this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2026
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The food bill for those kids today would be pretty close to the median gross income in USA.
Good thing that the father has a stable job at the gas station to support his family.
Or they owned a farm, and 7 or 8 of those kids are already doing significant amounts of farm labor to earn their food. The economics of having tons of kids is radically different when they go from being a cost to a profit in 8ish years instead of from a cost to not a budget item in hopefully 22 if you're lucky.
The US school calendar was based on the realities of this. So was the election schedule, voting on a Tuesday aligns neatly with the schedules of farmers bringing goods to the nearest town for market.
No it wasn't. The US school calendar gives the biggest break times in the middle of summer and the middle of winter -- two times when farmers are the least busy. School is fully in session during a farmer's busiest times of spring planting and fall harvest.
Don't worry, all those kids were being put to work to supplement the family income.