The Moose Wants A Phone

The Moose, who is in 6th grade, wants a phone. Badly. He mentions this regularly and recently told me that his friends at school make fun of him because he doesn't have a phone. I find this highly unlikely but told him that he can blame his parents for being mean and not letting him have one. This led to a further discussion about costs associated with phones and money in general. He has his own savings account from gifts he's received over the years, but he's never used it as we pay for anything that he needs. Part of our discussion even included me defining deposits and withdrawals. 

The end result of our conversation is that The Moose wants to earn money. He asked me what jobs he could get as an 11 year old. While I thought about explaining child labor laws, we decided to look online and found this article by For Modern Kids. Some of the ideas from this article include seasonal jobs he could do in the neighborhood like shoveling snow, raking leaves, and basic landscaping. He's not a fan of dogs, so being a dog walker is out, and he's not ready for babysitting yet. The article also includes creative jobs such as being a writer, blogger, photographer, and YouTuber. I laughed at all of these. 

This is what the author wrote about becoming a writer: 

Thanks to the internet, anyone can become a published author!

If your child loves to write, why not encourage them to write their own book.

They can write a long-form story and turn it into a chapter book or write a kid's book and illustrate it on their own. After their story is complete, head online to format the book as an e-book and sell it on Amazon.

So my son is about to become J.K. Rowling or Dr. Seuss? Let's see the other options.

If writing fiction doesn't appeal to your 11 year old, maybe writing a blog would.

There are so many different types of blogs your kid could start, including:

• Fashion blog
• Toy blog
• Craft blog
• Baking blog

After setting up their blog, they can earn money by placing ads on their website, accepting sponsorships, and including affiliate links in their posts. 

I've had this blog for 18 years and have made very little money from it, particularly if you consider the amount of time I spend writing. I'm sure that I could have made more money if I created a blog with a specific topic and if I was more savvy in understanding social media. Still, there doesn't appear to be a lot of money in blogging in 2023, and everyone I've ever heard talking about making money from blogs says that you can't go into blogging for the purpose of making money as it can take years to earn income.

What about videos? We all hear about the millions of dollars people like MrBeast and Dude Perfect make on YouTube, but it's not that easy. You have to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year before you can apply to YouTube's partner program to make money. That is really, really difficult especially for an 11 year old! Now, I'm not a good example since I don't publicize my YouTube channel and rarely post videos, but I have 28 subscribers. Only 972 and probably 3,900 hours short! 

While I definitely want to encourage The Moose to try new things and to accomplish his goals and dreams, he is not going to write a book or make significant money from starting a blog or becoming a YouTube sensation. I think we'll just start giving him an allowance and maybe have a lemonade stand when the weather gets warmer!