Teens Should Be Working for Themselves As Soon As They Can

Do you think it's a good idea to have your teen start working as soon as they legally can?

There are many who might disagree but I say absolutely 100 percent YES. Never mind all of the stats and surveys on the subject, I know that for me personally, getting my first real job at the age of 15 was the best thing my parents could have encouraged me to do.

I started babysitting kids in the neighborhood when I was 12 and had built up a nice little business, if you will. I was in "high demand" and was booked most Friday and Saturday nights year-round. During the summers I would add in several daytime sitting hours onto my schedule. This would allow me to bring the kids I was sitting for to our neighborhood beach to enjoy the summer months. I have to say, I was doing alright financially back then. I was always the one who had extra money when we'd head up to the corner store for snacks and stuff. And I was also a saver back then and had my own bank account, too.

Once I was old enough and ready for the "big time" of a real job at Friendly's, I was excited and my parents were nothing but positive about it. They totally encouraged me, and then my younger brothers when it was their time, to get a job as soon as we legally could. Between my dad and then eventually my mom (when we got older), we had hard working parents as our role models. My brothers and I obviously wanted to work and, yeah, make money.

When I found out about the Kelly Ripa story this week and then talked about it this morning during my Entertainment Update, it reminded me of why I am such a fan of hers. She was on Jimmy Kimmel Live earlier this week and was talking about her oldest son Michael's college experience thus far. Kelly said, "I think he loves the freedom. He hates paying his own rent and he's chronically poor. I don't think he ever really experienced extreme poverty like now. Now that he's living on his own, he's called three times, ‘Halloween envelope arrived?' Just so he can have electricity. He's experiencing being an adult." Well, you can imagine there were many who had a beef with her saying her kid is experiencing "severe poverty."

The hate comments on her IG feed were ridiculous. Kelly fired back saying "I didn't grow up privileged and neither did (her husband) @instsuelos. We work and we expect our kids to as well. And the fact that a pack of fools want to b*%#& about that, I say let em." Enews on Instagram has more detail on the hate comments if you want to check out their article.