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Comment by rufus_foreman | Hacker News Reader

70s was not latchkey kids. I was a kid then. We roamed the streets.

80s? I don't know, wasn't like that for me. I knew some kids maybe where it was like that for them, I felt sorry for them.

From my perspective, obviously a limited perspective based on the time I grew up, the 1970's was the best time to be a kid in the history of kids.

We roamed the streets, 10 years old, running wild in the streets.

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I think latchkey just means that kids were often home when a parent wasn't, or was sleeping.

So latchkey kids could also roam the streets.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latchkey_kid

And we did.

My mom worked a split-shift (3 hours in the morning, and 5 hours in evening Wed-Sun). My dad was in the army and was deployed to far-away lands for a significant portion of my life between 8-16 years old. My mom hired a couple of "minders" - but the first one made a baby in our bathroom with her boyfriend, and the second one did nothing but watch TV and sneak some shots of whiskey between TV shows (on the three networks then available). Long story short, I was left to my own devices a lot. My mom tried to make dinner for me - but sometimes (being a growing boy) I was just really hungry - so chef-boy-r-dee pizza was a staple - at least until I learned that one could phone in an order for pizza and have it delivered! Now we were cash-poor, so when wanted spending money, I'd have to go house-to-house to ask if they needed their lawns mowed. I'd get somewhere between $5 or $10 depending on the lawn size and would use the money for pizza delivery once or twice a week. Pretty amazing to think about it - a kid between 10-15 years old being left alone for hours a day and having to go house-to-house to mow lawns for extra money! (let's not forget it was the 70s so things like bike helmets, seat belts and non-smoking areas didn't exist either).

Ten dollars for a lawn?

$10 in 1970's dollars ~ $50 today's dollars. Nicest house on the block with a nice large corner lot.

Same here. But the meaning of a "latchkey" kid is a kid who has to unlock their door to get in their home (because nobody is there when they get home from school) -- this is independent of the concept of a "free range kid" (who may or may not have a parent at home but are just allowed to roam)

Latchkey didn't mean locked up at home, rather it meant the child was returning home alone after school and in possession of the home door key.

I was 10 in the 90’s, and it was the same. Maybe it’s regional.

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