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 ...
It is an X thing. A few Boomers maybe but we ended in ‘65. Some were latchkey kids but few.
Kids are ignorant because they don’t know much or have much experience. It is always that way.
I should have thought about late Boomers. My parents met on VE Day.
My father tried to fight in WWII, but was too young. He served in the Korean War as the port 5 inch gunnery officer on USS Iowa. On Sept 22, 1952, his gun crew wiped out the entire Winter ammunition stores of the communists at Won San Harbor.
I'm a boomer and quite cognizant of my father's contribution to the Korean and Viet Nam wars. Both of my parents endured rationing during WWII. You have a lot of misinformation about "boomers". It's a broad brush that does not fit reality.
Yuppers...
Boomer.
Latch Key.
Cabbage Patch.
I don’t see the issue
We all are Bizzare critters
With an overdue
“Best Buy Date”
Yes! We bought our first microwave in 1982ish and it seemed like it weighed 1/2 ton. It was a monster! It was around $300 then which was a bargain but a LOT of money at that time.
Abandoned buildings are fantastic, especially back then.
Sounds a bit like my growing up. It was a lot like Norman Rockwell’s America. My Boy Scout years were like a chapter out of a Disney movie back when they were good; Fred McMurray, Vera Miles and Kirk Russell in Follow Me Boys!
My best birthday ever was when I was five and got my very own Ithica .22 rifle. Hunting Quail with Dad and his war buddy started at daybreak in the frost or snow or rain. The route was along the river, across a cold marsh, up a mountain and another three miles back to the truck packing a Stevens .410 shotgun. About an 8 mile hike every Saturday morning all hunting season. I was a tired little fellow but cherish it. Sure didn’t hurt me!
We drove as soon as we could push the clutch and see over the wheel. My brother had two tickets before he had a license.
So many memories that would be thought unreal today. My Dad went out on his own at 13 hitchhiking from Kansas City to Portland to see an Aunt hoping for better than KC in the Depression. He made it back home to join the Navy and go to flight school at 17 trying to get in the war.
We seldom came home to fend for ourselves until we were over about 13 and had our first jobs and started paying taxes. We were mobile then with a motorcycle. Girls began work at 16 with a car.
I thought everyone grew up like I did and had great parents like mine. When I grew up and went to college and work I found very few did.
Whipple procedure
I’ll look that up.
Last year I overdosed on Calcium and 2 weeks in ICU almost punched my 70 yr old Ticket.
Your 32 months should be a Blessing .
My Doc has told me the same.
God Bless you FRiend!
Christmas was always interesting...
Till the Old Man got drunk !
Ha!
Yup. Sounds great. I wished still had those days. I wish more people WANTED those days.
I think the main difference is the most telling.
We used to LIVE life and look for the positive. Today we park in front of technology and seek the negative.
I posted earlier that I think the headline was awkward. They meant the children of Boomers (the latchkey kids) who learned Boomer traits from their parents.
The Boomers were the original two-working-parents generation, making their kids first latchkey children. That's why the references to technology (like microwave ovens) are one generation off. It wasn't the Boomers themselves who were latchkeys because their mothers stayed home when their fathers went back to work after the war.
Fortunately for the kids, they had their Boomer parents and their WWII grandparents as role models of individual independence.
It's too bad that the latchkeys didn't pass those traits onto their own children.
-PJ
Yep. We got a microwave in the 70s (we were early adopters) and there were no microwave TV dinners. I remember THE first thing was a reasonably decent mac and cheese somebody made for them. It took food companies at least until the 80s to start developing microwavable meals.
Also, we didn’t have TV remotes in the 70s....maybe the very late 70s. I distinctly remember arguing over whose turn it was to get up and change the channel...of the 4 channels we had in the 70s.
The writer has clearly mistaken Gen X for Boomers. We were the latch key kids. Gen X are not Boomers.
Don't be so certain of that, I'm a Boomer, born in 1950 and my parents both worked. My Mom worked as a secretary so my brother and I were latchkey kids and many of my friends were too.
I - as a Gen Xer - used to have a lot of fun telling my leftist Boomer College Profs that I “didn’t trust anyone over 30” (always said with a big shit eating grin).
They didn’t like that taste of their own medicine very much. LOL!
I said “usually.” Where I lived I knew of no latch key kids in the 1960s.
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