Posted on 03/15/2025 12:11:33 PM PDT by DallasBiff
Coming home to an empty house, managing homework without reminders, and making your own snacks wasn’t just part of the routine—it was the training ground for life. Boomer latchkey kids didn’t have helicopter parents hovering over every decision, which meant they developed character traits that today’s hyper-scheduled kids might never experience. Independence wasn’t a choice; it was the default setting.
While some might call it “neglect,” those solo afternoons shaped resilient, resourceful adults with a unique blend of grit, adaptability, and unshakable confidence.
(Excerpt) Read more at retirely.co ...
For me it might be rice or oatmeal left on the stove from breakfast, for some reason food could be left out all day and we could eat it, that was before America changed in the 70s.
I wasnt latchkey because the house was seldom locked even with no adults.
An hour plus of farm chores before the school bus and the same or more EVRY evening.More on weekends.
Was cooking hamburgers and heating beans on the stove by age 8 or9,no popcorn and no microwave .Baked MY favorite cakes and cookies myself a year or two later.Burnt the pudding though.
No close neighbors with kids.And working parents who had little interest in anything else.
Trying to put people in category by age is never going to be wholly correct.
NuTone always had the coolest things. We put one of their spiffy intercom / music / radio systems in a house we built. Loved that thing.
My friend’s father, for instance, had a big exec position in NYC, which was typical. Yale grad. Old money westchester. 9 kids. She had six brothers. There were no potato chips in that house. There was no chocolate. White toast with sugar. Than off to the pond with our skates
Mostly you just made yourself a half a sandwich, grabbed an apple or got a hard boiled egg out of the refrigerator. Maybe with a glass of milk. You were just getting a snack to tide you over, not having a five fork dinner.
Oh, and you washed dishes and wiped up any spills. Crumbs attract ants you know!
That is what we have assumed. My father beat the ever-loving hell out of my older brother, once. I think she became terrified of him, and hated him for that beating.
That wasn’t Boomer; its pure Gen-X.
Sometimes I went home and sometimes I hung out with friends.
When I came home I waited for my Mom to get home from her job in a factory that tempered glass for appliances.
I didn’t mind it, much.
I’d give up an awful lot to talk with her again. I’m looking forward to the celestial reunion.
Same but mid-60s.
Thanks for the info. I didn't realize they manufactured anything other than kitchen products.
That eating definitely sounds like the 60s and early 70s.
That reminds me of as I got older and my mother remarried, food got much better and we could make tuna sandwiches, there was usually milk, always iced tea, frequently fruit, eggs for breakfast, leftovers, good times.
Didn’t you guys play with each other outside and ride bikes, hunt for snapping turtles and shoot BB guns and throw rocks and play baseball and football with each other and have rock fights, play marbles and trade baseball cards and coins out of your coin collections and climb trees and swim wherever there was water, play army?
Growing up in a city, we have a river running along active as well as derelict/abandoned factories and warehouses. The area was wooded and for us it was “the wilderness” even though you could still hear traffic.
We had our bikes as well as Basketball hoops at the school yard. We would play games like stickball and “four square” in the street.
We’d also go exploring the ruins of the abandoned structures. Our parents didn’t particularly care what we did; but they still would have come down on us like a ton of bricks if we were caught somewhere we shouldn’t be and they got called in by the police.
True. Mom nurse...Dad military. Both working.
I didn't know there was anything you could do with pineapple except make a upside down cake for very special occations.
“””” a river running along active as well as derelict/abandoned factories and warehouses. The area was wooded and for us it was “the wilderness” even though you could still hear traffic.””””
Riches beyond belief, a true boy heaven, you had everything.
That’s hard.
My brother was one of the last boomers born and he is a despicable Marxist.
My brother was born in the mid-to-late 50s. He’s a card-carrying member of the American Communist Party.
I have two sisters born earlier and two sisters born at the end of the Boomer line. All of them lean far-left. I’m the only Gen-Xer. As the Christian, Conservative-leaning-Libertarian and Military Veteran, I’m the Black-Sheep.
I learned to love classical music from the soundtracks of 1930’s cartoons shown on 1950’s television.
Exactly.
And the neighbors knew who you were. So if you did something you shouldn’t your parents would hear about it.
“Still remember it being lonely.”
Not with 4 younger brothers it wasn’t.
L
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