I was left alone for a few hours around the age of nine for the first time, and started to babysit at 12. I figure by the time you're old enough to look after someone else's kids without parents around, you're definitely old enough to hang out in the house by yourself. I started getting dropped off at movies with friends at around 10.
Remember that semi-scandal about the woman who let her kid ride the subway by himself? I forget how old he was---like 10? I see kids younger than that on the subway quite often.
Too risky. It's much preferable to drop them off down at the local pub and ask the regulars to keep an eye on them.
Ben should field all parenting questions from now on.
3: Don't joke, Knecht. This was done to me. Well, it was a very posh resto and my pops was the bartender. But I would be seated at the bar and plied with Shirley Temples.
3,4: I was just about to comment that my mom spent much of early formative years in a playpen at the end of the bar my grandma was tending (a higher-end joint), and she turned out great. I later got a treatment similar to oud's involving Shirley Temples.
Nothing wrong with Shirley Temples.
My father used to take me (during the summer) to the vocational school where he worked and let me play in the machine shop. I wasn't allowed to use the power tools without supervision, but that still left plenty of scope for getting into mischief. I distinctly remember my sister and I hoisting one another up on a hydraulic lift.
OTOH, that was probably safer than having my mother take me to her work...at the prison.
This is not going to be a helpful thread, is it?
Do you think a grown-uppy Shirley Temple--with fancy grenadine containing plenty of actual pomegranate and a dry, spicy ginger ale/beer--would be good, or would it just taste of missing the point?
I was allowed to stay home alone for a few hours during the day starting around third or fourth grade.
A classic story from my family illustrates the gulf between the Ruprecht family's child-rearing philosophy and Fleur's. When my niece was nine, her father (my brother) came home around dusk to find her riding a tractor around in circles in the field. She explained that, a few hours before, she had asked her grandfather (my father) to let her drive the tractor. He started it up, put her in the seat, and put the tractor in gear. Then he went off to do something else and forgot about her.
She tearfully explained to my brother, as he helped her get down from the tractor, "Granddad didn't tell me how to stop!"
In the Ruprecht family, this story gets told for laughs. To anyone else, it triggers thoughts of calling Social Services.
My dad would do something like that. So annoying.
w-lfs-n, please make a joke about Russell's theory of types k tx.
My brother would sit at the bar as a very wee lad and get his pacifier dunked in scotch. Once he had sucked all the delicious scotchiness off, he would spit his pacifier onto the bar for redipping.
(He is a wine importer now.)
I don't know enough to fulfill your request, fl.
This is not going to be a helpful thread, is it?
Insofar as the questions asked may be considered a subset of the broader question—how might my child grow up to comment a lot on blogs—I think we're being most helpful so far.
In fact, the inquiring parents need to know, not just want to know as bw falsely transcribes.
My three older siblings and I formed a pack, and I remember my parents letting us walk to swimming lessons unaccompanied beginning when I was 4 and my oldest sister was 8 (this was in small-town PA). I also remember that my dad left us to take care of my infant brother one afternoon when I was 5, and we all took off one by one. That may have been when they started hiring sitters.
Assuming that the family lives somewhere with a reasonable expecation of privacy (it will not be glaringly obvious to neighbors that the child is home alone), I think the answers to "what age" or "how long" can be found in the individual child.
I'd consider:
-Has the child shown comfort in managing his/her own experiences and time? If he (let's say) is already happy to putter around with Legos, read a book, dig in the garden, etc. when the parents *are* home, that's a good sign. If he consistently looks to his parents for inspiration -- I'm boooorreeeed, I don't know what to dooooooo -- I'd suspect he's not going to do well on his own for more than a 20-minute stretch (and that's IF you leave him with an established activity).
- Has the child shown good judgment in the past? If something unexpected happens, like the batteries on the smoke detector dying and making an annoying racket, is he likely to react by going outside so his ears don't hurt, calling his aunt on the phone for advice, or screaming bloody murder until the neighbors call the fire department?
- Corollary to above: Has the child shown good judgment in handling phone calls? If house policy is that children do not answer the phone, does he follow it? Is he past the stage of reflexively telling the truth ("Daddy's on the toilet") and on to appropriate discretion and/or lying? ("Dad is not available right now, but he says he can call you back in a little bit.")
- Is the child able to care for himself, including basic food preparation? If he skins his knee, is it grounds for World War III or does he come inside and ask for a wet washcloth and a bandage? Even better, does he get them himself?
- How far and how unreachable will the parent be? It's one thing to leave your child for a 20-minute run to 7-Eleven when you have a car and a cell phone. It's another to leave them when you have to make a 90-minute one-way drive in a mountainous area with spotty cell phone coverage.
- What other adults are available for back-up? If you have a local support system, such as a family friend who can drop everything and be there in seven minutes if something urgent happens, I'd be a lot more comfortable leaving the child than if the parent is the only person who can be called on.
- How does the child himself feel about it? Among my siblings the sentiments about being left home alone ranged very widely, despite growing up in the same household with the same parents.
Also: #20 comes through with excellent advice!
Jesus' parents should be in jail. No statute of limitations on child abuse. Every defect Jesus has, or his kids have, is their fault.
It occurs to me to ask why this concerned parent chose w-lfs-n, of all bloggers, as the person to whom this ATM should be directed.
In my experience the universal question to honestly ask yourself is the two-parter: "How likely is something serious to go wrong? and How bad will it look if it does?" Much of the answer depends on the considerations in 20. (Although it seems like a heartlessly selfish, ass-covering way to put it, in today's world the answer to the second part is almost inevitably "Very bad", so it serves as an emotional gut check on potential rationalizations in your answer to the first part.)
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Caroline is on my back, while I try to surf the internet, and I have bet her that she will be bored with hanging on my back while I do nothing before I get irritated with her hanging on me. It is a test of wills.
Also, objectively speaking, you can leave a 10- year old alone in the house for two hours. Anything that leads you to think that this is not true in some cases is a subjective distortion or market externality.
insert |> after the first paragraph.
Witt's great, isn't she?
I leave mine in the house. God, it makes life so much easier. I started leaving the eldest when she was about 9, for 30 minutes or so, when I was walking to local shops. Second one, probably also 9 (or nearly 9), though she doesn't get left alone so often as left with eldest. I would probably leave the 7.5 year old for 20 or 30 minutes completely alone if I needed to/he really didn't want to come out with me - he is very used to being left with his big sisters, and he's incredibly sensible, even cautious about stuff (to the point of being somewhat overly so). (I am never going to worry about this kid being run over, for instance.) Would not leave the 5 year old alone, or only with 7 year old (unless I was literally just going to the corner shop), but she regularly stays at home with the 10 or 11 year old. Mobile phones do help in these situations.
They are not allowed to answer the door or the phone whilst I'm out, and I generally check they are doing something that they'll stay doing. My only other rule is no eating. I thought quite a lot about the risks, and tried to think of what might happen that I could deal with but they couldn't, and was time-sensitive - so far all I've come up with is choking, hence the no eating - anything else I should consider?
Yesterday I took them to the cinema and left them there (Kids Club Saturday morning cheap film, and I really didn't want to see Enchanted). The older two have been before (and they can walk there together without me), but this was the first time they've all gone without an adult.
If you leave a kid younger than 9 home alone, they should have a gun to defend themselves with.
Enchanted is supposedly quite good.
Saw Kung Fu Panda last night and rather enjoyed it. The final fight is very clever about using your opponent's strength against him without patting itself on the back.
It's really hard to get guns in this backwards country, so I just sharpen their daggers daily. Plus we have a moat.
Right, I've left PK alone for 20 minutes or so--quick run to the store, etc.--since he was six, I think? What I really want is to be able to leave him for an hour or two. Like, on days when I want to go for a bike ride, or go do major grocery shopping, or whatever, and he refuses to fucking get dressed.
20 is very helpful. I think the catch here is that PK is terrible on the phone; in fact, I'm not sure he knows how to *use* the damn thing. There are neighbors who he could go to if he needed help, and he knows how to dial 911 in a real emergency, and he can actually feed himself. But I worry about him accidentally starting a fire while scrambling an egg or something like that.
This adds to my summer project list. (1) Teach him to ride his own damn bike; (2) teach him to swim reasonably well; (3) teach him how to use the freaking phone, already.
Thanks, Witt!
I think I stayed home alone for a whole (work-length) day for the first time when I was 8. I remember there being a bunch of discussion beforehand among my parents and I about what to do in what situation. I just watched a bunch of tv or maybe read a little. Or computer games. Or whatever; it wasn't a big deal.
When I was about that age I also went to my mom's office a number of times in the summer to wait around between activities or to wait for her to finish work so I could get a ride home. She worked in a university library and I'd sit in the reading room with a kids' book or pretend to use the then-existing card catalog. One time, when I was walking through the staff area where my mom worked, a guy, probably a student employee, pushing a shelving cart who must have seen me hanging around the library, stopped me and asked "Do you go here now?"
I don't remember riding public transit by myself until I was 10 or 11.
31: Hm, choking. Hadn't thought of that. Then again, PK has never choked on anything in his life. Hm.
33: Is KFP just one long fat joke? That's my big hesitation about taking PK to see it.
Enchanted - hmmm maybe, but I wanted to go for a walk with C and the dog. The 5 year old gushed about it, the 11 and 10 year olds liked it, but said the ending was obvious - "basic film logic".
36: Yeah, I can't remember how old I was when I stopped going to daycare after school. I think it might've been 8 or 9. I suppose I could ask my mom, but then I'd have to call her.
he refuses to fucking get dressed
So take him in his pajamas.
Oh wait, you mean he's running around nekkid? Hmmm. CPS is probably already on the case. Start thinking about your defense.
To the extent the advice in 20 is helpful, I suspect it is because my parents' philosophy was pretty close to asilon's. In general I am strongly in favor of young children cooking, including learning to use knives, ovens, etc., but one thing that I am irrational about is gas stoves, having known one absolutely horrific incident that happened with a 5-year-old (whose father was home at the time). Stormcrow has a good point in 26.
37 - I am by nature slack and not a worrier, so I tried quite hard to think of things that in the grand scheme of things aren't stupidly unlikely, and might actually be affected by my presence. Plus, if one of them choked on something and died in front of the others because they didn't know what to do, that would be pretty unpleasant. If they fall down the stairs and break their necks, well, that could happen just as easily with me in the house, so not worth worrying about.
37: The Panda gets a lot of abuse for being fat, but of course his padding and his appetite are his greatest strengths.
38: Obviousness in films is not unrewarding, and has its own pleasures. I'm not saying there's no such thing as a stale formula, but there's also pleasure in hitting all the beats. But I haven't seen Enchanted so I can't say which it is.
Joss Whedon once said, surprisingly, that surprise was his highest artistic virtue. I didn't really find myself agreeing, being more of a texture person than a plot person, but there's an essay on surprise that House Next Door linked to that has a more indepth consideration of surprise in film than Joss's bare pronouncement.
My mother had seven kids so that one broken neck would less of a big deal. We all fell down the stairs or out of trees or both, but no broken necks.
Oddly, trust in God and fate allows more relaxed parenting, and not only stricter parenting.
I sort of recall there being state law on the subject, though I don't remember whether it was a statute or maybe some case reviewing a DCFS finding of neglect...
Rory's 9 and I get nervous even leaving her in the car for minutes while I run into Chipotle. I know she's fine. She knows she's fine. But I'm just sure some well-meaning busybody is watching, waiting to nail me for neglect every time I do it.
My grandmother told a story about her childhood when she started a fire by lighting stove a little too long after turning the gas on. It wasn't a huge fire I guess, but the story was a pretty effective way of making sure we were careful about using gas stoves.
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I have a kitchen supply question. Someone mentioned a particular store as being the poor man's Williams Sonoma. I can't find it via google.
My boyfriend is looking to buy some stuff for his kitchen. He doesn't want that much stuff--right now he wants a few wine glasses and some mixing bowls, but he doesn't want to spend much money, and he doesn't want cheap crap from Walmart (or even Target, which he otherwise loves.
Can anyone recommend a good store online?
Feel free to e-mail.
Does M/tch have e-mail?
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43: Although Whedon is prone to using simple reversal of expectation, which, once you catch on, becomes unsurprising.
IIRC, in CA, the minimum age for legally leaving one's child home alone is 10.
If Kahlua is added to a Shirley Temple, does that make it a Shirley Temple Black?
40, 41: I'm with both of you (and like Asilon's boy, mine is very cautious). In Canadia, though, the law is that you can't leave children under 12 home alone (?!?)* which I guess helped make me paranoid. That plus my uncertainty (though I *have* explained how) about whether he'd be able to use the phone to call me if he needed to.
*I suspect this is one of those laws that gets enforced selectively, letting them prosecute people for neglect by having a clear law to point to; at least, the colleague who told me that he'd gotten "warned" about the law b/c his own kid called the cops for some reason while home alone, didn't get arrested or anything.
IIRC, in CA, the minimum age for legally leaving one's child home alone is 10.
Really? Huh. Don't tell PK.
47: Try cooking.com. But even Target is carrying Riedel wine glasses these days.
TimeAloneInHouse = K / (Intelligence) (Curiosity)(Availability of Weapons & Machine Tools & ChemLab)
Joss Whedon once said, surprisingly, that surprise was his highest artistic virtue.
I was shocked that a vampire slayer and a vampire would be attracted to each other, and that this would be used to create dramatic tension.
47: I just bought a bunch of stuff from Ikea. Not fancy by a long shot, but presentable and cheap.
And yay on the "my boyfriend" part -- this is the guy we heard about awhile back, right?
Too risky. It's much preferable to drop them off down at the local pub and ask the regulars to keep an eye on them.
At a friend's wedding reception 4 years or so ago, Rory wandered off on her own. I found her sitting on a barstool, apparently having quite an engaging conversation with the bartender, and sipping her Sprite. I was very proud.
When my son was about 6 I lost track of him and found him after about half an hour chatting with the barmaids at my regular place.
Someone in my building thought I complained about her dog to the management, and made a report that I "left my children alone all the time."
I thought I was defending myself by saying the only time they could ever have been alone was that sometimes they took the stairs while I took the elevator with the baby in the stroller, and sometimes they went down to the lobby to get the mail. The older kids were 5 and 7.
It was considered "indicated" and I'm now a child abuser.
58: What does "indicated" mean?
My godfather died when I was about 8. My parents thought it wouldn't be a good idea for me to go to the funeral, probably bc I had wicked nightmares and they thought a funeral would only fuel them. So they and my 5 brothers all go and leave me alone in the house, which I think was worse bc I hadn't been alone in the house for so long before...and it was winter so it got dark early...and I was terrified by every sound the house made...and I turned on all the lights...and closed all the interior doors...and sat in a chair in the corner of the living room so that I could have a good view of things if anything happened, especially something supernatural, what with someone having just died and everybody at a funeral...but mostly so that nothing could happen behind me.
59: ...and then Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern showed up.
That's a promising beginning for a Steven King novel, Annie.
Go ahead and laugh. It was a horrible night.
58: wait, they really reported you to Child Protective Services? And CPS is threatening you or something?
I had arranged once to house-sit in the Netherlands, and went round the day before with a friend to get keys, instructions etc. Her kids (7 and 5) opened the door, told us their mother wasn't home, so we said we'd come back later. We were a bit surprised to find little kids left alone, and probably looked worried, but figured it wasn't our business. I was unshaven after a long flight, my friend is bald.
It turned out their *father* had been at home, but we hadn't asked about him. They went and reported to him that two foreigners - a terrorist and a skinhead - had come round looking for their mum, got upset with them, and threatened to come back later. The kids weren't too bothered by it.
I was left alone for a couple hours at a time starting at age five or six, full workdays starting at age eight. By nine I was allowed to bike to neighbouring towns. When we moved to Switzerland two years later I commuted to school by public transport and wandered around the city on my own. By fourteen I was being left alone for weekends.
It occurs to me that my story in 65 makes more sense if 'for a distant acquaintance' is inserted after 'house-sit'. Further revisions will be posted as needed.
I was left alone in the house, sometimes all day if I was off school, from 7 or so. But I probably wouldn't leave my son alone at 8 for more than 10 mins or so. He'd probably starve, or spontaneously combust, or something.
As always, Witt answers this question well.
I think 11 or 12 is usually the lower limit now. If something goes bad, you might be charged with child neglect if the kid is much younger.
Of course, this depends on your jurisdiction.
My dad would just bring us to the home delivery instead of leaving us home.
Back in the early nineties before parents were able to call their children from cellphones, I had an ill sister. Rather than take me out of school for the entire day for a giant family road trip to see her specialist (some hours away) they would leave at three in the morning, I would get myself up, prepare breakfast, dress myself and go get the bus to school.
I was about nine. This probably happened three or four times that year (and periodically in subsequent years too). I was also home alone every day for about an hour and a half after school with my other sister, who is younger, from roughly the same age.
I wouldn't recommend the first part of this for a nine-year-old unless you've got one hell of a nine-year-old. That's not awfully long after you learn to read clocks, if nothing else. I was fine with that, but still awfully worried that I'd miss the school bus and used to go to the bus stop 45 minutes early, I figured I'd be in big trouble if I missed it, and what if something happened? I had no way to reach my parents. (In fact, that's probably the worst bit of the whole thing, that I don't recall having been given the number of the hospital they were going to, or a grandparent's number, or anything. Maybe my parents were worried the grandparents, who didn't live nearby, would come over and kick their arses.) Nothing did happen, but it's not a pleasant memory. I would have been more up for it at eleven or so.
The home alone after school thing was never much trouble. We had a system of three rings and then hangup to identify my parents calling, otherwise we didn't answer the phone. We watched Ninja Turtles and got in trouble for eating all the snacks. The main problem for a parent who is doing this while working seems to be that the kids will want to ring ALL. THE. TIME. My mother ended up giving us her direct line so that the switchboard didn't know how often we were calling.
In light of this experience, with children about as well-behaved as I was (which was quite), I would probably leave them alone for short periods from about 8, expect them to be able to be home in a structured predictable way from somewhere between eight and ten, and expect them to be able to do things like get themselves up and to school alone occasionally from about twelve, which is also roughly the entry age to babysitting.
On the other hand, reading the thread I recall that I was fine self-babysitting during a workday when I was eight or so, if I was sick and needed to stay home. I think it was the get dressed, make breakfast, lock up house, get bus across town bit that was a bit overwhelming.
I think we started leaving Sally and Newt alone in the house for as long as it takes to walk the dog a year or so ago -- maybe when she was seven and he was five? And since about the same time we've left either but not both together for half an hour or so; I'm not really worried about anything happening to them other than escalating intersibling war.
"Indicated" seems to mean the opposite of "unfounded" in Child Protective speak -- someone filed a report, we went to investigate, and we found that the report was either unfounded or indicated. Ugh! Yikes, Shamhat, that's awful.
I'm not really worried about anything happening to them other than escalating intersibling war.
It starts with the passive aggressive whining and then mild poking, and before you know it, there's a mushroom cloud and they're drafting the neighborhood children.
Witt was very sensible in 20, plus what will and others said about the local laws.
Enchanted is okay. The actress playing the princess does a great job of playing an airheaded princess that lives in a fantasy world, down to the way a Disney airheaded princess would hold herself.
Trouble is, Disney airheaded princesses are really damn annoying. Only watch the movie if you can ensure you'll only have to watch it once.
It also depends upon whether you can trust the little motherfuckers to keep their grubby hands out of Mommy's purse.
I checked my county's (Fairfax County, VA) guidelines before leaving my child alone. They say age 8, for no more than an hour and a half, with the caveat that even that depends on the specific child's maturation.
It also depends upon whether you can trust the little motherfuckers to keep their grubby hands out of Mommy's purse Daddy's stash.
I doubt the law referenced in 50 was in effect fifty years ago. I'm thinking I'd have been about nine, and my sister 2 1/2 years younger, when my parents started leaving us home all day in the summer. My grandmother, who was blind and not much help, would have been there the rest of the time, and my mother went to work about that time.
I don't remember when we stopped getting babysitters for our kids, but when my elder was about 12 seems right.