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SE Nebraska, Near Misery and Cans Ass! | I've been delivering "Meals on Wheels" and had other reasons to be in the residential area of my small town the last several days.Lawn services were everywhere and over the weekend I saw several homeowners mowing their lawn but the Services were running Saturday and again Sunday afternoon. The only Kids I saw mowing lawns were farm kid on their own homes. Too busy with sports I guess. I think it's sad. |
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East Central SD | 14 year old son and his 11 year old brother thatched and bagged 36 lawns in town this spring. About half of them had middle/high school aged kids sitting in the house while their parents shelled out the cash for their lawn care. Lots of comments on how they wished their kids worked that hard......
Edited by Erik in SD 5/9/2023 13:27
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south west in | Local town of about 17000 people has about 30 crews in the lawn mowing business. Not kids with a mower but company trucks with a big trailer and 2 or 3 mowers on trailer. Kids won't do anything now days. |
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Sac & Story county IA | I watched a young man mow on one of the commercial stand up behind mowers. He was texting. That impressed me. |
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White Stone, Virginia | Believe it or not the American Pediatric Association recommends that children not mow the lawn until 16 years old! No wonder they are afraid to get their drivers licenses! I was mowing on A JD 110 at 7 years old! |
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| I wouldn't think the commercial guys would run on Sunday. I don't think I'd hire them if they did. |
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W. Kansas | Rawleigh - 5/9/2023 15:41
Believe it or not the American Pediatric Association recommends that children not mow the lawn until 16 years old! No wonder they are afraid to get their drivers licenses! I was mowing on A JD 110 at 7 years old!
They have OSHA to cover their back too. Can't have a kid under 16 on a mower, let alone run any other piece of powered equipment in a business setting. |
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North of London | Have ti=o work when conditions are right.
Around here it has been too wet to cut grass except on the weekend and especially Sunday.
Don't think I would hire an outfit that worked in wet conditions instead of on Sunday when it was dry. |
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NE Iowa | I’m not surprised. |
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Mid Michigan | Guy was mowing our company I work at's lawn practicing his drumming today. I got a laugh out of that. |
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SEMN | Speak for yourself
Sons passed out from working in shop on planter and a neighbors tractor. Daughter has a goat get sick a week ago. I was ready to bury the thing. She insisted on calling the vet and giving it a chance. She gave it a bath daily, fed it, watered it, brought from house to calf hut during day solo. I helped with the vet bill and shots. Both are dropped off at farm after school and have chores. Daughter cruised right by agronomists the other day as soon as she was off bus to do chores. Agronomists asked about her goats and if she was planning on kidding. Has some sold to her next year if she kids successfully. Many kids don’t have the opportunity that my kids do or we once had as a kid. We had opportunities to work some kids don’t. It’s hard to know what you don’t have. Give a kid a chance if you think they won’t work, let them grow, develop and learn from mistakes.
Edited by SilverSeeder 5/9/2023 17:16
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| Maybe it was equipped with GPS and Autosteer.... ;) |
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SE Iowa | These kids will go far.
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Cleveland, MS. Own small farm near Booneville, MS | I was mowing our lawn with a push mower when I was that age. In fact, I was at least a year younger than that when my older brother was paying me a whole dollar to mow his lawn with that same push mower. When I was 9 I was disking, cultivating, and sometimes even spraying. When we lived in western NY I had a little sideline snow plowing business. There was one guy who paid me to clear his driveway when he had two teenage sons laying up in the house. |
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south west in | That's great they may not remember all the details of stuff like that but they will take pride in doing for themselves. |
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| Pretty sure Cub Cadet offers auto steer on mowers now. |
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near dyersville iowa | local manufacturer found out 16 year olds cant run air tools. So they bought them all cordless tools. |
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near dyersville iowa | its getting harder and harder to find jobs where youre not expected to work on Sunday. Anything non white collar seems to run 7 days a week. |
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SEMN | johnwayne360 - 5/9/2023 18:55
local manufacturer found out 16 year olds cant run air tools. So they bought them all cordless tools.
Thats finding a solution to a problem! |
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SW KS | I think mine had her first accident by 6. LMAO. |
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Cambridge, southwestern Nebraska | Sadly, your right. Have a bridge under construction on the way to my nearby town. Mostly Hispanic workers. Last couple of Sundays they were out there working. Not the full crew but several. I think they deserve better but I suppose they want to make as much money as fast as possible. |
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chortitz, manitoba | Old man bought a new combine in 1986. I was 10. He wanted to run it all harvest (of course) So he asked me to "try" driving the C70. So I did under supervision for one morning. Then that was it, I was the grain hauler from then on. On the gravel roads as well. Mind you our farthest field at the time was 2 miles from headquarters. |
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| My 4-year old grandson, runs a scissor lift better than most adults, is learning to run a backhoe. |
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Northeast Misery | High school kid that lives here mows this yard plus a couple others, has some part time jobs and participates in sports.
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| The kids are just doing what they were raised to do, blame the "adults" |
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Columbia Basin, Ephrata, WA | Rawleigh - 5/9/2023 13:41
Believe it or not the American Pediatric Association recommends that children not mow the lawn until 16 years old! No wonder they are afraid to get their drivers licenses! I was mowing on A JD 110 at 7 years old!
The first time my boys mowed the grass it required both of them to be on the seat to keep the safety switch pressed.
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| If I was working a job site I would want to work 7 day s a week.
Those guys are away from home staying in a motel. Odds are good with several other guys.
So you either go to the bar or work.
I have been to a lot of job sites the boss thought they were working 5- 8 hour shifts but one best call ahead as they were working 3- 13 hour shifts. Crew is more efficient as there is less road time. Less set up and take down time. |
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Glasgow, Ky | Rather than being critical of the kids, why do the parents hire it done rather than doing it themselves? I find it hard to believe they don't have time to do it. Many probably don't even own a mower so how are the kids going to do it? Kids need some encouragement to learn how to do things but many parents don't provide it. |
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| Good point lots of kid problems start out as a result of poor or no parenting. |
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Sw mn | You just haven’t met the right kids.
My summer help for 3 years use to go mow lawns until dark after working 8-11 hours for me.
During the “pandemic” he started at 6 am. I had a cattle shed to build and that was the time he wanted to start so I got up early. Personally I would have chosen 7. |
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Ludington/Manistee MI area | barren - 5/10/2023 05:54
Rather than being critical of the kids, why do the parents hire it done rather than doing it themselves? I find it hard to believe they don't have time to do it. Many probably don't even own a mower so how are the kids going to do it? Kids need some encouragement to learn how to do things but many parents don't provide it.
Exactly the problem starts with the parents. The kids are a product of the environment. |
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| There are a couple of things that contribute to this change.
First, everyone wants to hire someone bonded and insured in the event they kick up a rock or a stick and break a window, siding, dent a car, etc. Little Jimmy and his buddy Bobby from the 8th grade won't even think about or know how to get a $1M umbrella policy or be able to get an insurance policy in their name. We live in an age where you have to be insured to the hilt because everything is always someone else's fault.
Second is social media and perceptions of danger and bad parenting. There will always be someone that will see a kid driving a lawnmower down the street and will post on the town crier social media page about how dangerous it is for Jimmy and Bobby to be driving a lawnmower down the street and wonder where the parents are and think that DCFS and police should come deal with the child endangerment situation and how awful the parents are because they aren't supervising kids all the time and what could happen if they got hit by a driver or something happened while they were operating such dangerous equipment without supervision. Nobody wants to be the subject of the torch and pitchfork social media mob that comes out when this stuff gets posted. Better to just get Jimmy and Bobby a gaming system and some guitars and let them play games and music and smoke weed in the basement where they're out of sight from the general public.
Third, overall salaries have not kept up so there are a lot of young adults in their 20's and 30's that ARE enterprising and doing some mowing landscaping gigs on the side because they know they can start a side business and write off their pickup, mower, trailer, side by side, camper, etc if they mow a few yards on the side and have some business income and expenses they can write off. It's illegal to cheat the tax man but it's not illegal to be a bad businessman. All these guys writing off their mowers and pickups are taking jobs that enterprising kids used to do.
Last point is mowers have gotten insanely expensive especially zero turn mowers. My older model Ferris cost more than my pickup. Kid can't just go out and buy a decent zero turn without spending all the money they'll make mowing grass for the summer.
It's not lazy kids. The deck is stacked against them and we keep perpetuating the myth it's lazy kids. |
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Southern IA | DLMKA - 5/10/2023 09:13
Nobody wants to be the subject of the torch and pitchfork social media mob that comes out when this stuff gets posted.
you have a lot of problems if you're wasting your time with the social media mob and even worse problems if you are adjusting your life because of it |
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Columbia Basin, Ephrata, WA | clicker - 5/10/2023 07:43
DLMKA - 5/10/2023 09:13
Nobody wants to be the subject of the torch and pitchfork social media mob that comes out when this stuff gets posted.
you have a lot of problems if you're wasting your time with the social media mob and even worse problems if you are adjusting your life because of it
Maybe you don’t like the message, but DLMKA is not wrong.
Ask Monsanto how it goes when you just ignore the mob and assume they and their BS will just go away.
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NW Missouri | You no Sunday guys don't know how privileged you are. I have absolutely zero problems working on Sunday, which works out good, because between my full-time job during the week and some sort of kid activity most Saturdays, a lot of weeks I as much done on Sunday as the rest of the week put together. Maybe if I was a full-time farmer I could play on Sundays, but that's not the world a lot of us live in.
Over the winter I was negotiating to rent a farm with a good stand of alfalfa on it. Then the guy said, oh and by the way, absolutely no working on Sundays. I said, thank you for your time. I didn't say this to him, but if you think I'm about to alfalfa get rained on because of the day of the week it happens to be, you've got another thing coming. |
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| I can tell you from experience that when DCFS and the sheriff shows up they don't really care that you've spent lots of your time with your kids showing them how to safely operate equipment or ride their bikes on shoulder of the road to town.
I live on the busy hard road into town and everyone sees my kids doing stuff and have had to deal with this many times over the years. Perception is everything. People see what they see for the 15 seconds when they drive by and not the other 23 hours, 59 minutes and 45 seconds and they have no ramifications for calling the sheriff.
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| We have farmed a couple farms that the landlords don’t want work done on Sunday. We didn’t farm on Sunday anyway so was good for us. Can’t say that’s the reason we got to farm it, but it sure didn’t hurt. Not saying one or the other is the only way, just what we have always done. Dad used to make hay and didn’t work on Sunday and always seemed to make it work out some how.
Edited by thefarmers 5/10/2023 11:35
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| Go into a divorce and fight for your kids once. They place ZERO emphasis on work and want the kids in sports 24-7. And you can shut up and take it or lose them. Vacation. 1-2 weeks in the summer. Better take them somewhere fun and report back with your good deeds.
I’d much rather have my boys on the farm but it sure is stacked against you today. I do have them mow regardless |
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Southern IA | fcsweep - 5/10/2023 13:55
Go into a divorce and fight for your kids once. They place ZERO emphasis on work and want the kids in sports 24-7. And you can shut up and take it or lose them. Vacation. 1-2 weeks in the summer. Better take them somewhere fun and report back with your good deeds.
I’d much rather have my boys on the farm but it sure is stacked against you today. I do have them mow regardless
Got to figure that out before you plant the seed. A good seed bed for planting won't always nurture the plant the way you want it to once it sprouts and grows, shop long and hard for good soil before you get to planting. |
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SEMN | clicker - 5/10/2023 16:47
fcsweep - 5/10/2023 13:55
Go into a divorce and fight for your kids once. They place ZERO emphasis on work and want the kids in sports 24-7. And you can shut up and take it or lose them. Vacation. 1-2 weeks in the summer. Better take them somewhere fun and report back with your good deeds.
I’d much rather have my boys on the farm but it sure is stacked against you today. I do have them mow regardless
Got to figure that out before you plant the seed. A good seed bed for planting won't always nurture the plant the way you want it to once it sprouts and grows, shop long and hard for good soil before you get to planting.
Clicker, life ain’t that easy. Things change beyond ones wishes or control. Count your blessings that you lived a perfect life with that reply. |
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Southeast Colorado | Would these be the "Little Bens"?? |
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Columbia Basin, Ephrata, WA | tmrand - 5/10/2023 19:39
Would these be the "Little Bens"??
Not so much anymore… the older one is about 6’5” and 250 now.
Edit: and still isn’t quite 16. Maybe he’ll finally be ready to mow the grass next month.
Edited by Big Ben 5/10/2023 23:57
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Southeast Colorado | I remember you saying you're pretty tall...........how tall is your wife?
I had a cousin (RIP) who married and had a couple of boys 40 years ago. Strange thing was, she was about 5'6" and her husband was just a little taller than her but not 6'. The older boy grew to about 6'4" and his little brother was 6'11" in his young twenties when he passed away from an odd sickness. I couldn't imagine where the tall gene came from. |
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Lawn mowing now days.
