I was a model from age 3 to 5, catalogues mostly. It's been pretty much downhill career wise since then.

Photo evidence

My mum kept some of the catalogues for years and then when we moved house when I was 18 they got lost. We think my dad threw them out thinking they were just some old magazines.

Thats great for you, but I think you'll find the majority of society disagrees with you.

I guess it would only be fair that as contributing members of the household your children would have a certain say in the household and shouldn't be treated as subordinates, "just kids who need to give respect to their parents/elders"?? Surely you wouldn't be able to use the "Well i'm the parent and what I say goes" excuse on your teenagers, they will come back with "Well I pay into the household budget, I should be entitled to make xxx decision"

What do you say to that?

My view is...it was our choice to have kids...therefore we should be prepared to feed, clothe and put a roof over their heads until they are of working age. We fully funded our daughter's uni years...after all we brought her to the US...had we stayed in the UK her education would have cost far less. That was our fault...not hers.

+1... I don't understand the stigma against parents who want to support their children through post secondary if they are able and willing.

I also don't understand why you would require your kids to contribute to the household budget living at home during uni/college when its already hard enough for someone to put themselves through postsecondary.

TBH I didn't want her to work during the summer holidays...I wanted her to enjoy the summer travelling etc. Whilst she was in her first year at uni she was involved in a lot of charity work through Alpha Phi with The Heart and Stroke. They offered her non paying work during the holidays. She loved it and it paid off as several companies were impressed with her work ethic and she was offered jobs before graduating.

It's a British class based stigma.

Gozit @ post #80

never thought of it that way

In our case we left the UK in the 60's - we were married living in Canada for 10 years before our first child was born, second one came 8 years after that

Raising them the way that we did I'll put down to Canadian ingenuity or just an old fashioned immigrant sense of survival

The discussion we had with my daughter was whilst in full time education there is no rent, if not in full time education then your expected to work full time and pay rent. She works full time, she pays her personal bills (car/phone/insurance etc) she pays rent (it's small), she is looking for a part time job to supplement her savings plan as she wants to travel before college. I will sometimes bung her a $20

We are willing to put our kids through University, after that I think our financial responsibility ends. Having said that both boys have had jobs through high school and have used their own money to buy things that they want like iPads, iPods, laptops etc., The older one is on a co-op program an works for a considerable amount of the time. This year he paid his own tuition, and he buys all his food and books etc. We pay his rent and for his car. He is planning on paying us back when he graduates. If they want to live at home after they graduate then I would love to have them, but they will be contributing to the budget.

San Diego Zoo in merchandising, at 16, stayed until I was 18 when I decided it would be fun to work for an airline so I went and found an airline job, and I was right it was fun to work at an airline......Only 2 jobs I have ever truly liked and enjoyed were those first 2, which in total was about 7 years combined.


The high school had a lot of say over if you could work or not since they were the ones who issued your work permit, without that you could not legally work if under 18, but as long as you were completely failing, the school would issue one. The law also limited how many hours a under 18 worker could work, it was something like 15 hours a week in the school year, 4 hour max shift on school nights, I think in summer and weekends 8 hour shift was okay though, and I think in summer 40 hours a week was okay as well, so long ago now, cannot remember all the rules involved.