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 ...
Still remember it being lonely.
Boomers? I always thought of this as more a Gen X thing.
There is such a thing as too much independence. 😔
my husband hated being a latchkey kid- then his parents went out on Saturday nights and he was alone again.
when we got married and had kids he always wanted me home when the kids were there.
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?
I agree. The moms of Boomers were usually homemakers.
Boomers? I always thought of this as more a Gen X thing.
You are correct
Agreed. Middle class boomers had stay at home moms. And lots of folks could be somewhere in the middle class on a single income.
Well, this was written by a young kid who doesn’t know any better.
Idiotic Boomers trying to remake themselves as Gen X. Boomers had a concert in the woods where they had a drug-fueled orgy in the mud and founded a religion about it named Woodstock.
Those were Boomers, but they were not the Latch key kids. That was a later group to which the article is referring.
Boomers did all that play outdoors and went home to a mom, and usually dad, in the house. We were very independent on one hand, but someone was there if we needed them at home.
I was a 60s latchkey kid. I’d come home and watch Dark Shadows and listen to Motown.
A lot of boomers did not go home to a mom and dad.
The difference is that some kids walked outside, and some kids microwaved some junk food and then sat on the couch with a TV remote.
“Latchkey” is unusual. Did I decipher this correctly to assume this applies to kids who had to let themselves into the house with their own key?
It is. There is simply no end to Boomer grift at the expense of GenX. The Babies were the most coddled and mothered generation in human history, resulting in their eternal infantilization. It was GenX which was left to raise itself so that the Babies could run around like perpetual teenagers. The author is a fool.
Those in my neighborhood surely did, and more besides. Some of that taught caution through pain.
Ahhh, but there are subgroups of Boomers. It is a huge demographic. Late Boomers (jonesers) have very little in common with the earlier, hippy, and wartime boomers like Hillary, Bill and President Trump.
“””I agree. The moms of Boomers were usually homemakers.””
Yup. Boomer here. Moms were always there. I expect there exceptions but not often. They basically said play outside until dark. They didn’t really know where we were.
We did not HAVE microwaves as young boomers.
Weren’t the Boomers kids the latchkey kids
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