no better lesson than that.
But how could they do it with all the notoriety they will inevitably get?

If they get to work/volunteer at any minimum wage job place, it will be enough to understand and respect hard work.

Kind of, but they won't have to worry about which bill to pay or keep a roof over their head, but some lessons can be learned for sure.

from Reuters article:

"We are looking for opportunities for them to feel as if going to work and getting a paycheck is not always fun, not always stimulating, not always fair," the president said. "But that's what most folks go through every single day."

The first couple has taken pains to keep their daughters Malia, 16, and Sasha, 13, out of the public eye while in the White House. But Malia was recently spotted on the set of a CBS television program, working as a production assistant for a day.

The "hard work" isn't necessarily the minimum-wage job. It's trying to live on what you earn from that job, and trying to find a way out.

CEO.

Many are monotonous but not hard.

part of my life.

I worked at McDonalds and later in clothing retail. There is nothing unhard about waiting on the public. Hell, I currently work in a psychiatric hospital and McDonalds was harder.

i have had a couple jobs that were like that. but there are not many. most at least require you to be on you feet, which is tough right there.

The fact we are not leads to back problems and a lot of other things. I would eliminate almost all chairs in office settings. People would feel a lot better. I won't get into a soft life v. hard life post/counter post. Way too subjective.

walking on soft ground? Maybe. Standing in one spot on concrete for 8-10 hours? Bending and lifting and twisting while on our feet for 8-10 hours? Not so much. Humans evolved to walk long distances in search of game. Long distance travel on foot (on ground, not pavement or concrete) with short bursts of energy to kill prey and occasional squatting to gather plants. They did not evolve to stand in one spot all day. Plus our ancestors had a lot more down time than we have.

And employers should install ergo mats for employees in that situation.

of human back problems is that they started when we began walking solely on our hind legs.

An office with almost no chairs? Good luck with that.

Most minimum wage jobs tend to drain you physically, mentally, and financially unless you're young and living with your parents or having your bills paid by someone else...

Whatever 'job' they work at they know there will be a quick end to it and they will be living the life of millionaires for the rest of their lives. So no, they will not learn any 'lessons'.

Because it would be a photo op also.

We hurt our own credibility when we criticize politicians just for the sake of being critical, which is exactly what you are doing.

those kind of jobs when they were young.

They want their daughters to experience what hard work is while gaining empathy with people who toil at minimum wage jobs to get by.

We all know that the girl's won't stay on those jobs but they will gain valuable insight into what many in the 99% go through.

That's called good parenting. And that's not that hard to comprehend so I don't understand the complaint, especially with that repulsive Cheney in the news now trying to undermine the president and find something to do for his daughter (who had to drop out of her senate race because she was going to LOOSE).

Maybe Darth Vader should open up a fast food chain with some of his ill-gotten Haliburton war profiteering millions and plug her into a minimum wage job there.

Maybe she'll come out of it with some understanding on how not to be a right wing a-hole.

Insight is a wonderful thing. You should get some.

She graduated from Chicago's first magnet high school and went directly to Princeton. From there she went directly to law school at Harvard. From there she went directly into law related work -- and not at minimum wage. If she ever worked at such at job it would have to been for very short periods. Maybe you should get some insight.

No info for how long, when or what she did.

that would require the bush girls to be sent out to learn the lessons of hard work that their parents DIDNT learn, as opposed to the obama family that did learn, and that also has done a great job of shielding those girls from the selfish side of money and power.

so, yeah, no comparison. at all. besides the address.

do similar things it must always be for the exact same reasons with no thought to backgrounds or history involved.

You take healthy cynicism and beat it with a shovel until it's dead.

They wouldn't even consider it. They'd pull strings and put the girls as far to the top as they could.

As the Clinton's did with Chelsea who makes $26,724 every minute on NBC. http://www.businessinsider.com/it-looks-like-chelsea-clinton-made-26724-for-each-minute-she-appeared-on-nbc-2014-6

The Obama's will do the same for their daughters when the time comes. I would not expect anything different.

I'm not so sure about that, in the case of this family.

Paul Ryan experienced cleaning those clean dishes:

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

But I agree with you. However, I believe it's the character of the person that counts in these learning situations. Never forget Jerry Brown working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta washing and caring for the dying. Don't know if I could do what he did - admired the hell out of him for doing that. Compare that to Mitt Romney missionary work for his church in Southern France.

Another is, "My parents are assholes for making me do this shit."

thanks. got your number now.

Or wheelbarrow cement down a narrow path (running because it has to be done quickly).
Hell, even the "easy job" of framing and erecting walls.

You would not have lasted a day in construction I bet.

So yeah I guess construction would be too much for me...

But workers have ways to make their jobs easier especially when left alone by supervisors. And as anyone who has worked on the hot side of steel mills will tell you there is very little in your face supervision there. There are certainly hard jobs -- at least looking at it from the outside. I live in Phoenix and would hate to be a roofer in the summer here. But I drink in bars with those guys after work and they seem to be ok with it.

That's very puzzling to me, I have had very few easy jobs and I find it hard to understand how you can make the claim you did. Especially since you know this truth personally.

I have always enjoyed hard work and hopefully many others do as well since unless you are a suit guy that's what you are stuck with, but enjoying it is not the same as it being easy.

That's all, I think that few blue collar jobs are easy ones.

LOL

The idea is to increase understanding, to instill empathy for those who don't have your good fortune. It's not necessary to exchange lives with someone to have empathy with them. Yours is a very stingy attitude toward what the Obamas are trying to do.

True empathy would be gained when they have NO choice but to do some dumb job for however long it takes to get through college or whatever. Not spending two weeks at "minumum wage camp."

The very definition of empathy is that it is vicarious. That you feel for someone you are not in the same boat as. You can judge the Obamas harshly, I can't stop your coldheartedness, or your cynicism, but get a better understanding of what empathy is, please.

The math of minimum wage in unforgiving. I was just doing it with my daughter this morning. She's going to college this fall and will (hopefully) be starting her first job this summer. I told her she will learn first-hand why Republicans really suck when she sees what her take-home pay is after all those hours and how they are opposed to any increase. "Slumming it," as you put it, just might create more people in favor of pro-worker policies.

I had my first job at age 14, Semour's Credit Clothing on Elm St. in Dallas. I was paid 35 cents an hour even though the minimum wage was 50 cents, I worked from 10 AM to 9 PM on Saturdays. I was the flunky and did all the dirty jobs, kept clothes folded and neat, answered the phone, swept the floor. stuff like that. And if everyone was busy, I also got to sell, but was not paid a commission like the older sales staff. But I was kid and I was not worried about a roof over my head, I wanted some extra spending money so I could buy me some cool clothes. That is the state of mind of a teenager, not worrying about bills and roof over your head.

Cut the Obama girls some slack. I think a teenager working, teaches kids so many lessons besides worrying about roof over head, etc. They learn that people are depending on them to do a certain job, they can't sleep late, how to responsible and show up on time, that they should work and not goof off, how to deal with the public and people of all ages and social classes, how to respect other people and property, how to take directions from a boss, how to manage the money they get on their paychecks. Many good life lessons.

Unless they disown the kids. Or let them take the bus to work without protection.

Let's face it, the kids are currently living the lives of hundred millionaires (which their parents will likely be in a couple years anyway).

The best the parents can do is give the kids a glimpse of how regular folks live. It's the thought that counts.

My grandfather had planted a couple of acres and wanted me to know what it was like to grow up a sharecropper, like him. I knew that by the end of the week or the end of the field would be the end of the work.

It wasn't very easy, nor have I or my fingers were forgotten what picking that shit was like.

I think everybody should, at least for some short period of time be exposed not only to hard work, but the hard, soul crushing tedious sort of work that many in manufacturing, customer service, big box cashiers, jobs that serve no purpose other other than to line capitalists pockets jobs where you are offered no autonomy. Jobs where even your bathroom breaks need to be asked for and negotiated while holding back a pee. Everyone, should, in service to their sense of empathy need to live a brief but intense minimum wage reality. Then the should work a peace corps job or some job where they can bear witness to abject poverty. It might make a difference in how we treat the least of us.

they took real eggs and turned them into powdered eggs. My job was to stand (all day on my feet) and pick up eggs from a moving assembly line and break them into a stainless steel 5 gallon bucket. You had to break the eggs into an apparatus that separated them. When the bucket was full, you lifted it above your head to another conveyor to go for processing! At the end of the day, my feet felt like they were made of bones and I smelled like stinky eggs! Some of those eggs were so rotten they looked like tar when you broke them! All this for the measly pay of $1 an hour! Glad I went to school and learned to do something different!

given the security around the girls. There's no way they could possibly experience working at Walmart or in Food Service while going home to the White House every night even if the security could be disguised in some way it's not practical. It's just too dangerous for them.

Put them on either the kitchen staff or the cleaning/janitorial staff of the White House.

And teach them to use their own money.
I got bank accounts for my children (we don`t like credit cards in Europe) with a debit card when they turned 15. They got a reasonable sum each month but had to pay everything, from bus tickets (and don`t you dare fare dodging to your mother`s employer!) and school materials to clothes and their mobile phone. If they had problems we would help them out, but then they would have had to track their accountings in a book ot something. They never asked for extra money.

The Obama daughters' fame means they will not have the experience of having to compete with others for minimum-wage work, and the family money means they will never know the desperation of having to turn that wage into a living.

There are lessons they might learn if they really rub shoulders with the working poor, and perhaps that's all that "a taste" means. If poverty becomes a little less invisible to an important family for a few months, that's not nothing.

Noble idea, but 10 seconds worth of thought would tell you it ain't the real thing.

At least they're trying to give their daughters a taste of what so many others in the country live day in and day out, which is more than many of the 'inheritance' class children will ever get. Gotta give em some props for that, at least.

And I wouldn't wish the desperation of being truly poor on those or any other nice kids.

Put 'em to work. Give 'em a budget. Teach 'em to respect a dollar. It's all good.

But it is an adventure for these wonderful girls, and they do seem to be wonderful like their mother.

They will never want for anything regardless of whether they work, dont work, etc.

I love the Obama family but I hate the fact that most Americans will struggle to survive.

But they will never know what it is like to work for minimum wage. They might have a crappy job but they will never know what minimum wage is like.

And of course wasn't there just a story that one of them is working for Spielberg on a movie set for the summer? Hardly your average minimum wage job.

I really do admire them for wanting to try to teach their daughters how it feels. I just think it will be nearly impossible for them to do so.

But having grown up, being partially raised by a step grandfather who was missing a leg taught me a lot about empathy (and admiration) for people who live with a disability.

Why does everyone have to be so damn cynical about everything?

cleaning houses for $2.00/hr.

I hope they enjoy themselves!

but until you have to work minimum wage to live, it isn't the same.

Republicans I know often claim that they worked minimum wage jobs and now they're doing well.

What they aren't saying is that they never had to worry about getting a job because family had connections.

And that's America, friends. It's not what you know, it's who you know that gets you ahead.

No puns intended.

which is far better than most people in their position would do. No, they won't know what it's like to live on minimum wage, but they will know that minimum wage jobs aren't "easy" and later in life they'll be far less susceptible to the "Rich people work harder, that's why they're rich!" meme. Mitt Romney might not be such an insufferable asshole if he'd been forced to shovel molten asphalt for a summer for nine bucks an hour.

Now back to being cynical and scornful.

My grandchildren learned the value of an education. A job in a profession you love, regardless of the starting pay, is far better than having no choices. It took only a few part time jobs, during high school, to convince them that cleaning toilets away from home was no better with pay.

I was raised knowing, from my high school teachers, that anyone can become greater than the sum of their parents. Oh course, mine were not wealthy or famous. I'm thankful some of US are not so handicapped.

It's not a "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps". The message is all things are possible. We can get by with a little help (not the drug kind).

a small number of them actually do some hard work, but most of them clearly didn't care about getting fired, or maybe did just the bare minimum they needed to do not get fired. clearly not respecting the customer, the job, the co-workers, or the pay.

it's tough for parents to make this sort of lesson stick. if the kid is used to expensive toys or a big allowance, then a minimum wage paycheck is not going to be meaningful to them. and if the paycheck isn't meaningful to them, it's more like charity work. charity work has its own value, of course, but that's not really the lesson that's meant to be taught. a struggling single mom of two doesn't work at both wal-mart and mcdonald's for the sake of charity, and if you miss that, you're really not getting it.

I knew that come hell or highwater, I had to go to college, and I'm grateful everyday of my life that I did. I hope the girls will learn the intended lesson, and gain an appreciation for the folks who do those jobs for their entire lives.

... to Chicago, out of the White House and the daily intrusion of the media. Not to mention sarcastic and cynical comments from people who think they are entitled to an opinion on everything that goes on in the Obama family life.

I just feel like the Obamas have their heads on straight when it comes to parenting, and bringing Michelle's mom along to the WH was a good choice.

means, will be difficult under the best of circumstances. I look at Chelsea Clinton, and marvel at the beautiful young lady she turned out to be. And you're right, the ugliness toward the Obamas, here & elsewhere is puke making. None of us can help who our parents are, warts and all.

What would YOU recommend the Obama girls do with their summer vacation? Stay locked in their rooms? Wash the feet of lepers at Mother Teresa's place?

Preferably out of the spotlight. Nothing rings more hollow than political stunts.

The entire group practically had to leave in the dark of night to go there to avoid publicity, it was a complete secret for security reasons, and when the news finally leaked out it was the subject of the same accusations here: Photo Op, how dare they pretend to be normal people who care, yadda yadda.

So, let's hear it, rug: If those were your girls and you were the POTUS, what would you have them do with their time off from school?

Now, if they were my girls, and if I were POTUS, the first thing I would do would be to invite Hekate to the Oval Office and turn them over to you for the summer. I'd be sure you would do what is best for them personally and not for me politically. Then I would spend the summer nodding while reading your glowing posts about them in the BOG.

They have a grandma already, and I have a grandkid of my own. I don't go blogging about his activities, and I notice Mrs. Robinson doesn't blog about Malia and Sasha. Privacy is a virtue we are losing, but I value it. Kids in the White House need it more than most.

Granted, they will never have to live on minimum wages, but the work experience (no matter what the task) will be an asset to both girls. It teaches responsibility, teamwork, and gives you a glimpse of what it is like being in charge of yourself.

It's like when a senator goes on a food stamp diet or some other stunt.

His girls are lucky that they will never HAVE to work low wage jobs or to worry whether paying the rent or catching up on missed car payments is the best thing for this pay period.

When well off people deliberately "go undercover", it's not all that helpful..

their parents have a lot of money and are well-connected...that "cat" is already out of the bag, so they are never going to be a position of true want/need in their lives.

Yet one day they too are likely to be leaders in some field, even politics...better that they at least experience a tiny bit of what hard work is like then none at all. That this is even an emphasis shows well on the Obamas and will serve their daughters well.

so people shouldn't learn to empathize with others.

Because they haven't lived the exact same situation.

I wondered "Are the kids of the CEO of McDonald's allowed to take jobs at the company? Wouldn't that be nepotism?"

Then I thought "But wouldn't it be kind of weird for them to work at Burger King? Managers would probably be wary of hiring kids of a rival company's CEO."

Then I thought "Oh right, the kids of CEOs don't have to work at fast food joints."

That way we could all 'relate' to the 'struggles' of the wealthy ruling classes!

Wow...Im in the wrong profession! I need to get me a minimum wage job!!



To be serious...
There may be good intentions here, but there is no way in hell they will ever be able to experience or understand. They will never have to worry about not having enough money for rent or not being able to afford insurance. They will never walk into a store for an application and be discriminated against for one reason or another.

Im not saying it to be mean...it's the reality. It's not just the job of scooping ice cream, bagging fries, or cleaning a toilet. It's about trying to LIVE on that kind of income.

it will not be the same as most of us go through. I worked at a farm for $1/hr - and was happy that I was inside cooking & cleaning rather than out in the fields.

These girls will not know what it's like to have to make rent, etc ... and I doubt anyone is going to get in their face.

But it's better than sending them to find themselves in Europe. At least they will see how others are treated etc.

But they've known they have an "out" if something goes wrong.

It could be anything: an abusive boss, a car that dies, health problems...

My own "out" wasn't always quite so solid as my kids enjoyed, but even now I myself still have an "out." There are many safe sofas available for me to sleep on and people who will feed me should I ever crash and burn again.

Nevertheless I did experience quite a bit of low income working class, even living in my car homeless or squatting in an apartment, so I like to think I have some first-hand understanding of the issues.

I hope the Obama girls enjoy a similar amount of awareness and some experience (well, not the living-in-my-car part) and they learn something from it in spite of their family wealth; that they are never so stupid and tone-deaf as Mitt Romney and his wife, who, bless their poor little hearts, had to cash out some stocks and bonds to stay in school. (Me, I was unclogging sinks and toilets, cleaning up vomit, and telling young women on a Friday afternoon there wouldn't be any hot water until Monday because their cheap-ass landlord didn't want to pay the real plumber extra to have a new water heater installed.)

When I was in school I remember calling my mom in desperation one month, to help pay my rent. My mom's check to the landlord bounced. I didn't ask her for money after that 'cause I knew it would adversely impact my parents and my younger siblings. Better that check bounced than their electric bill.

The Obama girls will never experience that sort of thing (nor should they) but I'm certain they are bright kids and not sociopaths, so they will appreciate that others are walking a much tougher road than they do.

and its $15/hr. minimum wage!

But practically impossible.

Theres something about knowing that if you say "f this" and walk out, you will be going hungry.
Theres something about working the night shift in a 7-11 and not knowing if the next slightly skeevy looking guy through the door is there to buy some doughnuts and coffee, or stick you up.

These and many other experiences are practically speaking, out of the range of possibility for the presidents children.

I hear that is the going pay for presidential children nowadays. Hopefully they will never cash in on their parents' successes and will instead make their own way in the world.

I wanted money in my pocket and my parents were not in any position to provide it.

Later on, when I was 16, I had to go to work to help support the family. My Dad's shop closed and my mother was pregnant. His unemployment and odd jobs, plus my salary helped us keep the house. At age 92 it's his only real asset.

Good experience? No.

I would have gladly passed on learning about the nobility of hard work if I had the choice.

A applaud the attempt, but the reality is that they will never have to struggle a day in their lives. That is definitely a parental challenge I would find great difficulty with. With power and privilege comes great responsibility. In the end, they can only hope they have instilled that into their daughters.

or wants his daughters to have any empathy for them, if he weren't simultaneously trying to pass the TPP, which will destroy jobs and lower the wages of over 90 percent of Americans.

Study: Obama's "Trade" Deal Would Mean a Pay Cut for 90% of U.S. Workers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023661805