Children getting the work done

In the June/July 2009 edition of Mother Earth News was a photo of the process of slaughtering your own chickens, should you decide to keep some of your own in your backyard or on your farm. I was surprised by the photo, just because I so rarely see children doing such gritty work these days. Here's the photo:


It reminded me of a photo from Jamie Oliver's book of recipes associated with his travels around Italy -- "Jamie's Italy". In the excellent TV series that accompanied this theme (which was more culture than cooking), he went quite hands-on with the meat, including an occasion when he quite uncomfortably slaughtered his own sheep. But the book contains the image below, where they are draining what looks like a pig using what looks like the young Italian girls' paddling pool: