Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
My level of reference is "what was it possible for a 14 year old to do in 1900" compared to "what are they allowed to do today"?
Off the top of my head I can think of "get any entry-level factory job that doesn't require advanced education, support or start a family, get laid, move across the country, buy a weapon, have a beer after work" in 1900. At 15-16, provided you could had reached full adult height and weren't cursed with babyface, you could join the military. Even in the 1930s 14 year olds doing menial tasks like waiting tables was normal enough; evidenced by the youngest Hindenburg staff member that survived that incident being that age.
Today they're... allowed to play on the computer, I guess.
In 1900 the US and Western Europe were industrialized societies with on paper modern laws about the ages you could do things, with the exception of child labor. Sloppy record keeping meant there were lots of high school aged boys in the military, sure, but they lied about their age and got away with it because public records were spotty. And the idea that any appreciable group of people had more sexual freedom at any point prior to 1960 is risible, although I suppose the frequency of prostitution might count as a point in favor of our 14 year old in 1900.
Actually agrarian societies tended to be rather harshly restrictive of teenaged boys and marry the girls off. And that’s still how subsistence farmers behave today.
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