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Latchkey child

Posted by Smokey Stover on May 12, 2009 at 21:16

In Reply to: Latchkey child posted by ESC on May 10, 2009 at 12:43:

: : : : : : : What is the meaning of 'a latchkey kid' and where does it originate?

: : : : : : It is a name given to children whose parents are away from the family home working, so they are given their own key to let themselves into the house or whatever. Basically, they are children who are left to fend for themselves while their parents work.

: : : : : : Whatever the individual circumstances, it is not generally a term of approbation.

: : : : : : DFG

: : : : : One reference has "latchkey kid" in a section devoted to Generation X (new demographic term, 1980s, taken from a 1964 book by the same name, Charles Hamblett and Jane Deverson) but says "latchkey child" dates back to 1944. "Speaking Freely: A Guided Tour of American English from Plymouth Rock to Silicon Valley" by Stuart Berg Flexner and Anne H. Soukhanov (Oxford University Press, New York, 1997).

: : : : The phrase "fend for themselves" is a little tendentious. ESC mentions the date 1944. In that year women were working for the war effort, which most people regard as having had a great liberating effect on women. At that time a much larger share of the population than today lived in rural areas and small towns. When schools let out around 3 p.m., the kids went home, often to an empty house or one containing only their siblings. Although today that's considered by some as a horror, in 1944 it was not considered risky. Children got their supper on time, and two or three hours of being allowed to play outside, or read and pursue hobbies inside, was not considered child abuse, either by adults or by the children.

: : : : I was a latchkey child, although no one ever told me so. I had no latchkey, however, as our house was never locked. Our town had almost no crime. I can recall one hit and run and one case of animal abuse, but otherwise no felonies. (The animal abuser was a Dutch farmer starving both his cows and himself, out of pure stinginess. My second-grade teacher made a sensation by chasing her mother around with a butcher knife when her mom revealed that she was pregnant. But there were no charges.) We didn't actually have a police force, which was not, and still is not, a rare condition for a hick town. (The state troopers or the sheriff could be called in if there were any felonies.)
: : : : SS

: : : When I was around 11, my mother went back to teaching after time off taking care of her parents, etc. And I was GLAD she was working. She was a lot happier. Technically I was a latchkey kid but I wasn't alone. There was usually a small army of cousins hanging around. Oh, there was one incident in the summer when my parents were gone. My grandmother and I woke up to find a strange man sitting in the living room. The night before, he and a couple of other men had been parked up a dirt road on White Oak Mountain, drinking. Party under the stars. An argument and gunfire ensued. He was the last man standing. He sobered up and walked to our house. We fed him breakfast. Then a West Virginia trooper came by to ask if we'd seen any strangers around. A neighbor had found the bodies and called the police. Our visitor said, "You're looking for me." He went peaceably.

: :
: : SS, you say:

: : "The phrase "fend for themselves" is a little tendentious."

: : It wasn't meant to be. I was intending to be neutral: in many ways, I think 'fending for themselves' to a degree, is good for children. I think we are in danger of raising a generation that is wildly over-protected.

: : DFG

: FREE-RANGE KIDS/THE TOO PRECIOUS CHILD -- Since this is Mother's Day in the U.S. and I'm offering up a couple of phrases, I hope this long-winded post will be forgiven. There's a new book out: Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry by Lenore Skenazy. And there's an e-mail going around about how children survived back in the day with no seatbelts, modern medicine, etc. The harsh reality is, many children did not survive. My parents had four children and only two surv ived childhood. And regards my own parenting, no free range for me. I was the kind of mom who had a death grip on them in stores, etc. ("Mommy, you're making my arm sweaty.") As a stay-at-home mom until they were in second grade (twins), I subscribed to the Roseanne school of parenting, "As a housewife, I feel that if the kids are still alive when my husband gets home from work, then hey, I've done my job." Back to phrases, I believe the free-range child "movement" is a reaction to the "too precious child" syndrome -- The Too Precious Child by Lynn H. Williams. To state the obvious, there's got to be a balance between "free-range" and "too precious."
..........
As a former "fre-range" child I may sound as though I were unaware that today's realities are not the same as yesterday's. Nonetheless, I sort of chuckled at ESC's mention of her "death-grip on [her children] in stores." Before I was six years old my mother sometimes sent me to the store downtown (about a block and a half) to get one or two items she forgot to get earlier and needed. The grocer didn't seem to think twice about my buying groceries by myself. This continued as long as my childhood did, although we moved and therefore changed stores. If I needed, say, rubbers (the kind you wear over your shoes), I was expected to go the dry-goods store by myself.

But mechanical safety features, like seat-belts, air-bags, and rear car doors hinged at the front, I whole-heartedly applaud. A lot of public safety features seem aimed at avoiding lawsuits. Sometimes you can't get near the overlook for fear (on the part of the "authorities) that you'll fall over, or someone will push you. It wasn't too long ago that you could park your car and wade right into the Niagara River near the Falls (as I once did). Now you can't get near the river in what is now a highly organized State Park. But the proliferation of lawsuits has made these annoyances necesssary. [sigh!]
SS

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