Gen Xers like to boast about being left unsupervised after school. But there was a grim side to it that has left many determined not to repeat the sins of their parents.
I was the stereotypical latchkey kid: parents already gone by the time we woke up and they didn't get home until 6:30. I did at times resent having to look out for younger siblings but not once did I feel neglected. Looking back, the freedom was empowering but at the time it seemed normal. Almost everyone I knew had two working parents and the concept of "childcare" was foreign. My parents would have seen using daycare as both a personal sign of their failure as parents and as an unnecessary expense. Neither parent would have even considered staying home from work with a sick child.
This is very good, interesting. I agree it’s less about the latchkey part and more about the mental state of the parents involved which can be driven by divorce or other things. The word neglect is deeply triggering for boomers as I have learned - they had it worse (a point of debate) & they see it as doing the best they could. On my good days I try to see it through a lens of compassion tho it does feel like all the mental processing of it has fallen to GenX.
As anyone who becomes a parent eventually realises, it's easier to criticize until you actually do it and discover all the compromises you have to make, the corners that need to be cut, and the tradeoffs involved in having a life and being a parent. Plus the manual is always getting revised... :)
Also one point I always forget to add in these posts is that "divorced mother" or "single mother" can always be substituted for "absentee father". That is, when the studies talk about the "single mom" problem, it's probably more accurate to describe it as an absentee father problem.
As a single mom, I appreciate broadening the context. And yeah agree on the rest of it - time teaches you that nothing is simple. We were are all living within systems too - patriarchy, capitalism - that shapes our experience. I think the fact that we’re thinking about this at all and trying to make sense of it is a win.
Mr. Potter makes this point, but of course the problem isn't being a "latchkey kid".... it's being in a broken home. Divorce is bad for kids. The Atlantic Published this way back in 1993, so it isn't news.
Sure, there are exceptions, but for the majority of couples, getting a divorce will hurt your kids. Everyone thinks their case is the exception though... but it probably isn't. Your divorce will very likely hurt your kids.
So while we can ask how this generation will parent their kids, we might also ask how they'll approach the permanence or non-permanence of their marriages.
genXer here. maybe the problem is that we want all the options open to us - as preteens and teens it was great to have the freedom and Independence of a empty house for a few hours. in post-secondary, we adjusted fine to full independence and it was convenient to reframe our childhood as 'traumatised' (to use the victimhood ideology so prevalent now) to avoid taking personal responsibility, and maybe get some attention. but then comes a moment - it might take therapy, or marriage, or children, or another milestone - when you sort of own your own life and see your parents as flawed human beings, no worse or better than you. And then suddenly, YOU are the supposed all-powerful parent in charge of children who are supposed to grow up and be independent of you.
I broke it into phases to demonstrate, but really genX can feel all those contradictory things at once: resilient and neglected, empowered and damaged, owning problems or hiding from them, don't notice me if it's something bad but also pay attention to me and flatter me.
my frustration comes from my perception that the young are stuck at the victimhood phase, wallowing in it for so long that they might never get out of the pit of despair that they dug themselves.
Yeah this is good. I think it is absolutely the Gen X thing -- to be both boastful of our freedom while resentful of the (alleged) neglect. I do wonder how much we are responsible for the younger generations being stuck in the victimhood phase -- is that a parenting thing?
I was the stereotypical latchkey kid: parents already gone by the time we woke up and they didn't get home until 6:30. I did at times resent having to look out for younger siblings but not once did I feel neglected. Looking back, the freedom was empowering but at the time it seemed normal. Almost everyone I knew had two working parents and the concept of "childcare" was foreign. My parents would have seen using daycare as both a personal sign of their failure as parents and as an unnecessary expense. Neither parent would have even considered staying home from work with a sick child.
This is very good, interesting. I agree it’s less about the latchkey part and more about the mental state of the parents involved which can be driven by divorce or other things. The word neglect is deeply triggering for boomers as I have learned - they had it worse (a point of debate) & they see it as doing the best they could. On my good days I try to see it through a lens of compassion tho it does feel like all the mental processing of it has fallen to GenX.
As anyone who becomes a parent eventually realises, it's easier to criticize until you actually do it and discover all the compromises you have to make, the corners that need to be cut, and the tradeoffs involved in having a life and being a parent. Plus the manual is always getting revised... :)
Also one point I always forget to add in these posts is that "divorced mother" or "single mother" can always be substituted for "absentee father". That is, when the studies talk about the "single mom" problem, it's probably more accurate to describe it as an absentee father problem.
As a single mom, I appreciate broadening the context. And yeah agree on the rest of it - time teaches you that nothing is simple. We were are all living within systems too - patriarchy, capitalism - that shapes our experience. I think the fact that we’re thinking about this at all and trying to make sense of it is a win.
Mr. Potter makes this point, but of course the problem isn't being a "latchkey kid".... it's being in a broken home. Divorce is bad for kids. The Atlantic Published this way back in 1993, so it isn't news.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1993/04/dan-quayle-was-right/307015/
Sure, there are exceptions, but for the majority of couples, getting a divorce will hurt your kids. Everyone thinks their case is the exception though... but it probably isn't. Your divorce will very likely hurt your kids.
So while we can ask how this generation will parent their kids, we might also ask how they'll approach the permanence or non-permanence of their marriages.
genXer here. maybe the problem is that we want all the options open to us - as preteens and teens it was great to have the freedom and Independence of a empty house for a few hours. in post-secondary, we adjusted fine to full independence and it was convenient to reframe our childhood as 'traumatised' (to use the victimhood ideology so prevalent now) to avoid taking personal responsibility, and maybe get some attention. but then comes a moment - it might take therapy, or marriage, or children, or another milestone - when you sort of own your own life and see your parents as flawed human beings, no worse or better than you. And then suddenly, YOU are the supposed all-powerful parent in charge of children who are supposed to grow up and be independent of you.
I broke it into phases to demonstrate, but really genX can feel all those contradictory things at once: resilient and neglected, empowered and damaged, owning problems or hiding from them, don't notice me if it's something bad but also pay attention to me and flatter me.
my frustration comes from my perception that the young are stuck at the victimhood phase, wallowing in it for so long that they might never get out of the pit of despair that they dug themselves.
Yeah this is good. I think it is absolutely the Gen X thing -- to be both boastful of our freedom while resentful of the (alleged) neglect. I do wonder how much we are responsible for the younger generations being stuck in the victimhood phase -- is that a parenting thing?