Latchkey kids - were you ever one?

Seems girls did all the work and no help from their brothers .My husbands mom was like that didn’t teach her sons anything about helping in the house (should have as wives go out to work and then come home to start again )

My mother worked and I let myself into the house and was at home on my own in the holidays. I learned to cook very early and was independent and happy to be so. When I had a bike for my tenth birthday I cycled miles around on my own. My husband says he was the same with his bicycle and we agree we lived during a happy and free time.

What’s even more important was than no one stopped us reading or learning anything so we acquired the ability to think for ourselves, to evaluate information sources and to challenge accepted dogma.

We feel sorry for the poor helicoptered present generation with their heads filled with Wokey propaganda.

nanna8

My mum wouldn’t give me a key so I had to wait in the garden shed in the cold until she got home - usually an hour or so. Eventually I did get one but not until I was about 14. Hard times, kids don’t know they’re born these days. I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that to my children.

My mum wouldn't give me a key eirher Nanna8. I had to wait in the porch where there was a little fold up stool I could use to sit and wait until she arrived home.

I was born in the early 50's When I was three my mother decided it was ok to go back to work

So then I was 'dumped' on various complete strangers on the days she worked.

At 5 she took me to school. After that first day I went on my own (across two main roads) and got home by getting in the unlocked kitchen door. Later I had a key on a string round my neck, that was once I could reach the keyhole.

When winter came I had to light the gas 'poker' with matches to get the coal fire started. In the summer holidays she would open a tin of baked beans for me to heat up. We always had a cat or two, and they were my company, I still regard them as my best friends.

Sadly I remember letting myself in with neck key age 7, alone in the house - being cold, so put up the shovel and newspaper to re-ignite the fire (as I'd seen parents do), but newspaper set alight - so did my hand trying to take it to kitchen sink. Then terrified tears alone with hand in sink in cold water, waiting to be punished when they got home. As I was. About 1969. Hand/arm was bandaged for months.

My mum was a stay at home mum for some of the time but would quite often go off and get a part time job which would mean us letting ourselves in after school. The key was always left hidden in the shed. We weren't on our own for long & we had good neighbours we could go to if there was a problem but we were fine. I quite liked it, I used to make a cup of tea for my mum ready for her coming home from work, using a kettle on the stove, lighting it with matches!
We also occasionally sat in the car while my mum and dad went in the pub for a drink, kids just weren’t allowed inside in those days. My dad used to bring a bottle of Coca Cola or sometimes orange or lime Corona & a bag of crisps or peanuts out to us. If there was a pub garden & the weather was nice we’d all sit outside. I used to love it either way.
My mum was definitely a latch key kid, her dad was away at war and her mum worked all hours on a local farm. Elderly neighbours looked out for the kids, just how it was in those times. I think we were probably all much more independent and very capable of fending for ourselves back then. I wouldn’t have dreamt of allowing my DC or now my GC to do the same though.

Yes, and main winter job was making fire. Sometimes chopping sticks with small hatchet, firefighters deemed too expensive so screwed up newspaper. Pinched dads oil can if lightning a problem. Drawing fire with sheet of newspaper which very often caught fire as I was often day dreaming. I’d like to say happy days ? Seemed entirely normal for a primary school pupil!! yikes

I wasn't, but some of my friends were. My mum worked full time but my GPs lived with us and my GM collected me from Infants/Junior school each day. My GF always had a sandwich & milk ready for me when I got home. Mum got in about 6pm and cooked dinner for us all.

I remember a boy in infants school. He had his door key on a long ribbon around his neck. His mother left the house with him each morning and told him to go home after school, help himself to bread & butter, and wait for her to get home. Our teacher discovered he just sat on the doorstep every day because he couldn't reach the lock to open the door! He was only five. He told the teacher his Mum said it wasn't her fault if he was small for his age.

At Junior and Secondary school lots of kids went home to empty houses. It was just the way things were then, late 50s/early 60s. Most were expected to do something towards the evening meal or look after younger siblings.

Just wondering: if your mum worked part-time, so was home after school, what happened in the holidays?

For me, it meant looking after four younger siblings from 8am - 3.30pm, five days a week from when I was about twelve.

Not a latch key kid because my Mum was frightened that my Dad would take us away again but we had to hang about outside where she worked in all weathers. In the summer it was ok but in the winter it was dark, cold and usually wet. We hated it as there was no shelter. When I was 7 she decided that we needed to got to Boarding School so things changed then. However, in the school holidays, she used to leave us at home and then we had to do all the chores and cook dinner from about 11 onwards.

Your stories are all very interesting to me. I grew up in the USin the 1960’s, when most mothers didn’t work outside the home. All the other mothers were home but ours worked. She was really involved in her job and too exhausted, I suppose, to have much involvement with us. We didn’t get into any trouble, but our friends’ mothers were very disapproving. I wished I had a mother to take me to after school lessons and come to the school on parents days.

i was sometimes, depending if i was staying with my mum or gran, i had to get a 1 hour bus home to mums, i would start the coal fire, sort out any prep for tea and take in the washing from back court, when i got home my younger brother and sis was already there but a bit young to do much. my mum left at 4.30pm so i made tea every night. my school was in the city centre so if i was staying with gran it was only a 10 min journey and a chance to do homework. the joys of being the eldest in the family.

I wasn't, but one of my junior school friends was. Her mother was dead, and her father was at work, obviously. sometimes I would go home with her, I still remember how cold and cheerless the house was, she would make us some bread and jam to eat, I don't know if her dad cooked when he got home.I wasn't really supposed to hang out with her, at 10 years old she already had a bad name for going into the churchyard with boys. She was actually the one who told me the first (muddled) facts of life. We went our separate ways after junior schoool, but I often wonder what happened to her.

Yes, from the age of about 9 my mum worked as a receptionist. All my older brothers were at the boys grammar schools and stayed for school lunch. This was still the days when school lunch breaks began at 12 noon and lasted till 1.30pm! So I walked home, cleaned and lit the Baxi fire, hoovered round and set the table, then mum would appear with hot pies or similar for lunch, bit of telly then time for us both to hop it, her on the bus and me back to school.

I enjoyed being on my own and quite enjoyed having my mum to myself. It was an overcrowded house when they all got back after school. I was quite proud to have my own key but I also knew that if I leaned on the back door hard enough, it popped open.

Times were different and clearly nowdays there would be all sorts of bad people around - this was the middle of Salford, Manchester. But it was a pre-drugs, low crime era and the arrangement was fine for me.

Yes i was a latch key kid in the late fifties early sixties at about 12 my mam was working and my father was on shift work and then spent a while in hospital when i got home it was expected that you would help out i and my older sister would peel potatoes cut the veg and put it on the stove as well as lighting the fire, for us it was normal in fact i was a latch key kid until my 21st.birthday and was officially an adult.

Yes, I was...from age 7 onwards, and from 9 was expected to prepare the evening meal for 2 adults and my 3 siblings. Growing up was rough but I only recognised it wasn't normal when my Mum died 2.5 years ago and stories came out...Not a golden childhood for any of us 3 sisters, but fabulous for my brother...or ex-brother.

So sorry. Can't have been easy for any if you.

My dad died when I was 11 and from then on looked after my then 6 year old sister after school and all the school holidays. Mum went off the rails somewhat. Nowadays, we'd have been in care.

I was fortunate and never was. Mum went back to work part time in my last year at primary school as she finally relented and allowed me to stay for school dinners but was always there when I came home. I'm not sure I appreciated it sufficiently at the time.

Yes I was and I hated it. It was cold and dark in the winter and I was supposed to lay and light the fire, do the veg and have everything ready for supper. Schoolwork didn’t seem to matter to anyone! So homework wasn’t a priority. I got 5 O levels and wonder how well I might have done if I’d had more encouragement. Stayed at home for my 3 and now help with grandchild care.

My mother was never at home after school, I let myself in and in the winter the house was very cold( no central heating then)
I hated it. I was not allowed to light fire or gas cooker. I swore that I would be home for my three and made sure any part time job I had was only in the mornings.

Partly because my mother was ill with cancer and drank heavily to block out the pain. So I would be ‘alone' in my room. I was able 7yrs old I think.

No my dad didn’t want mum to work even though money was tight. I don’t know how I’d feel about being a latchkey kid. I didn’t have to do any jobs either which in retrospect I wish I had.

I was a latch key kid from the age of ten.Would never let any child of mine allow what my parents allowed but then how times have changed .Not for the better unfortunately.

I was one in the 1970’s at primary school, 8-10 years old. My parents both worked in another town so there was nobody at home My mother set out a tray with snacks for me and all I had to do was homework and watch TV or play in the garden. I dont think my mother was happy about the situation but felt she had no choice! No after school clubs in those days and I had no aunts or uncles as both parents were only children (as I was).