By default, all of the child characters I write about are latchkeys. Because the stories are supposed to be about THEM, not their parents. I got fed up of too many half-assed one-dimensional parents who exist only to show the kid has parents in media. And none of their parents are helicopters: they are extremely intelligent people who know their children can fend for themselves (working as superheroes, they have to, anyway).
The proper place for adults in child-centered literature is just in cameos and walk-ons, so that's how I do it.
In my schooldays I was like that, yes. School let out before my parents could get home from work most days, and my parents were more than trustworthy with me about my ability to get home on time and in one piece.
If you had two parents working, it was largely the norm. And, as I said, it was about trust between parent and child that nothing of severity would occur as much as possible. The advent of the technology of the 21st century has completely eroded that trust.
Gen X, Millennial and Gen Y parents seem to think of Orwell's "1984" and Huxley's "Brave New World" as instruction manuals for parenting- never mind Dr. Spock...
I wasn't a textbook definition of a latchkey kid, but I remember we had lots of autonomy back when I was growing up. I'd get home, and as long as I was done with homework, my friends would typically show up at the doorstep and ask if I could come out and play. And then we'd be playing all sorts of outdoor games in the neighborhood, including cops and robbers on nearby streets and houses, etc. We only had to be home by a certain time (typically for dinner). No cell phones or monitoring, etc.
But it looks like the Danish school system builds some "controlled independence" into the school planning. My son will be 10 next year, so he'll be starting in the so-called "club", which is a place where they go after school where they can do activities, etc. before it's time to go home. The kicker is that, unlike the first three years of school, they are not kept track of or chaperoned by school adults - they're in principle free to just go home. It's a nice way to nudge the more hesitant parents into letting go. I'm personally very happy for it, but a few mothers expressed concerns when they were told their kids wouldn't be closely watched from next school year on.
I like that sort of compromise, where you don't really get everything you want (EG, total independence vs total control). We need more innovative solutions like this as everything changes around us and trust continues to erode.
It's not just parent/child trust that has eroded, of course. The world is now much smaller and more crowded in a way, so all sorts of trust has gone the way of the dodo's doodoo.
When I was in 1st grade and my brother was in 5th grade, we were home after school for about forty minutes before my mom arrived. One day, my brother called her office a bajillion times to complain about me. She finally told him to write it down, and she'd read it when she got home... She kept the note. #3 on the list was: "She wants my money because I have some." 😂 Proud to say that my brother and I went on to have many after-school hours on our own without killing each other. And he never shared his money with me.
I got a calling card for my first Brazil trip, back when international cell phone service was prohibitively expensive (if it even worked at all). There's a story there.
But yeah, calling long distance from a payphone back then was quite the event!
Not a latchkey kid, but in 2008 we bought a house with a private road behind it, connecting all the houses in a triangle that wrapped around a tennis club (not a posh one). We thought it would be a great place for our daughter to play with the local kids. Except none of the other kids were allowed out on their own, and we were considered bad parents for allowing our 12 year old to go out unsupervised, when she was just yards from home.
I wasn't an after-school latchkey kid, because my parents worked different shifts (dad worked days, mom worked evenings). But, there was about 2 hours where their shifts overlapped and once I was about 9 years old, I was deemed responsible enough to not need a babysitter. This was right around the time that my much-older brother moved out.
I loved it - I was delighted to stay home alone! I felt very grown-up; and the only trouble I recall getting into in the early years of latchkey kid-ism was that I had always wanted to eat the Jello mix without adding water (it looked and tasted a lot like the Fun Dip candy they sold at the beach concession stand). So one of the first things I did as a latchkey kid was eat a bunch of lime Jello mix directly from the packet with a spoon. It turns out the human body is not designed to digest a large quantity of undissolved gelatin and sugar- it made me feel extremely sick, and I threw up. That was the day I learned the truth of the saying "when you're old enough to do that, you won't want to do it" - because you will realize it was a stupid thing to do!
Other than that, the only thing I didn't like about being a latchkey kid was that my parents often forgot to leave money for the paper boy when it was collection day. The "Two dollars!" subplot in "Better Off Dead" hit close to home for Gen X!
Dang, I never thought about how the kids were kinda put in that position by their parents (in "Better Off Dead", I mean).
I think I felt almost 100% empowered by this. By the time I was old enough to be home alone without my folks around, that was just about the best thing ever.
Cinnamon toast is sooooo good, I still make it once in awhile. I tried to make donuts once out of biscuit dough. Remember the pillsbury dough boy stuff packed in those cardboard tubes that pop open? My sister wasn't around for this one and I didn't know what to do with the leftover oil so I yeeted it out the back door and that screen still has an oil stain to this day
Oh yeah, those can-tubes would pop right open. I only baked those biscuits myself a few times, but I certainly understand the desire to transform them to donuts. I applaud your young Andrew ingenuity.
Now I'm craving cinnamon toast... (We had a special shaker--an empty colored sugar container from making Christmas cookies--that we kept filled with cinnamon sugar. When I went to college, my mom sent it with me. I still have it, but I should probably swap out the mixture, now that I'm thinking about it.)
Well the contents are maybe only 5-10 years old. Our consumption of cinnamon sugar slowed when the boys left for college, a process that started in 2019… 😆
Gen X turned into the helicopter parents of Gen Z. It was odd how that independence pendulum swung so hard the other way.
By default, all of the child characters I write about are latchkeys. Because the stories are supposed to be about THEM, not their parents. I got fed up of too many half-assed one-dimensional parents who exist only to show the kid has parents in media. And none of their parents are helicopters: they are extremely intelligent people who know their children can fend for themselves (working as superheroes, they have to, anyway).
The proper place for adults in child-centered literature is just in cameos and walk-ons, so that's how I do it.
Did you grow up like this too, David?
In my schooldays I was like that, yes. School let out before my parents could get home from work most days, and my parents were more than trustworthy with me about my ability to get home on time and in one piece.
It seemed pretty normal, right? I didn't think it was weird at all.
If you had two parents working, it was largely the norm. And, as I said, it was about trust between parent and child that nothing of severity would occur as much as possible. The advent of the technology of the 21st century has completely eroded that trust.
I agree. We used to say "I trust you." Nowadays, we say "I'm watching you."
That's kinda true everywhere.
Gen X, Millennial and Gen Y parents seem to think of Orwell's "1984" and Huxley's "Brave New World" as instruction manuals for parenting- never mind Dr. Spock...
I wasn't a textbook definition of a latchkey kid, but I remember we had lots of autonomy back when I was growing up. I'd get home, and as long as I was done with homework, my friends would typically show up at the doorstep and ask if I could come out and play. And then we'd be playing all sorts of outdoor games in the neighborhood, including cops and robbers on nearby streets and houses, etc. We only had to be home by a certain time (typically for dinner). No cell phones or monitoring, etc.
But it looks like the Danish school system builds some "controlled independence" into the school planning. My son will be 10 next year, so he'll be starting in the so-called "club", which is a place where they go after school where they can do activities, etc. before it's time to go home. The kicker is that, unlike the first three years of school, they are not kept track of or chaperoned by school adults - they're in principle free to just go home. It's a nice way to nudge the more hesitant parents into letting go. I'm personally very happy for it, but a few mothers expressed concerns when they were told their kids wouldn't be closely watched from next school year on.
I like that sort of compromise, where you don't really get everything you want (EG, total independence vs total control). We need more innovative solutions like this as everything changes around us and trust continues to erode.
It's not just parent/child trust that has eroded, of course. The world is now much smaller and more crowded in a way, so all sorts of trust has gone the way of the dodo's doodoo.
Incidentally, Dodo's Doodoo is also a pretty neat band name to add to your collection.
We have an awful lot of those cooking up!
When I was in 1st grade and my brother was in 5th grade, we were home after school for about forty minutes before my mom arrived. One day, my brother called her office a bajillion times to complain about me. She finally told him to write it down, and she'd read it when she got home... She kept the note. #3 on the list was: "She wants my money because I have some." 😂 Proud to say that my brother and I went on to have many after-school hours on our own without killing each other. And he never shared his money with me.
In fairness, that's an excellent reason to want someone's money.
Right?!? I thought so too, the reasoning being pretty solid in my six-year-old brain…
All I'm gonna say is that if you were using a calling card instead of $1.40 in change into the payphone, you were living quite the bougie life. lol
I got a calling card for my first Brazil trip, back when international cell phone service was prohibitively expensive (if it even worked at all). There's a story there.
But yeah, calling long distance from a payphone back then was quite the event!
Not a latchkey kid, but in 2008 we bought a house with a private road behind it, connecting all the houses in a triangle that wrapped around a tennis club (not a posh one). We thought it would be a great place for our daughter to play with the local kids. Except none of the other kids were allowed out on their own, and we were considered bad parents for allowing our 12 year old to go out unsupervised, when she was just yards from home.
Times really have changed, haven't they?
I wasn't an after-school latchkey kid, because my parents worked different shifts (dad worked days, mom worked evenings). But, there was about 2 hours where their shifts overlapped and once I was about 9 years old, I was deemed responsible enough to not need a babysitter. This was right around the time that my much-older brother moved out.
I loved it - I was delighted to stay home alone! I felt very grown-up; and the only trouble I recall getting into in the early years of latchkey kid-ism was that I had always wanted to eat the Jello mix without adding water (it looked and tasted a lot like the Fun Dip candy they sold at the beach concession stand). So one of the first things I did as a latchkey kid was eat a bunch of lime Jello mix directly from the packet with a spoon. It turns out the human body is not designed to digest a large quantity of undissolved gelatin and sugar- it made me feel extremely sick, and I threw up. That was the day I learned the truth of the saying "when you're old enough to do that, you won't want to do it" - because you will realize it was a stupid thing to do!
Other than that, the only thing I didn't like about being a latchkey kid was that my parents often forgot to leave money for the paper boy when it was collection day. The "Two dollars!" subplot in "Better Off Dead" hit close to home for Gen X!
Dang, I never thought about how the kids were kinda put in that position by their parents (in "Better Off Dead", I mean).
I think I felt almost 100% empowered by this. By the time I was old enough to be home alone without my folks around, that was just about the best thing ever.
I was, but I had my older sister and we wouldn't make grilled cheese, we would make cinnamon toast and it was delicious
Dang! Sounds awesome. I was an only child, so it was home ec or learning from friends.
One time, a friend and I nuked some candy and he burned himself really badly. Good times!
Cinnamon toast is sooooo good, I still make it once in awhile. I tried to make donuts once out of biscuit dough. Remember the pillsbury dough boy stuff packed in those cardboard tubes that pop open? My sister wasn't around for this one and I didn't know what to do with the leftover oil so I yeeted it out the back door and that screen still has an oil stain to this day
Oh yeah, those can-tubes would pop right open. I only baked those biscuits myself a few times, but I certainly understand the desire to transform them to donuts. I applaud your young Andrew ingenuity.
Now I'm craving cinnamon toast... (We had a special shaker--an empty colored sugar container from making Christmas cookies--that we kept filled with cinnamon sugar. When I went to college, my mom sent it with me. I still have it, but I should probably swap out the mixture, now that I'm thinking about it.)
Or... it's an opportunity, like when you find a 100 year old bottle of soda! I double dog dare you do eat it as is.
No, I really don't. That sounds like a bad idea! But it's funny to think about for a sec.
Well the contents are maybe only 5-10 years old. Our consumption of cinnamon sugar slowed when the boys left for college, a process that started in 2019… 😆
New rule: totally doesn't count unless it's at least 3 decades old.