I grew up as a latchkey kid.
I was an only child, and my parents both worked. So in the second grade I was given a housekey to let myself in when I came home from school in the afternoon. I stayed by myself until my parents got home from work. In the summer I was at home all day. Mother did hire a sitter to look after me for awhile, but I ran her off, so my folks decided to let me try taking care of myself.
That was in Columbus, Miss. It worked there, so when we moved back to my birthplace, Pasadena, Calif., we continued the practice. It seemed normal to me by then. I assumed other kids were doing the same thing, and many probably were.
Looking back, I see that, like everyone’s experience growing up whatever it was, my experience as a latchkey kid formed much of my character, for better or for worse.
My mother worked in a sewing business and didn’t drive. I didn’t have the option of calling the office and asking my mom to leave work and run by McDonald’s to buy my lunch and bring it home. I learned to make my own lunch—tuna salad, heavy on the mayo, with Fritoes and a Coke that I walked to the corner store to buy for myself every day. I’m still bearing the evidence of those early food choices.
There was no one at home to set up “play dates” for me and remove me from any situations that became “emotionally uncomfortable.”
In Columbus it was easy to find someone to play with. I would walk down our street as if I had somewhere important to go. Sooner or later I would pass some kid sitting on her front steps with nothing to do.
She might call out, “Hey, you wanna go down to the ditch and throw rocks in the water?” I’d say, “Well, I was gonna do somethin’ else, but yeah, I’ll go.” If our play got loud enough, other kids heard us and wandered down to the ditch until we had a crowd. If a situation got “emotionally uncomfortable,” we got into a fight and settled it.
When we moved back to California, there weren’t many kids on our street, so I took up with the adult neighbors. A Mexican lady across the way taught me about the chinchillas she raised in her basement. She made us Mexican cookies, a sugar cookie with anise in it— a new taste for me, which we ate at her kitchen table while we talked about life. The lady next door taught me to play Monopoly, which encouraged my competitive spirit.
When there’s no one to organize your life for you, haul you around to events they’ve set up for you to participate in and extricate you from any uncomfortable situations, you learn to entertain yourself and depend on yourself.
I had time to read, watch old movies —which gave me a background of American and world history and other cultures—work on Girl Scout badges, and write. I was also responsible for washing the dishes and keeping the house straight, which is how I learned my few domestic skills.
Sometimes in the summer I cleaned up the house and entertained a friend for lunch, adding Hostess Sno-balls to my usual tuna sandwiches, since it was a special occasion.
On uneventful days, I wandered the neighborhood, taking up with stray dogs and trying coax them to come home with me. Sometimes they did.
As I got a little older, I learned to travel around town on the city bus line. By age 11, I could take myself window shopping, to the art museum and library, and to the dentist’s office when I had an appointment. I learned to deal with people, I learned directions and I learned to get myself out of any trouble I got into along the way, usually without involving the police.
One summer I signed up for swimming lessons at the Y. I rode the bus there every day, took my final test by jumping off the 12-ft. diving board into the deep end of the pool, got out alive, and dressed. No parents were there to tell me I did better than anyone else or give me a plastic trophy. I took my certificate and went home, proud of my own accomplishment.
I learned so much from those days of managing most of my own life.
I learned to be independent. I don’t have to travel in a mob. I don’t need someone with me to do things. I don’t seek advice except from God. I don’t call my friends and ask them what I should do. I don’t whine on Facebook.
I think things through before I take action and picture what the consequences will be. That comes from years of having to clean up my own messes so my parents wouldn’t find out.
I like people, but I don’t panic when I’m alone. Being alone is not the same thing as being lonely.
I can’t advocate rearing your child as a latchkey kid today. Life is different and more dangerous, and the crazies are out there.
But it’s a shame that modern life keeps our children from learning some of the things I absorbed when I thought I was just getting myself through another day in paradise.
