Were you also "voluntold" to help other random adults?

Posted by CruiseLifeNE@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 46 comments

I'm wondering how common this was. I guess it kind of goes along with the 11 year old who was babysitting several infants, making bottles, doing all the dishes, and vacuuming for $2 an hour.

When I was a young teenager (ie too young for a mall job), my mother "voluntold" my services all over the neighborhood to any woman who needed a hand. Random things, like going to their backyard bbqs and topping up ice and drinks, or watching a whole group of small children during an adult's birthday party, even going into a teacher's classroom to help them take down bulletin boards. All for a few bucks. Did I want to do this? No. Did I have a choice? No.

Lately though I've been thinking about how nice it would be to have some young kids in the neighborhood willing to come over and help with party set up, or decluttering projects. My hunch is that young kids have no interest in doing that sort of thing anymore at all.

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ancientastronaut2@reddit

Not in the neighborhood, but definitely at church as a young teen. At potlucks, they'd have me working in the kitchen doing dishes and making coffee and stuff while everyone else was socializing. Our youth group also had to go to retirement homes and read to the old people. I did not have a choice in these matters.

j2142b00@reddit

Was voluntold for many things, church events, mowing yards, help people move, work construction. Never paid for any of it, I was a kid, we were poor, it was what it was.

EmbarrassedAge7612@reddit

I mowed lawns and scooped walks for extra money. I always hated when my parents volunteered my services for people outside my regulars. It was normally a friend of theirs and always expected to be done for free. They had one that invited me back because he thought he had found a free mowing service. Their yard was twice as big as the largest one I was getting paid to mow.

Kestrel_Iolani@reddit

When i was 12, we called those "twelve year old jobs." I could barely wait to be 13, so i could stop doing 12yo jobs. What do you know? I turned 13 and they miraculously because 13yo jobs... plus a few new ones.

BmanGorilla@reddit

And now look at what you're doing! The jobs just keep getting more and more involved.

ONROSREPUS@reddit

Nope did it all on my own to make money. My parents couldn't afford the stuff I wanted to I hustled the neighbors and other people.

I think it would be hard to get to get most kids heads out of there phones long enough for them to be helpful. I am not saying all but in my area the majority.

patroklus68@reddit

Lived on a golf course and got ‘voluntold’ to caddy a fair few times. Cheap bastards didn’t give me much in return but I learned some new swear words

PlantWide3166@reddit

“How was the course today?”

“Great! Would you please pass the fucking potatoes?”

SunflowerIslandQueen@reddit

Yes - it was never ending. I was the oldest daughter, so that meant I was voluntold to do things constantly!

Wldchld73@reddit

"Voluntold" , never heard this one, love it. I cared for my mother and even when I was in my 40s I was "voluntold", like driving an elderly neighbor to her Dr appointments.

AccomplishedCash3603@reddit

I see people asking for this stuff on social media (any teens want to cut my grass, etc etc.). There are never teens. It's always some guy who just got laid off or 'enjoys mowing'.

GenXist@reddit

My first job was a weekend thing when I was 12, at a skeet and trap shooting club. I earned $3.35/hour (cash under the table). I was both scrawny enough to fit in the trap pit and wirey enough to spend the first couple of hours of each shift hustling 35 pounds boxes of clay targets into my pit's inventory for the day.

I got my first tax paying job at 14 (service station attendant; $3.50 per hour, 27 hours per week, weekends and after school); I went full time the next year; and the rest is history.

What's it like to drive a nice car, while rocking Jordan's, and blasting And Justice for All out of a high end sound system? I have no idea... My dad and I were basically roommates. We split rent and utilities. He covered food, but clothes, school supplies, haircuts, athletic/school fees, car insurance, fuel, all that was on me.

Having your childhood sold (in a buyer's market) because a parent voluntold you to grow up, be a man, and contribute to the household was pretty common for guys my age. In fact, the only good things my daddy ever gave me were a carbon steel work ethic and baby blue eyes that have helped attract women disproportionately out of my league. As far as fair trades go, I've seen a lot worse...

SkibidiBlender@reddit

Bucking hay, mowing lawns, painting barns, chopping wood, fixing tractors, cars, trucks, hauling trash, clearing blackberries & brush, construction, roofing, wiring, windows, cement, garage doors, plumbing, appliance repair, fixing boats, you fucking name it, and I got farmed out to help. They had a fucking plan all along. Now that they’re too old to do any of it themselves, they still sit there and critique the work. Funny thing is I now never have to pay for any of that shit.

Accurate-Survey6985@reddit

Yes.

And that was also a weak chink in our armor.

We were expected to randomly help and respect other adults, when many of them certainly didn't have our best interests in mind.

Many Voluntolds to be sure.

AnnaF721@reddit

I’m 54 and my mother still pimps me out sometimes. It never ends. We immigrated to this country and I was the first to learn the language. I think I only got paid once “for my services”.

rogun64@reddit

Same here. My mother still does it too. If she has a friend who needs something done, then she'll volunteer my services and gets angry if I don't have the time.

Ar-Oh-En@reddit

Often. I've gone on family reunion trips, and I've been told to wash their dishes. I didn't take time off from work just to stand over someone else's sink at 29!

Apparently, I did.

GalianoGirl@reddit

I was and my own children were.

They were not forced to help, just strongly encouraged.

Soon they saw the benefit in volunteering and continue to do so as adults.

My daughter got her first job, hired in the spot because she had over 150 volunteer hours at 15.

rahah2023@reddit

That voluntold was passed on… “get your grandpa an ice cream treat from the freezer”… “get your grandma a coffee refill”… my folks did it to me and I passed it on to my kids

PrettyWorn_@reddit

That is actually so nice of your mom haha 💕

Cozy_Minty@reddit

Once a month my dad took us to his office to stuff envelopes. These were the bills for his customers. We would be there all day, 8-10 hours, stuffing envelopes, and we had to lick every single one. He didn't have his own business, either, he was a manager at a national insurance company

CowboyNeale@reddit

Something fucked up happened to the silent generation and nobody knows what it was.

snakeayez@reddit

I was in the military, that's the whole basis of how things worked.

LadyNorbert@reddit

Not as a child too much - when I was voluntold, it was mostly to help my grandparents or, more rarely, one of their sisters. I loved all of them so I didn't mind that. As a young adult, though, I was often drafted to do things that I really did not want to do.

Locked_in_a_room@reddit

Oh yes.

Sufficient_Stop8381@reddit

Yeah and didn’t get paid either. But I guess it was mostly family rather than others. Summers sucked because it was just work. Starting at like age 7 or 8. Cutting grass and we had a lot of grass between our house and my grandparents. A huge garden that needed constant hoeing and watering and harvesting. Helping my dad doing side jobs. Watching my much younger siblings. I was glad when I finally got a paying job at 14.

One house we had when I was an older teen has about a 10 acre lot with probably 5 acres of grass, and only a push mower and me. I couldn’t do it all in one day. I had to do it in segments. As soon as I moved out my dad bought a riding mower. My younger sisters never had to cut grass.

And constantly voluntold volunteering at church. Not just helping pass the plate on Sunday mornings but doing labor on Saturdays or whenever doing landscaping or other projects, setting up and breaking down events. We were there 3-4 days or evenings a week.

United_Stable4063@reddit

Yup. all this and cleaned bathrooms for a neighbor.

XerTrekker@reddit

Yep, starting around 11-12 I was drafted whenever their friends needed a babysitter for younger kids.

Historical_Bath_9854@reddit

Yes, and I left.

wrldwdeu4ria@reddit

Yes. I was voluntold as soon as I graduated toddlerhood and became a young child. When people whine about there not being a village I have to make an effort not to visibly wince. That "village" they so desperately want is often children being forced to provide free labor. It can also be women but they are less forced than children are. Most importantly they define a village as free labor even though they'd never refer to it as free or near free labor.

It was a big part of the reason I didn't have kids. I had a very good concept of what it entailed.

PRC_Spy@reddit

Our father owned a small business and on the weekends we'd all go to his workshop so mum could do the accounts. Cue much 'Get out from underfoot, here's a broom go tidy up'; 'hold this while I ... '; or even offering our help to the farmer next door with moving livestock. Yay, sheep herding. Awesome.

baldmisery17@reddit

I finally told my mom I'm not babysitting for any of your friends anymore. One of her friends would come home at 3am. She and her husband would go out and get up to no good. When I was in college I bumped into them at the 7-11 loading up the trunk with liquor and mix. Good grief. They did invite us to go party with them.

Uh, no.

crematoryfire@reddit

Got voluntold to do things all the time. I also did not get to keep the money either. It had to go to my mom for "rent".

deagh@reddit

Wait you got paid?

I was also my mom's helper. I have this memory of being like twelve and writing out receipts for rent payments. (My mom managed an RV park/motel place.) When I was in my teens I cleaned rooms, helped her move furniture, etc. Didn't get paid for any of it.

SleepWithRockStars@reddit

Yes. All of this.

Sloth_grl@reddit

No but I was forced to baby sit my numerous nieces and nephews.

Genius-Imbecile@reddit

My parents would have me help some of the older neighbors with yard work or handyman work. A lot of times my dad was right there with me. They told me it was part helping ones community. That someday I would need people to help me.

pdxtee@reddit

Yes, sometimes but I think of it as what community does. We didn’t get money for any of it. I’ve had my kids help a neighbor. However, when I was an adult with a full-time job my dad started dishing out my “computer services” to friends. That was too much.

Fannnybaws@reddit

The most annoying thing is they would thank my mum,not me!

I did the fuckin work,thank me!

smellmyfinger22@reddit

Never. My father made it mandatory to have an after-school job as soon as I got my motorcycle permit. If I could get around there was no good reason not to be earning money. Living in New England, I can tell you getting to my after-school job in zero degree weather in February with snow on the roads was no fun trying to get around on just a bike. There were plenty of times when I'd get to school in the morning with my sweet sweet mullet frozen solid and have to wait until it thawed out before I could drag a comb through it.