A boy came by yesterday  

A couple days a go a little boy came to our door too wanting to shovel our front walk. That was the first time anything like that ever happened to me. I wouldn't know how much is an acceptable payment. I felt bad for him because it was so cold out but I don't trust this new neighborhood I'm in and so I'm skeptical of everyone, even little boys with shovels.

I haven't seen it lately but when I was young it was common. I being a girl would even go out and shovel snow for the elderly.

I remember paying my neighbor boy to help me with the leaves. I had so many (truckloads), it would always take forever. He would voluntary come over and just start helping. He was a good kid, so I would give him a couple of bucks for helping.

He always wanted to help, no matter what I was doing out in the yard, it seemed like he'd just show up. And would often volunteer his dad sometimes for bigger jobs, lol. I sure do miss that kid.

it has been more than two years since i hired that guy who passed by our place asking a certain fee to rid our area fronting the road of those unsightly grasses.

from where we are right now, this is unnecessary. we have rented an apartment where no grass grows as the front, side and backyard are all concrete pavements.

I had that happen to me a few weeks ago. I had explained that i would do it but appreciated the gesture non the less. It is not something that happens very often anymore like years past. I do think its a good idea for kids to try to make some extra money. i have 3 boys, ages 10, 8 and 6. My 8 year old loves to mow the grass and was mowing the neighbors for money. He took pride in knowing he was getting paid to do a service and looked forward to making $50 a month for a few hours of work. We need to get back to learning to earn for things we want instead of now a a days where kids think they deserve to get.

I haven't seen one since I live here. Not a lot of young boys would do it nowadays, I guess most of them have got it all easy with parents providing them allowances.

My hubby have been prodding my fifteen year old son to do some shovelling or cleaning up other people's yard as he used to do when he was my son's age. He reckons it's character building, teaching them to earn their keep which I think is a good thing to inculcate our youngsters. But my son nor his friends hasn't done it.

Hubby was able to get my son to do the neighborhood newspaper route twice a week. He earns extra 25 bucks for doing a couple of hours work. He has been doing it for a couple years and was able to buy himself PSP, IPod and laptop. I was also surprised that my boy gave expensive gifts. He got me one of those digital photo display for my birthday and Estee Lauder perfume and lotion for Xmas. I wasn't sure where he got those extra money from until he told me that he gets extra for tutoring and helping with other kids with their assignments at school. Pretty proud of him :D

this seems to be equivalent to child labour.it is good ,you didnot encourage him..we see many such children,doing menial jobs.they are children of not so well to do parents,who encourage their kids to work instead of educating them.

I think it is great that a kid would have the ambition to do this. More people need to get involved in their neighborhoods. Two years ago we had a couple of boys who were collecting for a cause and the were willing to do any kind of yard work to earn the money. It so happened that I needed to load a bunch of stuff in a truck to take to the dump. I had been trying for a couple of weeks to get my daughters to do it and finally these boys showed up and I paid them $20 to load the truck for me.

I don't think I have ever paid a young kid to shovel or mow for me. I have paid a few adults though. I am surprised that boys parents let him out going around to strangers houses like that.

I like to see Kids out there trying to make some money and help people out at the same time. Many of our elderly need that kind of offer. I don't, myself, hire kids to shovel the drive.. but that's partially due to an oddity of our street. Long and short, the snow plows make a turn in front of our house. In order for shoveling snow to make a difference, the kid would have to shovel my drive way and 12-15 feet into the street. I don't really care to explain this to the kids, so I do this myself.