"I found this balance between being mature and childish": Age and early work


Lindsay C. Sheppard, York University; Melody Minhorst, Brock University; Rebecca Raby, Brock University

Research on children's and teenagers' early work tends to focus on safety concerns (Breslin et al. 2008; Zierold 2017), effects on education (Post and Pong 2009), parental involvement and family dynamics (Kao and Salerno 2014; Runyan et al. 2010), and skill-building opportunities (Hobbs et al. 2007). There is a small body of qualitative research that explores children and young teens' earliest experiences and thoughts about work in Canada (e.g., Yan, Lauer and Jhang 2008). We add to this literature, with a focus on children and teenagers' subjective thoughts about, and experiences with, work. We draw on a SSHRC-funded project that explores children and teenagers' experiences with paid work outside of the home, including jobs like babysitting, as well as serving fast-food. Our project includes interviews with children and teenagers in Ontario and British Columbia aged 11-16, as well as focus groups and surveys with teenagers in grade nine in Ontario. While all interview participants had work experience, some survey and focus group participants did not. In this paper, we ask: How do young teens think about and experience age in early work? Theoretically and methodologically, we are informed by a relational approach to child studies that centres young people's perspectives and experiences, recognizes the relevance of inequality, and attends to the relational complexities of their discursive and material participation (Raithelhuber 2016: Wyness 2013). We discuss three emergent themes. First, we discuss participants' variable and sometimes contradictory thinking about children and teenagers working, including their distinctions between "mature" work-ready teenagers and other teenagers who are not, as well as dangerous and appropriate "teen jobs", as distinct from "real" jobs. Second, we report on the saliency of age in participants' early work experiences. Here, our discussion emphasizes age in relations with employers, coworkers, and customers to participants' assumed competencies (from employers and themselves), alongside ageism and the relevance of other forms of social inequality, such as social class. Finally, we illustrate the related dynamics and performativity of age by engaging with moments where participants troubled a static understanding of age. For example, some teenagers reflected on how they play down or play up their age in particular work contexts, how they move between and remix the boundaries of "child"/ "child-ish" and "adult"/ "mature" at work, and how they flip the script on age relations, for example, when they train older employees. Across these themes we illustrate the complexity of age when discussed in relation to work, highlight how early work is a unique context for age-related experiences, and demonstrate how age-based and other inequalities can unfold and be challenged in work.

This paper will be presented at the following session: