Yeah, this comment is ridiculous. "Public schools suck so I'll force my kids to do what I never had the chance to." Great logic.

My dad was athletic and supported me in being a nerdy band kid programmer. I will do the same for mine. I will make sure that the school they go to is good, but I won't force them to be passionate about something by bribing them with $60/hr.

I agree with not forcing vocations on kids, but I don't think many kids that age really want to do a paper round (or any of the other typical jobs that kids do) either. I certainly didn't want to get a job in a retail store, but it paid me a small amount of disposable money.

Web work pays substantially more and could entail graphic design, copy-writing, backend programming, marketing or all sorts of useful skills. I think we have this idea of the OP forcing his kids to write code in a basement and it doesn't need to be that at all.

I "expect" they will like what I show them. If nothing else, they will have a skill they can use down the road. You know all those math classes your kids will take in public school? What if they don't want to be a mathematician? Same logic.

I've worked plenty of other jobs, from clerk, to auto mechanic, to IT, they'll be getting a dose of it all. This is what you do as a parent, you show your kids where you've been, what you've done, and the wrongs you've done.