon]

46. That's it.

I took my 8 year old Grandson to a Utah Jazz game and because he drank such a large drink he had to visit the toilet three times. Each time I escorted him and stood right outside the entrance. I got very strange looks, but I was not about to let him go it alone.

[notadmblnd]

3. We used to do it. Many times just getting a cup of hot cocoa for our efforts

Now days people just hire cheap labor lawn services.

[onyourleft]

14. We hire them, but they are not inexpensive, and the quality...

...of the work leaves something to be desired.

[notadmblnd]

20. I didn't say the lawn services were cheap. I said the labor was.

[tilsammans]

4. For the first time in YEARS . . .

. . . kids have come around twice offering to shovel snow this winter. Years, I tell ya.

It's a good thing.

[EFerrari]

6. People don't seem to know their neighbors any more.

One of my friends used to go door to door with his toolbox when he was about 12 and he'd get little repair jobs from our neighbors. Two others did most of the lawns. I was the senior babysitter and had all the work I wanted from the age of 11.

[MadHound]

7. Those jobs have been snapped up by the adults

Notice all those lawnmowing services in the summer? The pickup trucks towing a trailer with a couple of Grasshoppers and other lawn mowing gear? That's where the kids' jobs are going. These service many times do leaf raking and snow removal too.

Kids started making too much money at these jobs, so adults felt that they had to take them over. I used to mow lawns when I was a kid in the summer, and I made more in four-five months of part time mowing than most kids made doing a burger flipping job year round.

[Harry Monroe]

24. I have noticed a lot of lawnmower services in my neighborhood.

Many of my neighbors hardly ever cut their own grass. Most of these services are simply "mow, blow and go". No edging, no picking up of clippings and certainly no weed maintenance or pulling

[hfojvt]

28. I never made squat mowing lawns

and never did that much snow shovelling. Because snow melts so fast down here nobody shovels. That wasn't true when I was growing up, but I think that by the time I moved a foot of snow off of our own driveway and sidewalks, that I didn't have much motivation to look for more work. I had a paper route too, so there was five miles of walking 6 days a week.

[NeedleCast]

8. Guess it just depends on your area/region

I do live in a fairly "old" neighborhood in terms of age demographics but we still get a few snow shoveling and yard mowing requests.

When I was a kid (18 years ago), our neighborhood was the opposite. Very new and very young. I'd bet the average age different between then and now is 10 to 15 years. In that suburb of Austin, TX there was a LOT of competition among teen yard mowers, especially before most of us could drive. There were some weekends when my two "business partners" and I would mow 10+ yards per weekend.

[Missy Vixen]

9. We had one of our neighbor's sons mowing our lawn

He is now in sports and much too busy to fit us in.

If we had disposable income right now, we'd love to hire a local high school student to mow our lawn again!

[booksenkatz]

11. Here in Michigan...

the out-of-work engineers are getting the snow shoveling jobs before the kids can get them.

[spoony]

38. Right you are.

I've never had so many people come round asking if they can shovel, and almost all of them with the same story about lay-offs. It's grim.

[cobalt1999]

12. Sometimes you just have to ask them.

Of course, that means you need to know your neighbors.

Here, I just go over to one of the homes in the neighborhood that has kids and ask them if they want to:
wax the boat, rake pine needles, mow the yard, etc.

While they don't feel comfortable initiating the job, they jump at the chance to do it and do a great job.

Before condemning them, ask them.

[Zywiec]

13. Kids also used to work in fast food restaurants

I spent a couple of years washing dishes at a country club.

Look around, the jobs for kids are being taken by adults.

[TlalocW]

19. Your post reminds me of an actual complaint from Ann Coulter

During Clinton, when the economy was super-charged, and nuclear physicists didn't have to work at McDonalds, she complained that her McDonalds order kept getting screwed up because all they could get to work there were kids.

TlalocW

[RandySF]

22. Ann Coulter eats food? n/t

[Harry Monroe]

27. No, she'd eat the kids who worked at McDonalds!!

[Regret My New Name]

48. WIN!

[Marrah_G]

59. Its hard for teens to get jobs around here

McDonalds is all adults.

[TlalocW]

15. I had some neighborhood kids knock on my door

And ask to mow my yard. Alas for them, I told them no.

Dad made my brother and me mow lawns during the summer when we were in middle school. Then before high school (1988is), he asked me, "What would you think if I bought you and your brother a little motorcycle?" Being a nerd into computers, I told him if he wanted to that would okay, but I wasn't desperately wanting one. He went ahead and bought two mo-peds for us, and the next year, my brother and I had jobs delivering newspapers in our small town at 3 in the morning every day. :) Never underestimate dad.

TlalocW

[TahitiNut]

16. Painting garages, running errands, walking dogs, washing cars, tilling gardens, ....

... and lots of other odd jobs. EVERY kid in my blue collar neighborhood did such work when I was growing up in the 40s and 50s. I see almost NONE of this anymore. Adults deliver newspapers. Adults clear snow. Adults mow lawns.

Kids? Beats me. Other than Girl Scout cookies (peddled by their parents, mostly) and the occasional flyers asking for sacks of 10-cent-deposit bottles and cans (i.e. donations), I don't see kids doing any of those jobs.

[murielm99]

My kids used to do that for our elderly neighbor.

She was a retired teacher. She spoiled them and paid them far too much.

Since they didn't have a grandma close by, it was great to see the relationship blossom. When she died, it was like losing a family member.

[RandySF]

17. I shoveled AND mowed

I was a kid in the first ring of suburbs that immedaitely surrounded Detroit. It was ethnic, blue-collar. All the kids and neighbors knew each other on my street. When I got older, that all went away and the new neighbors were strangers, especially in my apartment complex. Then we moved to Downtown San Francisco and it was like when I was a kid all over again. Our neighbors are Bengali, Filipino, Chinese, you name it. All the neighbors in my building know each other and we all keep an eye on the kids. Evil San Francisco values, you know.

[bunnies]

18. I would not want my kids out banging on strangers doors.

Too many psychos... ya never know.

[MineralMan]

26. Your neighbors are psychos?

Have you met them? Are they really, really strange?

[bunnies]

29. Hell...

I get scared walking around my neighborhood. I should take some photos of the people & post 'em for a laugh. You'd think there was a psychiatric hospital near my house.

The guy on one side of me walks around naked and stands in the window with his penis out...
And a guy two houses down last week offered to shovel my stairs for booze.

Need I go on? :shrug: :rofl:

[MineralMan]

33. I see...well, your caution appears to be justified...

Maybe you should shoot some video of the willie-waving neighbor. I hear you can get good money for such things...

Keep your kid indoors, for sure. Sheesh!

[Harry Monroe]

21. I never shoveled snow because I grew up in New Orleans

But I did mow a lot of lawns. I had about 6 jobs and mowed once a week during the summer. Made a lot of cold hard cash. At that time I would charge about $15 for a lawn for mowing, edging and sweeping and raking up the clippings. That was a lot of money for a kid back in the '70's. Best of all it was tax free because I was paid in cash. I made more money doing lawns then I ever did as a teenager working at Wendy's flipping burgers.

I never see kids doing that nowdays. It's like pulling teeth trying to get my own teenage son to mow my lawn even though we have a riding lawnmower. I cut all my lawns with a push mower when I was his age. I still enjoy cutting lawns for the exercise and fresh air.

[oldnslo]

23. Kids are lazy bastards here in the northwest.....

During a recent stowstorm period, not one damned kid came along to shovel snow, and most of us would have been willing to pay well for the service. But they sledded, and when it finally melted, they're out skate-boarding again. Lazy and worthless, those are the values their parents are teaching them.

[acmavm]

32. Same here in the Midwest. My kid was FORCED to get his ass out there.

I wasn't gonna do it. And he had help no less.

The neighbor kid behind me NEVER ever ended up out shoveling his walks & drive. His Dad did it until the divorce and then the crazy mom has been doing it ever since. (He's in college now so this has been going on a while.)

[MineralMan]

25. Heck...parents can't even get their own kids to do chores...

Kid across the street from me is 14 or so. Dad tells him to shovel the sidewalks and he goes out there and makes a half-hearted swipe or two and then appears so tired that he cannot continue without losing his very life.

Next thing I see is his dad out there doing the job.

Later that day, he and the other kids are out in the yard with show shovels building snow forts for three hours so they can throw snowballs at each other.

There is something wrong with this picture. Something badly wrong.

[Fleshdancer]

40. That's an issue of poor parenting

No kid wakes up excited to do chores. The father you described should NOT be doing his kid's chores. That's lazy parenting.

[Mari333]

30. kids and adults do that here all the time

i am inundated by people begging to shovel my drive and mow my lawn. at least one per day all yr.

[SoCalDem]

31. Smaller kids are not allowed to knock on random doors

older kids are babysitting their siblings or have Mcjobs?

and many streets are "uninhabited" all day long until the commuters get home after dark?

[ThomWV]

35. I would have never had a dime when I was a kid if it wasn't for snow and grass

And no, I don't mean coke and weed.

[FirstLight]

36. Great Thread!

Let's look at the community demographics and how they have changed in the last 10, 20, 30 years? Both parents work now, kids are either at afterschool programs (daycare) or babysitting the younger siblings till the parents get home...then there is piano lessons, gymnastics, soccer, baseball, young american entrepreneurs, young debutantes, etc... that's the first problem.
Also, the layout of suburbia and urban america has changed as well. Crime rates surely have a hand in the mix as well, regardless of statistics about child molestation beinmg by a familyn member or close whatever... i is still scary as hell to send you kid outside just to ride their bike. I even worry about the fenced backyard and them talking over the fence to "strangers"

I grew up in the Oakland foothils in the 1970-1980s We knew the old lady on the corner who had a "kids drawer" in her kitchen and when my mom would go over for cofee in the afternoons I'd There were about 6 kids in the neighborhood, which wound around the hillside, but it was "our" street...from the science teacher who peeled grapes on halloween to try and scare us, to the sweet older lady who we'd se always walking to and from the bud stop on Mountain Blvd so she could go downtown and see the opera, etc sometimes we'd give her a lift to her driveway so she wouldn't have to walk.
I collected newspapers with the girl down the street for 6 months, filled our whole downstairs basement room with papers, then filled up the station wagon one saturday and ook them down - for like a whole $10 fo us to split! too much work!
I did some house chores for the lady who ran a catering business out of her home, washed the disheds as she left for the event...flooded the kitchen when mopping...never got called back to work again.oops!
I took care of the dog and chickens and rabbnits at the old hawaiian man's farm He taught me how to take care of the tropial plants and cayfish too... he was like my favorite grandpa. My dad and mom would spend time with their family. I knew their grandkids and we even spent some thanksgivings together that was cool...

These realtionships are lacking today in many places. it is the need for longevity that I think is the biggest setback. You can't get to know people unless you are there for a while.
and you have to step out
I've shared cookies and such with the young couple across the street, they baked me a pie with the apples off their tree. I have given gift baskets to the guy who snowblew me out of 3+ feet - when me and my teen were both shoveling our hearts out! Thank god he saved us!

I hope we are coming to a place where we can cultivate more of these relationships. I'm in a rural area, so we depend on eachother a bit more.

[Fleshdancer]

39. Kids seem to be doing more extracurriculars these days

I don't think kids are more lazy, I think their lives are more scheduled.

[surrealAmerican]

62. That's a big part of it.

The parents aren't home, so they put the kids in supervised activities after school. By the time they get home, they have just enough time to eat dinner, do their homework, and go to bed.

[Blue_Tires]

41. most of the people who stop by and offer are

self-employed adults with their own operation...a lot of the teens in my area (which has a heavy tourist season) dropped out of the fast food/service industries -- local businesses even (controversially) started a program several years ago where they bring over kids from eastern europe (czech rep., poland, etc) to work in the hotels and restaurants as waiters, busboys, maids, cashiers, etc...There was some public criticism at first, but the business owners say none of the local teens were applying for the jobs anymore (classic chicken or egg argument). The post-soviet bloc kids have been coming in increasing numbers every summer...the fact that they work 10 hours a day scrubbing toilets for 6.75 and hour means it isn't going to stop anytime soon...

[OhioChick]

42. Adults have been going door to door with shovels here. n/t

[seabeyond]

43. i have to train mine work ethic before i am going to send him out in the neighborhood

working for pay. at 12 last year, he did his first summer mowing the yard. we have a good acre between all the yards. takes a good couple hours. when he started, he of course didnt do a great job. by fall he had a much better idea on what a good job was. i dont know that he will be ready to offer services this year, but for sure by the next.

same would go for shoveling snow, but last two winters we havent had any to shovel.

[Kashka-Kat]

44. I once had some kids come around - asking ten dollars an hour!

Which was close to what I was making at the time. I said fergit it! and sent the little darlings along on their merry way.

[rvablue]

45. Add to that paper routes and car washing... I think it's because of what others have said

Parents are too afraid to let kids out.

It's too bad. I had a lot of fun, freedom and some extra cash doing all of these things as a kid.

[AnnieBW]

49. I can't complain

I don't have kids, but whenever it snows, I get a group of three boys who are in their early teens ringing my doorbell bright and early, asking to shovel our driveway. Of course, I give 'em a $20 to split between them. They've got us marked.

But we do have a lawn service, because my husband is allergic to grass and I'm allergic to pushing a lawn mower.

[uppityperson]

50. Many people don't know/fear neighbors. My relative's kid, and mine, did chores

like that for pay. I think it is because we are such a fearful society that we don't do this much any more.

[slampoet]

51. The last time i heard of parents encouraging kids to do that They were drawn up on child abuse

charges by busy body neighbors.

[Lex]

52. sure

[cynatnite]

53. I guess we shouldn't pay that small businessman to mow our lawn...

:eyes:

Geez, these 'oh, remember the day' threads are depressing.

[Blue Diadem]

54. All 3 of my kids did that in the 80's and 90's.

My youngest eventually had regular customers who told him when it snows just come shovel the snow. They turned into his customers for raking leaves and grass cutting too.

There's only been one time I had kids come to our door in recent years asking to shovel a few inches of snow. Two kids wanted to shovel our sidewalk up to the house for $25. We'd already done the sidewalk parallel to the road. I said no. It only takes me about 15 minutes to do the same sidewalk and even less time if I use the snowblower. I might have given them $10 but $25 was ridiculous. These kids were old enough to know what they were doing too. They wanted $50 from an elderly neighbor to do her parking space and small sidewalk. She told them no too.

[laundry_queen]

55. I don't think kids are lazier today.

My dd and her friends are 11-12 and are all getting their first jobs - delivering papers, working at the local toy store, babysitting. Most of those friends also have many extracurricular activities. We are fairly lucky in that their teachers are very relaxed and don't pile the homework on. I have online friends whose children seriously have 3-4 hours of homework every night. Add that to even 1 or 2 after school activities, plus chores, and it is extremely difficult to find time for anything else.

I'm in a small town in Canada so I don't know if that makes any difference. We do know our neighbors and even so, I hate letting my dd out to deliver papers by herself, because I AM scared (thanks media). Still, I won't deny her desire to do so. I can see other parents doing just that, though.

[misanthrope]

56. Technology keeps them distracted...

...just like their parents.

[cboy4]

57. What's shoveling snow?`

lol

[Marrah_G]

58. My kids do.

Although the entire nieghborhood now seems to have snowblowers so they are lucky to get one house.

5 years ago they could make 50 bucks a storm.

[Tracer]

60. Last September, two 10-year-old boys came to my door, asking to rake leaves.

I took one look at the trees, which at that time had dropped about 17 leaves, and asked them to come back in October and that I'd be happy to have them rake then.

Never saw them again.

[DainBramaged]

61. I was JUST talking about this to a friend on Saturday

He fell and herniated a disc shoveling his driveway (he's 64). When I was a kid, I made tons of money shoveling and mowing until I got a real job at 16, and I also did clean up and odd jobs too. Even in the 60's, we got $20 for doing a sidewalk and driveway, $10-$20 for mowing a lawn. I think it's the kids (and the parents too for not instilling the desire to work), not the society.

[Bill McBlueState]

63. Kids might still be doing those things

Personal experience is a poor way to measure broad trends.