The Higher Generation

There is a standing joke in America about entrepreneurs getting younger and younger. We have seen the TV sketches about business owners sacking their parents and doing their school homework at the reception desk of their fast food outlet. The implication is that the spirit of self-reliance in America has been taken a few steps too far and led to an absurd situation.

In the U.K. we can do better than this. Here there is a thriving culture of child entrepreneurship. The contribution of children to the economy has always been measured in terms of the things their parents buy for them. Now children are earning their own crust and many of us think this is not before time.

Recently children have started wearing t-shirts with a business slogan on them. It reads "Parents For Sale - Buy One Get One Free". This is assumed to be a joke. Yet there are very few instances when a child wearing this t-shirt is actually accompanied by both parents. The right of children to divorce their parents was established in various legal cases in America and the principle behind this has now been brought to fruition here. Child entrepreneurs are selling parents to the highest bidders to ensure everyone gets a better life. Most children would rather have different parents than their own. By redistributing existing parents to homes where they would be loved and appreciated the child entrepreneurs of the U.K. are performing a valuable social service and rightly enjoying the rewards of their labours. Of course children do not have the money to buy better parents unless they have already made it by selling their original parents. It comes as no surprise therefore that parent selling began as one of the internal markets of the Jewish community whose members have sustained it for centuries by trading their own religious items and other relevant goods among themselves before reaching out to the general population.

When a child is born in the U.K. to immigrant parents whose status in the country has not been decided the child is left in limbo. It has no status even after its parents have been granted it as it could not have been included in the original application. When the child is born it must fill in its own application to remain in the U.K. and there is no provision on that form for anyone to answer questions on its behalf. Some older children have begun to exploit this situation by refusing to unlearn their initial manners of speech. All over the world babies speak an international baby language whose primitive sounds have the same meaning in every country regardless of its linguistic culture. U.K. immigration forms however can only be completed in English. Check any number of immigration forms filled in by babies and you will find them all written in this language. The services of young child entrepreneurs as baby language-to-English translators are clearly much in demand and as no Baby-to-English dictionary has yet been published this will continue to be so into the foreseeable future.

The third area in which child entrepreneurs have made a considerable impact is in education. Traditionally children have been seen as the consumers of education. Now there is clear evidence that they are the providers. A number of educational establishments offer distance learning courses in which people study in their own time for qualifications issued by that establishment. Each of these courses is accessed by completing an application form. Each form comes with instructions on how to fill it in. It has become the rule that the higher the level of qualification sought the more detailed the instructions are on how to fill the form in. There is a well known English university which I will not name called Cambridge. Their external degree courses are accessed by such an application form. The first thing to fill in on the form is the applicant's name. The accompanying instructions explain what a name is and give advice as to where to look if you do not know what your name is and have to find out. Educationalists always think that everyone who is intelligent is like themselves. The more intelligent someone may be presumed to be the more they are treated as children by those who set their exams. Has education therefore been taken over by children? People are paying for these courses all the time and it is a nice little earner for someone not old enough to be taxed to turn the tables on the adults who have failed to understand them for so long.

We could all do a lot worse than allow children to become our leading entrepreneurs. Indeed in many immigrant communities teenage children quickly become the main earners in a family whilst the parents are deemed unemployable due to lack of U.K. qualifications. Surely the only way to integrate all parts of society is to make child entrepreneurship truly available to all? No more frustrated kids. No more parents complaining at having to look after them. Creating wealth the province of those who have the energy and spending it the province of those who have the sense. Can you think of a better way? Of course not. You have probably long forgotten your childhood if you are reading this post.