Were you a latch-key kid?

In My Humble Opinion
21

::raises hand, with key clenched therein, proudly::

My Mom didn’t know what she wanted to do when I was younger, and was apparently fine with being a SAHM back when my Dad was in grad school and also when he started his first real job (up until the middle of my 2nd grade year). Shortly after his second job, she got interested in education for traditionally undereducated populations and joined Head Start (beginning of latchkey career for me). I’d come home from school to an empty house, unlocked (this being suburban Georgia in the 60’s) and let myself in. Soon after, Mama shifted gears and became certified to do regular elementary education and took her deployment in the Valdosta equivalent of the “inner city school” ('twas Central Elementary, later changed names to some street the name of which I forget).

[micro-selfjijack]
For both Democrats and Republicans alike, keep in mind: this was a post-Johnson Republican voter in Georgia, still Republican voter to this day, who cared enough about social injustice to do this, to get involved. (The party that decries consideration for such things risks losing such voters).
[/hijack]

She explained what she was doing and I was proud of her.

Later, we started locking the door, and I had The Key. I felt like a grownup, it was so cool.

22

This is facinating for me as so many of started being latchkeys relatively young. The average seems to be about 8. Thinking of all the newstories that make The Pit, it seems almost unthikable such young kids would be latchkeys today.

23

Latchkey kid. From maybe 4th grade through high school. Home alone for a few hours at most. Although the neighbors could not be relied upon, my Grandmother lived right up the street in case of trouble. She also had milk and cookies. SCORE!

24

I was a semi-latch-key kid. While my mom was home most of the time, she was usually very ill. As a result, she had severe problems with depression, so she rarely got out of bed once we began going to school. She also drank a lot, so if her sickness didn’t put her to bed, gin sure did. In fact, it wasn’t until we were in high school that I really remember her being out of bed for more than an hour or so at a time, though I’m assuming that she puttered around while we were at school. She didn’t get out of bed much until after she finally found a competent doctor who diagnosed her appropriately, and she also got some counselling and quit drinking, at least until my sister and I moved out and went to college. But for the long window between beginning elementary school and my freshman year in high school, my sister and I took care of each other and our mom. Both of us have known how to cook and clean since we were old enough to hold a dish without breaking it and work a stove without burning ourselves. In fact, many of the photos we have from when we were little are pictures my dad took during his few infrequent visits (parents have been divorced since I was 2) of my sister and me washing dishes, cooking or doing other stuff around the house. Not that we never had time for fun - I spent a lot of evenings after dinner playing basketball with the kid next door. I was also a spazzy little kid - as soon as the sun was up, so was I, so I’d do my homework in the morning.

When mom did go out, if she’d be gone for the entire evening, she would occasionally have someone over to watch us, but more often than not, she’d call one of our neighbors to find out who was home in case there was an emergency. I remember when she was finally well again. What a revelation! At last she could get out of bed without wanting to throw up, and a lot of the work was taken off our shoulders so we had far more time in the afternoons.

25

Latchkey kid.

During Kindergarden, great-grandma would pick me up and then babysit me until Mom got off work and picked me up. However, she died. I don’t remember what I did for first and second grade.

However, beginning in third grade I was on my own from 3:30ish until 5:30ish each day. The school bus stop was right in front of my door, so I walked right in, locked the door and turned on the boob toob. Officially I was responsible for some minor chores (doing the dishes, yada yada yada) but I let them slide more often than not. Mom & dad got home around 5:30.

I didn’t mind so much. I watched Gilligan’s Island and Brady Bunch reruns and generally enjoyed having some time to myself.

26

Wow, that describes my mom to a T, perfect!

Latch-key kid from the age of 8. Here’s another confession for you, I lost the key so many times that my mother gave up and I became an “open door” kid. That’s right, the garage door was left unlocked so I wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not I had a key with me.

I didn’t have many specific chores around the house, the most strict rules were about feeding and cleaning up after myself. If I wanted to wait for dinner until mom got home from work (6 or 6:30 ish) that was fine, if not, I could make my own snack or dinner provided I cleaned up after. I was allowed to visit friends, or have friends over, and use the phone.

The strange thing about chores is that I had a little girlfriend down the street whose mother suffered from severe, untreated depression. Of course, we didn’t know what it was called, other than this girl’s mother wouldn’t get out of bed for weeks at a time. My friend, from the age of about 6 or so, did all the heavy housework and cooking. And, for someone who couldn’t get out of bed, the mother ran a very tight ship – hospital corners on all the sheets, silverware polished weekly, that sort of thing. Many afternoons I would go over to her house and help her with her chores. And it seemed rather matter-of-fact at the time … “wanna come over and play Atari?” “Nope, my mom won’t let me. Wanna come over and iron the napkins?” “Okay, see ya in a few.”

Both my brother and I had several after school activities (sports, piano, dance, etc) so oftentimes we were getting home at the same time as my mother anyway. We lived in a suburb, and for most of these activities, we could easily walk. I mean, you can see the softball field from our front porch.

The only bad memory I have of this is that there were times when we had activities (school play, away games, etc) where parents would carpool, and my mother didn’t participate because she worked. I HATED this, I hated that it seemed like we were taking advantage of other parents who would do more than their share of the driving. I don’t know why I had this strong sense of social obligation. I honestly don’t think the other parents felt this way, I think they were happy to do us a favor.

The rest of it, though, I never felt abandoned or neglected. I think particularly in contrast to my friend’s experience of a stay at home mom, I thought I was living the good life.

27

A lot of 8 year old or 3rd grader latch-key kids here. I’ll add - I was a latch-key from 3rd grade onward.

Like people have said, it wasn’t bad. I’d do like everyone else, get home, make a snack, play, maybe watch TV. Summers, I’d spend my entire days doing that while my dad was at work. Mom moved out when I was 8 years old and had to work and obviously my dad had to work. It really wasn’t so bad, made me grow up pretty fast in that I learned to take care of myself pretty quickly.

I still remember the time my dad’s admin. assistant at the office took me step-by-step on the phone through making Kraft Macaroni and Cheese because I wanted to have it for lunch, but didn’t know how to prepare it. She didn’t have to, but my dad was in a meeting and she was a really sweet lady.

28

We moved when I was eight, mom took a full-time job and we stayed with a neighbor after school for awhile but her house smelled really bad so we made up some story to convince our parents that it would be okay for a nine year old to supervise her eight year old, six year old and newborn siblings.

The folks went for it and no one got killed or seriously wounded.

29

Yes, from seventh grade on. Would have been sooner, but my mom arrived home around the same time I did when I was in elementary school. She was a teacher, though, so I never spent summers by myself.

30

My parents separated when I was seven and divorced when I was eight. My mom stayed home during that first year, but she had started full-time work by the time I was in fourth grade (my brother was two years older). During fourth and perhaps fifth grade, the woman next door “looked after” my brother and me, but although my mom tells me she paid her, I remember checking in with her, sometimes playing with her teenaged daughter, and usually spending most of my after-school time at home with my brother. We moved to a new house when I was in sixth grade (at the age of ten), and from that time on, we were completely on our own after school. We would come home, call our mom to tell her we were there, and watch TV, eat snacks, occasionally do homework, and squabble until she got home. We usually took turns starting dinner, which was typically something very easy at first - TV dinners or meatloaf or grilled cheese sandwiches and soup. I liked being on my own after school, although once I reached high school, I resented not being able to bring friends home.

My own children are eleven and fifteen, and I haven’t had a job outside the house since the first one was born. I started letting the older one stay home by herself for short periods of time when she was nine, but I didn’t allow her to watch her sister at that age. By the time she was twelve, I let both of them stay home for short periods of time, although not usually at night, and nowadays, I feel comfortable leaving them alone if we go out in the evenings. I even trust them to get themselves to bed if we’ll be out past ten on a school night (an extremely rare event). I have a cellphone now, and although that’s a comfort to me, the children have never called me while I was out for an evening - I call them at least once to make sure they’re okay, and I can practically hear my older daughter’s eyes rolling when she answers. I wouldn’t leave them alone overnight, although the fifteen-year-old tested the waters a little the last time we went out of town. I’m lucky enough to have a healthy, capable, and willing mother in town who can keep them at her house or even stay here with them if we go away for a few days, so I don’t quite know if I’d have considered taking her up on the suggestion had I not had help at hand.

I don’t think being a latchkey kid is at all harmful for a capable child. I probably became a little more responsible at an earlier age than my children did, but they’re picking it up as we go along. My eleven-year-old will often volunteer to make dinner for the family, even when I’m home and could do it, and the fifteen-year-old is always willing to get dinner for herself and her sister when we’re away. If anything, I think the older one chafes a little at the level of supervision she’s still under. The younger one has often told me that she’s happy I’m here when she gets home from school and that she’s glad I don’t work, but I strongly suspect that’s because ours is the house everyone visits after school. Her friends whose parents aren’t home aren’t allowed to have people over, and she would suffer greatly if she were in that position.

31

I was a Latchkey kid, but only in High School, when I was considered able to manage things. I was, however, allowed to babysit from the time I was twelve on up. Sure, there was that scare when I heard a funny noise in the basement and thought it was a psycho, but there was also the time at age thirteen I took the kids I was babysitting through snowdrifts to the shopping mall 3/4 of a mile away (after getting the mother’s permission.) We had a good time shopping and returned home safely. So now it’s controversial to leave a 12 year old alone?

My aunt is rather overprotective–never mind that at age 13 she had to work in a restuarant to help support her family. My 15 year old cousin isn’t allowed to walk around a shopping mall without adult supervision. She’ll never be a latchkey kid and I’m beginning to wonder if she’ll ever be an adult.

32

That’s my only bad memory as well, but it’s slightly different. I felt jealous because my friends always got to do cool “family” things like vacations or trips to an amusement park or the zoo or even movies etc. and I couldn’t because my parents always worked. Sometimes I got to go on business trips with my mom, but mostly they had to work.

If I asked my mom today about it, she wouldn’t feel guilty and I don’t blame her in anyway. But I have a feeling that the reason I was spoiled with material things or got away with bad grades in middle school or getting away with being in trouble was because they felt bad. Especially since I was in and out of hospitals up until age five.

33

Mom went back to work when I was 14, so I was more of a latchkey teenager. However, my brothers were 12 and 8 at the time.

We had a baby sitter for my youngest brother for the first couple years. After she left, one of our neighbors was the designated emergency lady who we were supposed to go to if we had a problem.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, dad was home before we were (he was a professor and could get home early those days). The other 3 days a week, we would get home between 3:30 and 4:00 (later if we had after school activities) and one of my parents was usually back by 6:00 or 6:30. We’d do our homework, take care of our chores (some cleaning, walking the dog, etc), watch TV, or play in the neighborhood. My parents always made dinner when they got home and we’ve eat at around 8:00 pm. That may seem late to some, but we’d always had dinner then even when my mom stayed home.

It was rarely a big deal. Even after the baby sitter left, I don’t remember any fears of being alone. It also didn’t bother me that a parent didn’t come to all my after school activities. (They’d come to plays, music recitals, games, etc. They just wouldn’t hang out watching our practices like some parents.) Of course, I was at an age when parents were embarassing, so it may have been different for my younger brothers.

There was one time when it was an issue. My youngest brother fell off his bike and scraped himself up. The scrapes didn’t look that bad, but I was 16, he was 10, and we were worried. So we called mom and went next door to the designated emergency neighbor. She drove us to the ER where they looked at my brother and said “meh, scrapes, no big deal.” My dad arrrived at the ER shortly after we got there (he left work right away after hearing about the accident) and our neighbor lit into him.

It was an ugly scene. I remember standing in an ER while this lady screamed at my dad about what a terrible father he was for not providing well enough for his family to the extent his wife had to work. And how could any mother leave her “babies” home to fend for themselves? What if my brother had been killed?

Mom had a lot of grief after that. My parents considered getting another babysitter, but it was difficult to find a reliable adult to watch us for just a few hours 3 days a week. In the end, we just got a different neighbor to go to in emergencies.

34

Latchkey from at least the fourth grade, when I was living with just my mother. My folks seperated right before my third grade, but I seem to recall having to wait to be let in that year ( but my mother had a roommate that first year as well, so there was more coverage for when I got home from school or whatever ).

Latchkey from there on out. Two years of just the two of us in San Francisco and Ferndale, Michigan ( lilywhite working class suburb of Detroit, at least at the time ). Two years of us plus mother’s boyfriend in Michigan, then went to live with my father ( worked ), step-mother ( worked ) and two step-brothers ( one two years older, one the same age ) in Ca.

I was left to my own devices for as long as a weekend by at least the 6th grade, I think. Possibly a bit earlier - I was always a pretty self-sufficient kid and more mature than average for my age. Though of course someone was always available to call in emergencies.

Never had your standard teen-aged babysitter, so I grew up finding that whole concept foreign ( and I later did so myself only when my arm was twisted ). When I was young enough to need someone to watch me for a day or whatever ( the early SF + Michigan years mostly ), it was always adult friends of my parents. Consequently I grew up rather more comfortable with adults than I gather was the norm for adolescents.

  • Tamerlane
35

My sisters and I were always responsible for getting ourselves to school and back home again. I don’t know what they did before I went to school but from the time I was 5, I walked to school with my sisters (they would have been 7 and 8).
My mom left for college while we were getting ready for school. She’d get home from work around 6:30 or 7:00 at night.
I had as much freedom as I wanted. My friends could come over or I could go to the Girls Club (as long as I told my mom first). I could make whatever I wanted for dinner.
I became a certified babysitter when I was 11. I ws responsible for a 5 year old after I became a babysitter.

My sisters and I didn’t get along very well but we were smart enought to not do anything that would ruin our latchkey time. We loved the independence and we never let our mom down.

It totally depends on the kids though. When I have children, they will NOT be the kind of kid who needs constant suervision. My kids will be taught from an early age to take care of themselves as I will not always be there to take care of them.

36

Occasional latchkey kid but I’d be hard pressed to tell you what age I was.

I liked it. I could watch TV and talk on the phone with my friends and it’s not like I was ever left alone for a huge period of time.

I lived in an ultra small, safe town where nothing ever happened, though. I was riding my bike/walking the 2-3 blocks to school by myself in 1st grade.

Given where I live now, I probably wouldn’t let my daughter do the same things. Plus I think it’s important for a parent to be there when the kid gets home from school if it’s possible.

In general I think it depends on where you live and how mature your kid is. I would rather leave a 12 year old at home alone than a 16 year old, though.

37

Oh, and when I was 10 years old I supervised my 7 year old sister and 4 year old brother on a plane trip from Lexington KY to Jacksonville Florida while my parents went vacationing in Virginia. Nowadays that would probably be illegal, though I guess my mother must have instructed the flight attendants to look after us. I can’t even remember how we found our gate at the Atlanta airport, which is confusing even to adults.

Ah, well. By the time I was a latchkey kid at age 17 I knew how to manage the young 'uns by having them watch MTV all day long.