Bending the Rules Until They Break
For no good reason, child labor laws vary by state. Some child labor laws limit children to working no more than thirty hours a week. However, in California, where Richie lived, kids can work up to forty-eight hours a week when school is not in session. We’re unsure of how the family managed to get around this law.
Perhaps the law didn’t classify physical workouts as “working”, even though the workouts were specifically for his bodybuilding job. Workout has the word work in it! The child labor laws could’ve been different when Richie was a kid. We have a feeling that people would feel very differently about all of it, had this happened in today’s modern, sensitive environment.