well nowadays: kids can't deliver newspaper, you can't get a job till your 16 and you need good grades to get hired, and in this economy who do you thinks gona get hired a kid or a adult.

actually, you can get a job before 16. once again, restaurants are always hiring busboys and dishwashers. Fast food joints are always hiring. guess who isn't applying for either job group? adults.

Um, I've applied at tons of places, but a lot of places have started hiring 18+ only or aren't hiring. You CAN get a job before 16, but you usually have to have connections. My friend worked for her step-dad at 15 and now for her dad at 16. Hell, you have to have connections to get a job at 16 now. People who I have better grades than and have made better choices than have gotten jobs at places I applied for which "weren't hiring." I know someone who got suspended for a semester for having pot who got a job at a local grocery store that recently told me they weren't hiring. I have a 3.9 GPA and he sure doesn't. Clearly, he knows somebody. Also, having your parents buy you a car isn't really "well above the norm." I know very few people who's parents didn't buy them at least a cheap car (me included, we're poor and don't even have the money to take driver's ed, which is required to get your license before 17, much less the money for a car).

Uh, no. Lots of buisnesses are currently only hiring people 18 or older. Also, lots of jobs cannot be filled by people under 16. Remember, child labor laws are *laws*, not suggestions.

I love your story! your life seems awesome. yet not. you're not spoiled but not completely neglected

BS. restaurants are always looking for busboys and dishwashers

And yet taking summer classes at night was the only the reason I was rejected from one of the two interviews I've actually gotten, at Beef O' Brady's. Are places hiring? Sure. Are they flexible with school schedules? No. And school is more important right now. I don't know why the school decided to only offer organic chemistry 2 at night, but if it had been during the day I might have had a job.

yup, Im real jealous my parents told me if I wanted a car, I was paying for it. Damn them for teaching me... 1. the value of money 2. that if you want something, you need to work for it 3. the ability to manage money and my spending, and the value of budgeting 4. an appreciation for my possessions because I knew the work that went into buying them 5. time management skills between juggling an AP level class load, a job and a social life point being, if you are still rocking out in the back of the minivan, you have no clue what you are talking about.

See, I probably could have handled a job back when all I had to deal with was 6 AP classes, French I, an honors class, 4 clubs with 2 officer positions, and volunteering several times a week. AP classes were nothing. But now I'm in college and, unlike in AP classes, I actually have to work extremely hard to get A's, and you do need A's to keep a scholarship. I'm making more money from a scholarship than I ever could have from working through high school, so I am working my ass off for this money. I'd be studying now if I wasn't in that twilight zone of too tired to study any more today but not quite tired enough to sleep. If I were in an easy major it'd be one thing, but I'm not. I don't know what your major is, but pretty much if you don't spend all the time there is in a week studying for some of the classes I've been in, you will fail, and it's as simple as that. Professors have pretty much come out and told us that working in school is stupid for the majority of people and will result in failure, even if it is financially necessary. Orgo 1 was my easiest class last semester, and I watched a good third of the class drop it. Material and energy balances... made organic seem like something kindergartners would do, while at the same time managing to be as boring as organic chem was interesting (and I'd call ochem extremely interesting).