As a teenager, I could not work summer jobs for minimum wage in order to learn a work ethic. For starters, the communist labor system did not allow for remunerated child employment of any sort, at any age. It was not that hard work was for tractors like American smart-alecky youth say nowadays. There were no teenage jobs to be had. But we learned plenty about work ethic when we helped our families survive and maintain a meager place to live.
When school children were required to work in the fall, right before harvest time, in early spring to plant crops or throughout the year to clean and beautify the city, it was “volunteer work.” Nobody in their right mind volunteered their children to toil in the fields 8-10 hour days with no water and food. We were obligated, forced, and driven by large buses from school to the corn, onion, and potato fields to pick the crops or to the nearby vineyards to pick grapes.
