What child labor laws should really encompass

If our society truly extended freedom and full citizenship to all regardless of age, child labor laws wouldn't mean disallowing young people under a certain arbitrary age to work at any job whatsoever. Instead, it would focus upon making working conditions for younger people as humane, and as conducive to younger people's developmental level, as possible. Politicians would gain public points by coming up with creative and efficient ways of combining educational and work opportunities, to decrease any perceived need for younger people to choose one over the other.

Child labor laws should demand reasonable, livable wages for younger people, thereby giving them opportunities to achieve a degree of economic independence from their parents if the kids in question choose to work. Parents should have no right to forcibly deny their child the right to economic independence and spendable money of their own. Young people should have full control over their own money and not have to surrender any of it to their parents at the latter's demand. Young people who are working should have the right to purchase anything with their money that is legal for adults to have (with some reasonable restrictions, of course; for instance, if a young person purchases a car, they cannot drive it legally until or unless they can prove competency in doing so). No legal businesses should be permitted to deny their services or products to kids (provided, of course, the child in question is developmentally mature enough to be able to handle the product or service in question; this can be debated, of course, so I am not going to get into it here). Since I am positing these things within reason, what I am specifically referring to is younger people having the right to purchase items such as television sets, CD players, MP3 players, Blu-Ray players, radios, computers, and Internet access if they so choose, without their parents having the right to deny them their right to purchase these reasonable items. If a youth is responsible and competent enough to earn money over a period of time, they should have the right to spend the money how they wish, without their parents denying them this right as a form of punishment (e.g., "If you don't get good grades, I won't let you use your money to buy that TV you are saving up for").

I have thoughts about education and how it can be tweaked to fit a society where young people have the right to work if they so choose, but that will be left to another post, though I will say that neither work nor education need be sacrificed so that a young person--or even an adult--has to choose one or the other rather than both.

This is what child labor laws should mean in a true constitutional democracy, and liberals and progressives should consider this rather than reveling in the fact that they were responsible for ending the right of children and younger teens to work all but the most meager jobs (such as newspaper delivery).