I think back in horror about how people trusted me to babysit their kids – I had no idea what I was doing and if there had been an emergency I would have been lost. And I was in college at the time!
At nine, I wouldn’t have known how to deal with a fire or major emergency had I been home alone. I’m not generally an idiot but even adults panic. I suppose if it had been necessary, my parents would have trained me on these things and assumed I could handle it.
I come from an airline family. When I was 12 and my brother was 9, my mom let us go to Honolulu (from San Francisco) by ourselves for three days. We stayed at a United-owned hotel where only airline crew stayed and everything was fine.
I see no big deal at all with a middle-school kid staying home alone for a while after school.
When I was 15, my 7 year old sister broke her front teeth while we were home alone, and I had no idea what to do. It was horrible. For both of us.
I wouldn’t but my kid in that situation. But… It’s different now with mobile phones, and, (1) we had no neighbors or relatives to contact, (2) Normally when we were home alone both parents were contactable at work. So it was an unusual situation even then.
But I agree. Just because a kid is old enough to provide “direct supervision” doesn’t mean that kid is old enough to be “the responsible adult”.
I am glad I wasn’t drinking my water when I read that ! LOL! I was living in my own apartment at 20 years old ! I think middle school students can be left alone for a hour or so . Of course it depend on how mature the kid is too.
You’ve had lots of good responses and you sound like a reasonable parent to me. I’m sure your kid will be fine.
We gave my son a lot more freedom than a lot of other people gave their kids, including some very good friends. Starting in 4th grade, Kiddo walked the 1½ blocks home from school and let himself in and was home for about an hour or so before I got home. No problems.
One time I had a couple of friends over and our kids were all about the same age. We were going to the park. I told kids they could race to the park and we moms would walk and be there shortly. One of the moms wouldn’t let her kids out of her sight. So they would run, then stop at the corner and wait for us to catch up. Then run to the next corner. I felt bad for them. The park was on the same block as our house, just the other side, so it was like a 5 minute walk total, but still. I could see her kids were disappointed. If I had known she would react like that I would not have said they could run ahead in the first place. It just never occurred to me that at ages 7-10 kids couldn’t run ahead to the park.
Well, I am kind of old so my time frame is quite different but in the 70’s we, ( wife and boy & girl ) were doing a lot of sailing.
For sons 10th birthday I got him a 11’ foot snark sailboat.
Later that summer we were at the lake sailing and the kids wanted to go out again in his sailboat. He was 10+ & daughter was 6+. The Marina was behind an island that blocked almost all of the lake from view.
A boat came in asking if we were OK with them being out of sight?
“Did they have their life jackets on?”
They said they did.
“No reason to worry then.” 
Depends on the kid. We raised a couple of my cousins at different times. The one I would have trusted on a regular basis, home alone, for say 2-5 hours at a time from about the age of 11. The other would have made me nervous for an hour until she was about 23. 
OK, maybe not that bad but still …
My daughters were left alone, at home for a hour or two when they were 8. It seemed pointless to drag them along to the grocery store. Shopping is never fun with kids in tow.
My wife or I would make sure they were occupied watching a movie. Our oldest was responsible for watching her younger sister. We’d go to the store, or run a errand. We always came back with a bag of burgers and fries to reward the kids for being good.
They were around 10 or 11 before we felt comfortable leaving them home all day. Summers for example when school is out.
I was left alone at five in the daytime, and seven at night. My big sister baby-sat my classmates, while I was left home alone.
When my youngest was seven , we left him home alone in the daytime. One day we left him at Walmart because we had forgotten that we had taken him along. Then got home and remembered where he was.
I don’t know why people are so proud of how incompetent and undependable and dependent and undisciplined their kids are.
I started leaving my daughters alone briefly when each of them were about 8 (15 - 20 minutes) but only as singles. I never left them alone for an hour or more until they were ten but, again, only as singles. The reason is that my younger daughter is a competitive gymnast that could pass the physical part of Marine boot camp right now but she is a fireball that will attack her older sister 4 years her senior any time the mood strikes and it often does.
My 15 year old daughter is a complete pacifist physically but a master of saying things that infuriates her little sister into a white hot rage. I still have to pry them apart and it isn’t easy so they still need a nanny/referee when I am not there just so they don’t kill each other even though both of them are fine if left alone individually now at 11 and 15.
You’re right that even adults panic , and that parents wouldn’t leave their kids home if they didn’t think they could handle it. But you also have to remember that dealing with a lot of things for a nine year old consists of “get out, get to the neighbors’ and call 911”
General thoughts:
You might want to check and see what the law of your state (your profile says Missouri) says about leaving kids alone. Here in MD, as Sahirrnee said, you can leave kids alone once they turn 8.
It depends on the child. The Firebug just turned 10, but he isn’t comfortable with being away from adult supervision for very long. This is the first year he’s really felt comfortable playing in the yard by himself for a half hour or so, and that’s with one or both of us parents in the house. He’s going into the 5th grade this fall, so next year he’ll be in middle school. I’m kinda nervous about how this is going to work out.
It really does amaze me how much less tolerant our society has become, since I was a kid, of kids doing stuff on their own. I remember going to neighbors’ houses unsupervised to visit my friends, a few houses up or down the same block, when I was 5. Nobody gave it a second thought. Kids roamed the neighborhood in small groups, then felt comfortable covering the same territory on their own.
I think it helped that these were the Baby Boom years, when the suburbs were all fairly new, and all filled with families having kids. So there were plenty of slightly older kids for slightly younger kids to pick up the habits of independence from. My neighborhood has aged in place - there were lots of kids there nearly 20 years ago when we moved in, but very few now, and no playmates close enough to be an easy walk for the Firebug, even if he was more confident about such things than he is.
I consider us very lucky that way. While our immediate neighbors are elderly, we are on good terms and know them fairly well. Plus, kids kind of started popping out of the woodwork when my son went to elementary school. Most of them play outside rather than inside after school, and my kids’ friends’ parents all let their kids roam the neighborhood - within reason - after they feel they can trust them to do so. At least that way, I a) don’t feel like I’ll be arrested if my son is out and about (though I have gotten the stink eye from one or two parents whose kids DO spend all their time inside) and b) we have a good network, so my son knows where to go for help, and if I haven’t heard from him for a while and can’t reach him all I have to do is send a group text and I can find my kid pretty easily.
My son also got a cell phone for his 11th birthday. We removed all the browsing apps and refused to purchase a data plan, but he can call and text and is responsible enough to get himself home at a predetermined time. My husband and I both fought hard against the notion of getting him a phone, and we’re way more conservative about it than most of his friends’ parents, who’ve purchased data plans for their kids, but when we decided he’d stay home by himself it seemed like a good idea.
In 2017, 1-in-10,000,000 risks are often treated exactly the same as, say, 1-in-3 risks. If someone heard of something bad happening, even if it was a freak one-off non-repeatable thing … that thing is often treated as an imminent likelihood that must be assiduously guarded against.
Right on. When I was maybe 7 or 8, a kid in my aunt’s neighborhood at the other end of the city fell off a bike, hit his head, and died. That was it. No bike for me. I never did learn to ride. That would have been like 1945, so it is not a new phenomenon.
But for the OP, my youngest was a couple months shy of 10 when my wife went back to work. The only thing he asked was to be taught how to fry an egg, which my wife showed him. He was–and as an adult still is–super responsible.
Amusing story: when my older son was 7, he went to a friend’s house, as he often did. Normally, the friend’s mother would have been home, but she had had to go out and had arranged–or thought she arranged–for someone else to be there. When she discovered that the other person had not come, she hurried home expecting to find them fighting or worse. Instead, not finding any adult present, they were sitting in the living room reading. They modified their usual behavior to take account of the lack of adult supervision.
Being of the same generation, I’m guessing none of the adults in your neighborhood would think twice about yelling at you if you were misbehaving, then call your parents so they could yell at you too! I think the biggest difference, tho, was virtually all of the mothers were home during the day. And if one had to run an errand, she’d make sure you knew which other mom was available if you had a problem.
When my daughter was in elementary school, pretty much all of the mothers in our neighborhood worked. We were fortunate in that the woman right next door delivered mail, so she was always home before the kids got off the bus, so my kid had an adult nearby in case of emergency. Fortunately, there never was an emergency.
I don’t have children, but if I did I would probably start leaving them alone according to my experiences as a kid**.
My sister and I spent summers with my Dad. He took leave as much as he could, but there were many days/weeks, where he had to go to work during the day. So that left my sister and I alone in the house all day. I can easily remember this starting when I was about 10 (sister was 8). We’d watch TV, read, and play board games. Play with the neighbor kids. Play Atari. Pitch a ball in the yard. Stuff like that. Never was a problem.
The was back in the late '70s, early '80s. No cell phones. No internet. Just a couple of kids keeping themselves occupied. I don’t think we ever got bored.
**Unless my kid was a total spaz or something.
When my son started middle school (6th grade) his days of child care were over and he became a latchkey kid. He probably could have started a year or two earlier than that but middle school was a natural transition and time to change.
Ditto, except I was 9 when my mom went back to work/school full time. I’d get home, do homework, start dinner, and hang out. We did have nice neighbours who were retired, and they had agreed to be emergency contacts. They also kept an eye on me.
A couple of friends who my mom knew (and whose families she knew) were allowed over, or I could stop at their houses for an hour or so, then I’d head home and do my chores and stuff.
It was cool to be able to roast a chicken and veg by myself at ate 9.
One lovely summer day when I was 15, I had a kidney stone make its presence known when I was babysitting my cousin and brother. That was a “What the FUCK?” moment.
It got handled pretty easily. My cousin is level-headed and was really scared, but just said, “Ok, so who should I call?” She was 10. Called my dad, and he and my stepmom both were there in a flash.