Gen X: The Era of the "Latchkey Kid"

By today's standards, childcare in the 70s and 80s would have gotten our parents arrested. I watch a lot of "body cam" police videos on YouTube (shut up it's fascinating) and I've seen a fair number of parents put in handcuffs for child abandonment. This one woman went to visit another apartment in the same apartment complex while her 13 year old was in charge of the 9 year old. They were both asleep. Ummmm...yeah.

We lived in a not-so-safe little city called Waterbury, CT. Michael and I walked the ten minutes home from school every day, and I was the one who had the key, on a piece of string that I wore around my neck. Latchkey kids. There were a lot of us.

Until my parents got home I was responsible for taking care of my little brother. I would let us into the house, fix a snack for both of us, and then do a whole list of chores, often including starting dinner. I squeezed in doing my homework. I don’t remember exactly when this started, when my mom started working outside the home—maybe when I was in fifth grade? When we were really little she cut people's hair in the kitchen. Then at some point she stopped doing that and went to work at one of the retail stores she liked, Worth's. That's when I was in charge.

I guess it worked out to be about four hours between getting home from school and my parents' arrival, at which time all chores were to be inspected for completion. They didn't care about the homework.

One day this guy came to the door. I opened it a crack. He had red hair and mustache, young. He asked if my parents were home. I said no. He said “So you’re alone? Your parents leave you home alone all the time, do they?” Instinctively I said “No, my mom just went to the store, she’ll be back in five minutes.” And I closed and locked the door. I was calm but scared. He went away. But “five minutes" my ass, my parents were hours away from coming home. We could have been kidnapped or worse. I still get the willies whenever I see a ginger guy with a mustache.

Around 8th grade (1984) they found a woman's body on the train tracks behind our house. My mom immediately packed up our whole house, even the dishes, and we moved about a half hour away to Roxbury CT. It was much safer, being in the middle of the woods. More about that another day.

There are still lots of kids who come home to an empty house these days, but it's looked upon as a failure of our economy, not given a cute name and a graphic.∎