Remember when you could allow your kids to walk home, let themselves in with the key attached to their belt and not get in trouble with Social Services?
I remember the first time I became a Latch Key Kid. Third Grade. Columbia Manor Apartments. Ms. Richardson's class. I think her name changed after she got married. I really need to find my grade school book with all my photos and notes.
My mother originally thought the best idea was to place the key around my neck. It was on a cheap silver chain. The chain survived until second recess, you know the one after lunch. I was swinging on the monkey bars. Running after soccer balls. Somehow the chain snapped. Key was missing. I was so worried and nervous. I asked Ms. Richardson if I could go look for it on the playground. I swore I was out there for hours combing the ground back and forth, like how search parties search for missing bodies. I never found it. The first day as a latch key kid and I lose the key. Kinda a big deal.
I had to call my mother. I lost the key. Its okay. I won't be able to get in. Don't worry about it; I'll get you. Will we have to change the locks? Someone may have the key to our house. Don't worry about, my mother said. I still think about the day I lost the key. That's the way I am. Thinking if I had done something different so my mother wouldn't be disappointed in me. If she was mad or upset, she never let me know it. I guess that's what makes my mother a better parent than I sometimes.
On day two of being a Latch Key Kid, my mother put the key on a key ring and I put it in my pocket. To this day, I never lost that key ring nor another key. I remained a Latch Key Kid for the rest of my days in school. If you ask my mother today she will say I was much older--5th grade at least--before I was a Latch Key Kid. I disagree as I know it was 3rd grade because Valley View's playgrounds were separated by 1-3rd grade and 4-6th grade and I was definitely on the 3rd grade side on the big set of monkey bars.
Back then it was something kids did. Today, it would be the sign of bad parents. Wow, how times have changed...
