I was texting my sister, who still lives at home. We have an aunt/uncle that she's very close to, and that aunt/uncle decided to start breeding dogs for sale. I have my own thoughts about that in and of itself, but that's a separate conversation. The aunt/uncle both work during the day, and since it's summer they asked my sister if she'd be willing to help take care of the dogs during the day. She said sure, because she's a bit of a people pleaser and likes dogs anyways.
She goes over there every weekday sometime between 9 and 10, and usually stays until about 3, so she's there for 5-6 hours per day. And it turns out that they're paying her… a whopping $50 per week. That's right, not per day, per week. That's $2 per fucking hour, and is so low that they might as well not pay her anything at all.
I know that family situations can be complicated, and sometimes you just want to help, so I don't know if this makes me an asshole or not. But the older I get, the more sensitive and aware I become to how undervalued that labor is in general, and it just makes me so mad because it's like a slap to her face. They're basically paying her nothing, but you know that if she asked for more they'd throw a massive fit over it.
The kicker is that she also has an actual job where she makes $9 an hour (it might be $10, I don't remember. But somewhere around there). I told her that she might as well just pick up more shifts at work and actually get paid something, but of course she did the “well I don't want to be mean, and I want to help” schpeal. It's just so sad