I actually just wrote, then deleted a lengthy post on that exact topic. I think America’s weirdly high drinking age contributes to a lot of social problems by making alcohol into a mysterious forbidden thing for kids. Compared to most other countries where kids are exposed to it gradually at much younger ages and by extension don’t have insane binge drinking in colleges and such.
I decided it wasn’t a can of worms worth opening here though, because the child labour issue in the story is much more to the point.
