I was watching the Today Show yesterday and they reported on a mom in NYC that let her 9 year old son travel via subway and bus across the city by himself. It was a thought provoking story for me.
When is a child old enough to travel alone or be left alone at home?
Over the past few months, I have been thinking quite a bit about the latter of those. Kaylea will be 10 in September and I am wondering if she is old enough to be left at home alone while I run little errands. So far, I am just not comfortable enough to leave her. Now, I have to confess, when Kaylea was sick last winter I left her at the house while I made a 10 minute trip to Walgreens to get her medicine. All the while, I was feeling like I was doing something wrong. Of course Kaylea thought that she was BIG stuff and now she is always asking me to leave her at home again.
This whole issue is quite a conundrum for me. You see when my sister and I were little, our parents divorced and we became "latch key kids" at the ages of 10 and 6. Mom worked her butt off just to be able to keep food on the table and a roof over our head; there was no money for afterschool childcare. Not only were we alone in the afternoons, we had to walk home from school because we were JUST inside the 2 mile boundary; therefore, the buses didn't come to our neighborhood. (At that time, if you lived within 2 miles of the school, you were either a car rider, bike rider or walker). Our route home was a 4 lane divided road, similar to Kingston Pike. ThiThi was just a little older than Kaylea and she was responsible for herself AND a little sister. The big difference between ThiThi and me and Kaylea is that ThiThi and I were a lot more mature than Kaylea. Of course, we didn't have much choice other than to be mature; whereas, Kaylea has no reason or need to grow up.
So, do I let Kaylea stay home alone to teach her responsibility and encourage maturity? Or do I wait for her to become responsible and mature before I give her the priviledge of being home alone? Let me know your thoughts.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Home Alone?
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2 comments:
at a 9-10 my friends & I would travel by ourselves downtown by bus etc and even younger than that I remember being left alone at a toy store next to the grocery where my mother shopped-hell I get panicked leaving C in a different aisle than I am!
My hometown is smaller than K-town but I can't imagine letting C do what we did and neither can my mother! Things are just soo different now.
We left James home alone for the first time this year. He is 11. It was a HUGE decision for us to make. He did great.
I considered it before now, but just didn't think either of us was ready.
When it is time, you will know.
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