[HN Gopher] The truth about latchkey kids
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The truth about latchkey kids
Author : paulpauper
Score : 26 points
Date : 2024-11-06 19:29 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nevermindgenx.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nevermindgenx.substack.com)
| cafard wrote:
| >> And this was accompanied by skyrocketing divorce rates:
| married couples with children made up 40 per cent of households
| in 1970, but only a quarter in 1990.
|
| The proportion of households with children would be interesting
| to know: the married couples with children could have diminished
| in proportion because boomers had aged out of living with their
| parents and had set up their own households without children
| (yet).
| yapyap wrote:
| Was being a latchkey kid seen as a good thing generally? I see
| this article talk about "but there is a dark side" of being a
| latchkey kid but that doesn't seem that surprising to me tbh,
| absent parental figures never seem to be a good thing.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Was being a latchkey kid seen as a good thing generally?
|
| Only by the people who fondly describe their childhood that
| way. The term itself is very indicative of how the person feels
| about it.
| millzlane wrote:
| It depends. In elementary school my younger brother and I took
| a public transit bus to school. It was out of necessity or my
| mother wouldn't have been able to work two jobs without us
| being latch key kids. We knew how to iron our clothes, cook
| breakfast on a stove and use a fry daddy for chicken nuggets
| and fries. Often times we were only latchkey kids in the
| morning and after school would walk to our aunts or grandmoms
| and wait for mom after work.
|
| We were largely unsupervised in Baltimore. Was it a good thing
| that we were autonomous and had the freedom to make mistakes
| without a guarding there to ensure they were responsible for
| our mistake..? Maybe. But I don't think any bad came from being
| a latchkey kid. IMO, SHTF in a kid's teenage years. I think
| it's way more important to be supervised in the pre-teen/teen
| years than a youner years. Simply because teenagers get into
| way more mischief that young kids.
| bluGill wrote:
| It was seen as a thing that was. Some of my peers (in first
| grade!) got home to a parent, some had a key and got home to an
| empty house. The question wasn't was someone home when they got
| off school, but did the parents get home and create a great
| family life for the rest of the night.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >Was being a latchkey kid seen as a good thing generally?
|
| I think it's mostly seen as an unfortunately economic
| necessity, but some of those kids grew up and now look back
| upon that time favorably because the parental neglect let them
| develop a sense of independence.
| ianbutler wrote:
| A few hours of alone time per day is not neglect, that's a
| ridiculous view. If you meant general neglect even when the
| parents were home than sure I can see it, but even TFA points
| out when adjusted for other factors a few hours of alone time
| has no negative effect.
| superfrank wrote:
| > because the parental neglect let them develop a sense of
| independence.
|
| Parental neglect is an incredibly strong (and I'd argue
| biased) word to use here if we're using the articles
| definition of a latch key kid.
|
| The article says "3.5 million latchkey kids in the U.S., or
| seven per cent of those between the ages of 5 and 13".
|
| There's a massive difference between a 5 year old being home
| alone for a few hours each day and a teenager being home
| alone for a few hours. Even more so if, like it says in the
| article, there's support systems in place (like a neighbor
| that can be contacted in case of an emergency) and an
| established pattern (the kid isn't just unexpectedly home
| alone).
|
| An 8 year old unexpectedly left home alone for an unknown
| amount of time without any support system could absolutely be
| called neglect (although it makes a great Christmas movie),
| but a 16 year old in an empty house from 2:30-5 every day
| with a full fridge and friendly neighbors next door is
| completely reasonable and (IMO) a healthy way to let them
| develop independence.
| margalabargala wrote:
| It's a term used by this very article, opening the second
| paragraph.
|
| > This is a by-now standard Gen X coping mechanism:
| treating childhood neglect - in this case, taking care of
| ourselves after school - as a matter of significant pride,
| part of our generational identity.
| superfrank wrote:
| That's fair. I missed that when I read it.
|
| I still stand by my point, but now it should be more
| directed at the author of the article and not the comment
| I replied to
| paulpauper wrote:
| If the parents are otherwise supportive it does not seem like
| that bad of a thing
| fragmede wrote:
| The way I remember it, it was used pejoratively, and that kids
| who were, were somehow deprived, and wouldn't grow up
| "correctly", until the generation of kids that described grew
| up, and it turns out they grew up just fine so it stopped being
| a pejorative.
|
| It was a pejorative against kids not growing up in a
| traditional family, with a breadwinner father, and a stay-at-
| home homemaker mother, as that was the only family arrangement
| that was allowed at that time, and any deviation was seen as
| deviant.
| technothrasher wrote:
| That's how I remember it as well. There were lots of reports
| in the 80's about the crisis of the latchkey kid, but we all
| just saw it as neither good nor bad, just... normal. I went
| to an expensive private prep high school, and most of the
| kid's parents were both working professionals. There were
| definitely kids who had broken homes, and kids who had well
| adjusted family lives, but pretty much everybody was going
| home at the end of the school day to an empty house for at
| least a few hours.
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> Was being a latchkey kid seen as a good thing generally?
|
| Yes.
|
| When I was 9 or 10 my neighbors and I would grab the $5 our
| parents left behind for us. We'd walk down to the local
| hockey/skating rink. Usually pretty early around 8-9am before
| the warming house opened. We'd skate until noon when the
| warming house guy closed it and went home for lunch. Three or
| four of us would then walk to the local BK, eat lunch and hang
| out until 1pm. We'd then go back and skate until dusk. We'd go
| home around 6-7 and when we got home our parents would be home,
| and dinner would be ready where we'd go through each family
| member and talk about their day.
|
| All through primary school this was the norm. My dad worked at
| a high tech company was gone usually from 7am sometimes until 7
| or 8pm. My mom was taking college courses during the day and
| sometimes at night to become an attorney. My sister and brother
| were fine being on our own. The one constant was my mom or dad
| would get home, change their clothes and start dinner. If both
| parents were home, I'd go play catch with Dad while Mom made
| dinner.
|
| We never felt neglected since many of the neighbors were in the
| same situation so we more often than not would hang out at
| their house, or get together in the street and play many kinds
| of sports or if the girls were there, we would play games like
| red light green light, tag, hide and go seek, kick the can, etc
| until we all got called home for dinner.
|
| It was more or less just being independent for a while until
| your parents got home and you had dinner and then you'd do your
| homework before going to practice or your games. My mom and dad
| made it a point to be at every game they could. They made sure
| we were carpooling other kids who's parents were gone or
| couldn't drive them for whatever reason.
|
| I think there is a huge difference saying parents in this era
| were neglectful. They weren't, they just had kids who were
| brought up well enough to stay out of trouble, take of
| ourselves and our neighbors until our parents would be
| available again. There were plenty of times where parents of
| one household would essentially be watching over three or four
| different families kids while they were out. So it was never
| neglectful, I like to think it just a community watching out
| for each other and working together to allow families the time
| and energy to do what they needed to do to keep their kids
| feed, clothed and a roof over their head. Nowadays you just
| hear too many excuses. Back then? There were none, you just did
| what you had to in order to get by and everybody in my
| neighborhood chipped in any way they could.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| It's typical survivor bias bullshit. Those who went through it
| and happened to turn out relatively OK have no problem wearing
| it as a badge of pride. Same thing with people whose parents
| dished out corporal punishment.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| Umm, where is the control group of latchkey kids who did not grow
| up in dysfunctional families?
|
| My parents were self-employed, but during the fall, often busy at
| the other place (a fishing camp -- this one:
| http://matt.wandel.ca/amogla/amogla.html ) at the time we came
| home from school. Dinner was ready, warmed up in the oven (no
| microwaves then, at least in our household, but that's why ovens
| had/have timers!) and we ate and played and did all the usual
| stuff (homework, sigh) without parental supervision.
|
| That's not neglect and we grew up fine, and yes, with additional
| sense of responsibility. For example, one day, the newly acquired
| stick-shift 1985 Toyota Van sat there, the parents having gone to
| the camp in the truck. We all piled in there, and I, the only one
| at the time old enough to have a driver's licence but no stick-
| shift experience worth mentioning, kind of figured it out as I
| went, and drove everyone to the camp. We survived, the van did
| too, parents were fine with it. We were trusted to do this kind
| of thing on our own judgement, rather than parental
| micromanagement. That's the difference.
| bluGill wrote:
| The article mentions that when you control for such things
| latchkey do about as well as their peers overall. There are a
| few things they are worse on (girls are more likely to shoplift
| for example), but overall there isn't much difference in
| outcomes when you control for other factors. Parents leave
| their kids home alone for a short time after school before they
| get off work and home - and then have a great family life the
| rest of the night result in kids that do as well later in life
| as parents that are there after school. Parents that neglect
| their kids can come home before the kids and still neglect
| their kids.
|
| Then the article veers into a rant about divorce that from what
| I can tell isn't as supported by studies.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Most dysfunctional families don't realize how dis-functional
| they are, it's just the norm for them, possibly over several
| generations. I grew up in a multi-generational house with
| grandparents and gruncles. There's always someone at home. Yet,
| one year in primary school it took my mom months until she
| figure that I had to go to detention every Friday because I
| didn't do my homework during the week. Took me 42 years to
| figure that was because of my ADHD...
|
| A good balance is needed when raising children, give them the
| safety to confide in you, the trust that they can rely on your
| support and the encouragement to take on the world. Half the
| time parents and their child spend together over the child's
| lifetime is in the first 12 years. That's not a lot of time to
| raise a child and having my daughter for nine years now I can
| only recommend to spend much more time with them when they are
| little.
|
| PS: I love you brother's YT channel
| ianbutler wrote:
| Yeah I was a latchkey kid, my parents have been married 30 years
| now, made > 350k/yr as a family in the early aughts. Always knew
| I had food, knew my parents would be home at 6 and I had my dogs
| for company. Parents always heaped love, and were proud of my
| direction in life. 2.5 hours of alone time was great for
| developing my sense of personal independence and responsibility.
| Then in high school with both football and wrestling it became a
| non issue (if it ever was, certainly wasn't for me)
|
| I grew up better than fine relative to many of my peers, and any
| issues I have left over were definitely more from other children.
|
| Much like the article suspects, I believe it comes down to other
| issues like divorce and general neglect even after the parents
| are home not a few hours of alone time every day.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| The truth about latchkey kids is that they're not a monolith;
| Shocking, I know, especially in such a small world of 8 billion
| people.
| SirFatty wrote:
| I remember a story about a group of latchkey, upper-class
| neighborhood kids in the 12-13 yo range that became sexually
| active, mimicking the Playboy channel activities and getting STDs
| in the process. Colorado in the 1990s I think? Googling for that
| is a landmine as you could imagine.
| enteeentee wrote:
| Being a latchkey kid encompasses a ridiculously large group of
| people.
|
| Me being a middle class kid of a divorced mother who finishes
| work an hour or so after I finish school in the UK fits.
|
| Plenty of other people with family in worse economic positions
| fit the definition too. Not turning up till late evening, later
| shifts.
|
| Makes no sense to lump them all together.
| frmersdog wrote:
| The divorce (and the run-up to it) was far more devastating than
| the mere fact of coming home to an empty house, starting in
| middle school c. 2002. I notice that there's no accounting for
| forced after-school program attendance (my reality up until about
| 3rd grade). Nor the time my dad was deployed and my mom doing
| deployed wife things. What did the damage wasn't the physical
| lack of presence, but the emotional abandonment. Recognition of
| my needs - a few HGH jabs so that I wouldn't be the shortest kid
| in my class anymore, a car so that I could socialize like a
| normal person with my classmates at the school I was bussed to -
| would have gone a lot farther than them being all up in my
| business constantly (which they mercifully were not, if only
| because they didn't know how to check my browser's history).
| tiffanyh wrote:
| TIL "latchkey kid" latchkey kid is a child who is
| left home alone or unsupervised for a significant portion of the
| day, typically after school, because their parents are away at
| work.
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