Back In The Daze

My mind is totally numb when I think about my kids being home for the summer this year.

Both kids now have their working papers- my son is 17, my daughter is 14. Both tell me they want to work.

My son has yet to lift the phone or do any research or legwork to lay the foundation to land a job. He thinks he can just ask for one, and get it. Maybe it's an Aspergers thing, but I don't think so. He does manage to find the oddest jobs to do though, so maybe he will!

He wants to work at Chic-Fil-A. Why? Because they are Christian, and they have food. I don't think much will get thrown out if he works there- maybe our grocery bills will go down too- they did when my husband left home to marry me, and he left a family of eight!

My daughter wants to volunteer at a therapy horse ranch. She's working towards becoming an animal cop. She is laying the groundwork. I don't care if it's voluntary- she has a plan.

But what can I do to help them in the off days? I thought a lemonade/iced tea stand would be a great money maker that we can all do for the summer.

At least until I was told we can't. We need to be licensed first.

Wait....What?

Back in the days of the dinosaurs when I was an amoeba, kids could have a paper route, set up a lemonade stand, sell homemade cookies door to door, and offer our services to clean up trash, rake leaves and shovel snow (obviously this one isn't a summer thing, but you get the idea.) Kids could earn money as long as they were willing to work- and people supported them by buying from them and hiring them for yard work. Now the law says we need a permit?

So I looked into it. We don't need a license- we need two. And a tax ID number. The Tax ID and the commercial license are free, but the one we want- sidewalk vendor- is a whopping 300.00...

...a year.

This is lemonade, people- not Fillet Mignon. We'd have to hard sell all summer to break even!

Can we really blame the kids of today for not waning to work? Have that laws made it impossible for kids to start a business or do it to earn enough for a game or a new shirt? And if the food is made within the home (like cookies) you also need L&I to come do an inspection of your home and a FoodSafe certificate.

I don't know about your city, but these are the rules in ours. Part of me wants to just throw my hands in the air and forget the entire thing, but another part of me wants to fight the laws and allow kids to have a lemonade stand, for heaven's sake!

I liked the simpler times. You put up a stand, sold cups of something yummy, and even the police would stop by for a sip or two. Now we need working papers, licenses, tax numbers and inspections, squashing a you8ng entrepreneur before they step foot outside the door. What's this world come to that a kid that wants to work, can't?