We Were the Kids with Keys - Latchkey Kids
Developing Autonomy
DEVELOPING PEOPLE
We Were the Kids with Keys
Those of us born between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s are sometimes called latchkey kids: children who came home from school with a house key hanging around their neck or tucked inside a backpack.
We walked into an empty house.
We warmed up food, did our homework, watched television, went outside to play, and learned to solve small problems before our parents came home from work.
It was not necessarily neglect. In many cases, it was simply the reality of families in which the adults worked and there were few options for after-school care.
That experience taught us independence, responsibility, and a certain ability to manage on our own.
But it may also have taught us something less visible: not to ask for help, not to worry anyone, and to believe that needing others was a weakness.
Perhaps that is why many people from our generation value autonomy so deeply, distrust excessive supervision, and prefer to find a solution before raising their hand.
I do not think our childhood was better or worse.
It was different.
And perhaps part of who we are today began on that afternoon when we opened the front door by ourselves for the first time.