I was thinking about…Latchkey Kids
By Andy Lee
As a Gen X kid growing up in the 70s and 80s, I lived the quintessential latchkey experience. Like millions of my generational peers across America, I headed home after school each day to an empty house and navigated the hours until a parent returned from work. Ours became a pioneering stretch of true independence paired with adult-sized responsibility before reaching adolescence.
My sisters and I shouldered tasks our stay-at-home parent predecessors never faced at their age – choosing after school snacks judiciously so we didn’t spoil dinner, safely preparing those snacks ourselves, monitoring play to avoid household damage or injuries that might jeopardize fragile dual incomes. The threat of accidents loomed large with no grownup supervision or help accessible. We obeyed strict rules around friends, phone usage, doors, dangerous spots, and off-limit spaces to mitigate risk, knowing one reckless mistake could upend our family’s world irreversibly.
Independence filled our latchkey hours. We created games, adventures and secret worlds fueled purely by imagination, not electronics. We grew adept at self-discipline completing schoolwork with no one checking it (sometimes). Our friends shared similar latchkey lifestyles.
I recognize now the mixed blessing. Our extreme freedom came at the cost of absent security – no snacks prepped or hands wiped, no arbitration for squabbles, no adult within earshot had crisis hit. Yet we relished ruling our small after-school kingdom each day. We built those long-term life skills around responsibility and resilience. My generation of latchkey kids illuminated a social shift toward full American workforce participation. Our shoulders bore the weight of that transformation. But in adapting, we Gen Xers gained self-sufficiency unusually early. We remain proud alumni of that great, unsupervised era now deemed too risky for modern kids. Yet it toughened us markedly for whatever adulthood served up next.
Just like in those latchkey days, I continue embracing independence, responsibility and resilient resourcefulness as I explore life. Stay curious, but remember your key!
P.S. Growing up in rural Oklahoma, while I was a latchkey kid after school, I don’t remember needing my own house key. Our front door simply stood unlocked. The small town had such a prevailing sense of safety that many families didn’t bother locking up routinely.
I was thinking about... 