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If both of YOUR parents worked full-time ...
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Anonymous
Well, we are about 3.5 years spaced in age so that helped. Also, she had all week to clean so it's not like everything had to be done all at once. |
Anonymous
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I was 10 when my mother went back to work--3 kids, the youngest was 4. We walked home from school together--yes I was in charge of all three of us at 10 (!), then we caught the city bus when we moved onto middle school. Most of the time, my grandma was right around the corner to watch us when we got home, but there were some days when we were alone. We survived and all managed to get graduate degrees from top unis. Mom and dad are divorced, but both financially secure, so no worries there.
But, it was a different time back in the 70s--there wasn't a deep fear surrounding childcare the way there is now. |
Anonymous
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What I see in those arangements is this...
Parents arrive home and look around at what's been done all day. They have no idea of what the real needs of the child(ren) might have been, but the hired helper worries about getting everything done. What the parents don't know is how many hours the baby had to sit in the crib, or how many hours the child had to sit in front of the tv getting dumbed-down. Not a good idea once you think it through.... |
Anonymous
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"What the parents don't know is how many hours the baby had to sit in the crib, or how many hours the child had to sit in front of the tv getting dumbed-down. "
Yes, because SAHPs never, ever, ever do any of this shit. How stupid do you think we are? |
Anonymous
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That's why I choose daycare over nanny. I find security in the fishbowl over the nanny.
But have to agree with 11:19, there are a lot of SAHMs who just let their kids watch tv all day. |
Anonymous
Yeah but in the 70's we didn't have a lot of tv options - not like there was Noggin or Disney Channel on all day. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Me too. I was always scared to come home from school to an empty house. I'd wait for my older brother to come home, and I'd hide until he did (becasue I was scared to be home alone). I'd have to get dinner started (but pretty much done and baking) and then my parents would come hom and we'd all eat. The dinner thing seemed normal to me, but I cannot imagine having my kids make dinner for us! Anyway, I felt scared a lot. BUT I thought it was just what it was and didn't feel disconnected to them. |
Anonymous
| My parents were teenagers and I was raised by a grandmother who was a homemaker. My husband on the other hand had two working parents (including a workaholic mother) and was basically a latch-key kid (in NYC in the 80s, yikes!). In his case it was not a good situation - although he swears that he "turned out fine". I am taking a lesson from his family life by creating special family moments, mostly involving me since my husband is also a workaholic. |
Anonymous
Kids were probably in school much of the day. Sound slike the housekeeper was hired to watch the kids after school, and fill up the rest of her time with taking care of stuff around the home. |
Anonymous
That is so true! Those of you in your thirties, you have no idea what a TV wasteland it was in the mid-70s. Did we even have cable then? I know my family didn't. I think a few families had HBO. We watched a lot of TV after school -- it was the Brady Bunch, the Partridge Family, and maybe I Dream of Jeanie. Little kids watched Mr Roger's Neighborhood, Sesame Street and the Electric Company. ANd we all watched a lot of commercials. Maybe that's why we all played outside with the other neighborhood kids so much -- TV got to be really boring! |
Anonymous
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Dear OP - Great post. Thanks for this. I've enjoyed reading all of the responses.
My dad was/still is a workaholic and we only saw him late evenings and on Sundays. My mom worked 9-5ish. Here's my assessment from what I remember: The Good - Mom made it to most of my games and I was involved in a lot of extracurricular activities after school and on the weekends. We went to lots of museums on the weekends and took some meaningful family trips, e.g. Grand Canyon, Disney World, California. My parents are very financially secure because they both worked and were able to help me out with the purchase of my first house. Sunday night was always "Family Night" and we always did stuff with the family and declined invitations for that night. The Bad - We didn't have any help and I do remember my mom feeling stretched thin bc she was trying to be everything - super mom, super wife, and super employee. I think a lot of us working moms are feeling the same right now so PP's previous comment that we should just "live" and not do so many manufactured activities really resonates with me. Dad never made it to any of my games but I didn't really care so much as long as my mom was there or she had a good excuse for not being able to make it. Over the summers, I watched a lot of Oprah and other crap and always gained weight over the summers. Went to camp for a few weeks but the bulk of the summer, I was at home alone until my mom got home. We rarely ate dinner together during the week. |
Anonymous
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My dad worked a weekday 9-5 job. My mom was an evening nurse who worked from 3-11 for 5 days straight, take a day off, than work 5 days straight again. I grew up with grandparents so never felt alone or unsupervised. I remember on the days my mom was off it would be a fun day and we'd go out to the movies, shopping, and eat. It wasn't a special planned activity. Just having everyone together was enough. I never saw what we did as anything out of the ordinary. Some of my best family memories are all of us eating together which we always did.
Even if both parents work full time you can still have a good relationship with them. I'm close with both my parents. I talk to them almost everyday. |
Anonymous
Really not fair to compare the stories of kids growing up in the 70s in different parts of the country with now. Totally different. Just because some kids were latchkey or had housekeepers minding them doesn't mean working parents today are repeating that model. We know a lot more, some of which has improved things and some of which we are probably making worse (a lot of overprotecting and some entitled kids these days, safe to say some have working moms and some have stay at home moms). The generalizations on this forum get out of control sometimes. One child walking home alone in the 70s does not = working parents are bad in the year 2010. |
Anonymous
| Yeah, not all of us posting here grew up in the 70s. |