Is 6 too young for a part-time job?

If it was me, I’d look at those words and go ‘”What? Are you kidding? Of course 6 is too young for an after school job, what kind of crazy mother would send her kid to work at 6?”

But what if the kid wants to work? What if the young employee got a huge sense of accomplishment from completing tasks? What if the job comes with a whole lot of learning about the currency of money, savings and the benefits of working to achieve goals? And what if the kid’s boss was her Mum, and she could work from home only when she felt like it?

Look After Me is currently a kitchen table enterprise. That literally means, that Founder Julia Charity (me) works from home, mostly on the kitchen table, joined from time to time by staff. I do have an office (the spare room), but in the winter months it’s cold. So mostly I set up my laptop on the table and keep the fire roaring in the lounge, so the kitchen and dining is always warm, the kettle is often boiled and the dishes surprisingly often ignored. It wouldn’t suit most, but it suits me. I keep reasonably tidy and for meal times, I just snap my laptop closed and move it to the side.

My daughter Alice is 6 and being a single Mum we spend a lot of time together at home. After school, she can play in the lounge, and I’m usually working at the kitchen table – we just go into our own worlds, each happy enough in each other’s company – her playing, me working.

A couple of months ago on a weekend afternoon, I was at the kitchen table packing up the Hosting Kits, which are the toiletries, chocolates and host business cards we send our new hosts. Alice desperately wanted to help. For her the beautiful green tissue was alluring, the smell of the toiletries appealing and the crinkle of the chocolates tantalising.  For nearly an hour, she persisted that she could help her.

In the end, I agreed that it made sense (at least to me) to give her a chance. So I taught her how to cut and fold the green tissue and tuck it into the little baskets. Next I showed her the  order in which to add the toiletries so they look attractive. Finally she needed to crumple white tissue into the boxes, and add the hosting kits and stationery items, and in double quick time, she had completed 20 hosting kits. She was attentive, willing, efficient and accurate. And very, very pleased with herself, and actually I was pretty happy too.  For an afternoon’s work, she earned $5 so she was over the moon proud of herself and imagined all the amazing things she could by with ‘all that money!’

So this became a regular thing and after a while I sought out other jobs she could manage, like stapling questionnaires, cutting up sign up sheets, simple filing etc.

Is 6 too young for a part-time job? Aparently not. Especially when you get to wear your favourite Zebra costume to work!