“Capitalism is a f***ing disease!”

“They’re bringing back child labor!”

“Introduce your kids to late-stage capitalism!”

These are some of the normal, sane responses that online left-wing voices have had to the news that several Chick-fil-A restaurants are offering “summer camp” programs for young children. What’s got them all worked up, exactly? 

Well, basically, a few Chick-fil-A franchises are offering three-hour day programs, which they’re calling summer camps, where children aged 5 to 12 can come in and essentially shadow employees behind the scenes at Chick-fil-A. For $30 to $35, depending on the program, parents get several hours of childcare, and the children get name tags, meals, t-shirts, and snacks. 

The horror.

My first impression of this story was that it seems kind of odd, but hey, maybe some children really like Chick-fil-A? As my friend Stephen Kent tweeted, “My 13-year-old has two dreams right now which I hear about daily. 1) Work in agriculture and operate a farm after 12th grade 2) Get a job at Chick-fil-A ASAP. Not everyone is wired to hate work and resent opportunities to learn new skills.”

It’s not just Stephen’s child: The programs are apparently very popular, quickly selling out on available slots. 

One mom interviewed by local news explained that her daughter was so excited about the camp that she woke up early to get ready and that they only signed up because her niece had done it the year before and loved it. Man, “late-stage capitalism” sure sounds horrifying.

This whole outrage is incredibly dumb. 

For one, no one has to sign their child up for this program. If you don’t like it, it’s really not that hard to sign your child up for a different camp. (And frankly, most of the online leftists and TikTokers upset about this probably don’t even have children.) 

Secondly, calling this “child labor” is absurd. 

The children are essentially tagging along and getting to learn how things work behind the scenes. The company is not profiting from “their labor,” as whatever a six-year-old can “help” with is almost certainly worth far less than the employee time dedicated to supervising them. The phrase “child labor” invokes images of children working in mills where body parts were ripped off by dangerous machinery; to use that to describe little Timmy eating chicken nuggets behind the counter at Chick-fil-A is ridiculous. 

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And while they obviously shouldn’t be doing hard labor or neglecting their education, there’s not actually anything wrong with exposing children to work and teaching them a work ethic from an early age. If anything, we don’t do nearly enough of that these days.

Today’s children often look to idiotic internet pranksters or vapid pop stars as “cool” role models. If some children instead think everyday people working hard at Chick-fil-A to serve their communities and earn a living are “cool” and want to learn from them at a “summer camp,” that’s something we should celebrate, not condemn.

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is an independent journalist, YouTuber, and co-founder of BASEDPolitics.