When I was a child, we were very poor and my Mom picked cotton and I rode on the cotton sack (I was about 2 maybe).
Later in life when I was in High School and the poor days were over, my Dad farmed cotton and sugar beets and apricots. He wanted to show me how hard it was to make money so he got me up one Saturday AM and drove me to the cotton field, gave me a cotton sack and said "Go to it". I never worked so hard in my life. The cotton bowls are sharp when the cotton is ready to pick and by the end of the day my fingers were all cut and oh so sore. My back felt like it was broken from bending over. Lesson well learned. I certainly appreicated how hard my folks had to work to get where they were.