Caring For Latch Key Kids
The 'feminism' movement that advocated the rights of women of full citizenship aimed at breaking male barriers to derive the sense of identity/security and worth from their abilities to earn and get the equal power.
With all the vigour as women started taking up employment in government offices, hospitals, banks, private companies and the like, and in its wake was born the latch key kid.
Who is the 'Latch key kid'? The child that wears or carries house keys with so that he can let himself into his home when he returns from school.
The child is at home without adult supervision until his parents return from work, school, or other occupations away from home.
Currently, the term 'self care' is used to refer to elementary and middle school children who are without adult supervision during the after-school hours whether they are at home, at friends' houses, or in public places.
Preschool children usually are not included; because it is considered inappropriate for preschool children to be unsupervised for any amount of time (less than 1 % of the preschool population spends some time in self care).
Adolescents attending high school also are not included, because it is developmentally appropriate for high school students to care for themselves after school without direct adult supervision.
When he is a neonatal, still in the swaddling clothes, his young upwardly mobile mommy (yummy) would always be under active gun, 'Tinkies' with two incomes, nanny and kids, would leave him with nanny for his/her day care.
If the nanny is not alive or is in poor health, unable to look after the baby, the maternal granny would take over the charge of baby-minder, while the mommy and papa are out at work.
Some yuppies would even permanently send kids to their 'nani-hal', the house of the maternal grandfather.
In some cases the dual career families also hire services of an 'aaya' or male servant to take care of the kid.
Alternately dual career parents look forcrèche and baby sitters, or else either of the parents stays home to play/swap the role of baby sitter.
But then as the little fellow goes to school and gets home from school, the 'latch key kid' collects keys from the hiding place or from his/her neck or even from the neighbours and lets him/herself in to his/her house/flat to be looked after by he/she, him/herself.
With or without changing school uniform, the kid heads for the hot case/refrigerator to get rice and vegetable (cooked) left for lunch.
While doing so he/she would settle down to couch potato in front of TV or play with his/her indoor games or busies him/herself in the homework.
He/she may even settle down at the house of the neighbor till either of the dual career parents returns from the office.
In the event neighbours are not home the 'latch key kid' waits at the roadside (at times even finishing his/her homework) till the working mommy returns from office.
In a typical upwardly mobile dual career family with a (latch-key)kid or two, the woes of the yummy (young upwardly mobile mommy) begin early in the morning when she tumbles out of her bed with the nightmarish thought that she has; got the floor to mop, the food to chop; the chicken to fry, the baby to dry; got company to feed, the garden to weed; got shirts to press, the tops to dress; the beans to cut, and clean up the hut.
She fixes the breakfast (and lunch as well) and makes her self doubly sure that the school going kid(s) wakes up and finishes with his/her unending session in the bathroom.
It is not many minutes before the harried mommy thunders at the top of her voice, and drags the little brat out of the bathroom to catch the school bus on time.
As she assures herself of the contents of the school bag her child, the career mother harangues the kid before he leaves for school.
Some people argue that the dual career parents, with little knowledge as to how to really cope and love, would compensate it all with the material gifts and spoil their children in the process.
The kids as a result according to them would inherit little negotiating power as required for their effective development.
Besides the illusions of the helicopter parents about coddling and protecting their children threaten the abilities of these children later in their life to strike off on their own and form a healthy relationship and proper job skills.
Children in settings like this, they would say, do not get the optimal brain growth and the activity that establishes the cognitive pathways.
In the present day liberal world however despite all these arguments, the latch-key-kids constitute the 30-40something segment of our 'demographic dividend'.
They are our knowledge/media workers, designers, management/financial whiz kids, doctors, chartered/financial accountants and all that jazz.
A large number of people agree that the employment status of the mother does have effects on families and children, but few of these effects are negative ones.
Indeed, most seem positive -- the higher academic outcomes for children, benefits in their behavioral conduct and social adjustment, and the higher sense of competence and effectiveness in daughters.
On the whole, experts suggest that majority of the families accommodate to the employment of the mother and in doing so provide a family environment that works well.
In two-parent families, the fathers take on a larger share of the household tasks and child care and this seems to have benefits for the children.
In the working class, employed mothers indicate a higher level of well-being than full-time homemakers and this, in turn, affects their parenting in positive ways.
Even in the middle-class, where employed mothers do not show a higher level of well-being, neither do they show a lower one.
While the quality and stability of non-maternal care for infants and young children is considered important, the employment of the mother itself does not seem to have the negative effects often proclaimed.
The developmental impact of self care is thought to depend on the circumstances.
The child characteristics, type and amount of self care, and family circumstances are factors in the outcomes of self care.
Younger children and children, who were experiencing behaviour problems before self care, begin appear to be more adversely affected by it.
Children and young adolescents, who hang out with peers and who spend long amounts of time unsupervised, also seem to experience more negative outcomes than other children.
Children from low-income urban families also appear to be at greater risk from self care.
Nevertheless keeping in view the broader visions of the educated working women, the latch key kids reared up in these families invariably emerge as independent (minded), though aggressive and robotically successful in their career graph.
With all the vigour as women started taking up employment in government offices, hospitals, banks, private companies and the like, and in its wake was born the latch key kid.
Who is the 'Latch key kid'? The child that wears or carries house keys with so that he can let himself into his home when he returns from school.
The child is at home without adult supervision until his parents return from work, school, or other occupations away from home.
Currently, the term 'self care' is used to refer to elementary and middle school children who are without adult supervision during the after-school hours whether they are at home, at friends' houses, or in public places.
Preschool children usually are not included; because it is considered inappropriate for preschool children to be unsupervised for any amount of time (less than 1 % of the preschool population spends some time in self care).
Adolescents attending high school also are not included, because it is developmentally appropriate for high school students to care for themselves after school without direct adult supervision.
When he is a neonatal, still in the swaddling clothes, his young upwardly mobile mommy (yummy) would always be under active gun, 'Tinkies' with two incomes, nanny and kids, would leave him with nanny for his/her day care.
If the nanny is not alive or is in poor health, unable to look after the baby, the maternal granny would take over the charge of baby-minder, while the mommy and papa are out at work.
Some yuppies would even permanently send kids to their 'nani-hal', the house of the maternal grandfather.
In some cases the dual career families also hire services of an 'aaya' or male servant to take care of the kid.
Alternately dual career parents look forcrèche and baby sitters, or else either of the parents stays home to play/swap the role of baby sitter.
But then as the little fellow goes to school and gets home from school, the 'latch key kid' collects keys from the hiding place or from his/her neck or even from the neighbours and lets him/herself in to his/her house/flat to be looked after by he/she, him/herself.
With or without changing school uniform, the kid heads for the hot case/refrigerator to get rice and vegetable (cooked) left for lunch.
While doing so he/she would settle down to couch potato in front of TV or play with his/her indoor games or busies him/herself in the homework.
He/she may even settle down at the house of the neighbor till either of the dual career parents returns from the office.
In the event neighbours are not home the 'latch key kid' waits at the roadside (at times even finishing his/her homework) till the working mommy returns from office.
In a typical upwardly mobile dual career family with a (latch-key)kid or two, the woes of the yummy (young upwardly mobile mommy) begin early in the morning when she tumbles out of her bed with the nightmarish thought that she has; got the floor to mop, the food to chop; the chicken to fry, the baby to dry; got company to feed, the garden to weed; got shirts to press, the tops to dress; the beans to cut, and clean up the hut.
She fixes the breakfast (and lunch as well) and makes her self doubly sure that the school going kid(s) wakes up and finishes with his/her unending session in the bathroom.
It is not many minutes before the harried mommy thunders at the top of her voice, and drags the little brat out of the bathroom to catch the school bus on time.
As she assures herself of the contents of the school bag her child, the career mother harangues the kid before he leaves for school.
Some people argue that the dual career parents, with little knowledge as to how to really cope and love, would compensate it all with the material gifts and spoil their children in the process.
The kids as a result according to them would inherit little negotiating power as required for their effective development.
Besides the illusions of the helicopter parents about coddling and protecting their children threaten the abilities of these children later in their life to strike off on their own and form a healthy relationship and proper job skills.
Children in settings like this, they would say, do not get the optimal brain growth and the activity that establishes the cognitive pathways.
In the present day liberal world however despite all these arguments, the latch-key-kids constitute the 30-40something segment of our 'demographic dividend'.
They are our knowledge/media workers, designers, management/financial whiz kids, doctors, chartered/financial accountants and all that jazz.
A large number of people agree that the employment status of the mother does have effects on families and children, but few of these effects are negative ones.
Indeed, most seem positive -- the higher academic outcomes for children, benefits in their behavioral conduct and social adjustment, and the higher sense of competence and effectiveness in daughters.
On the whole, experts suggest that majority of the families accommodate to the employment of the mother and in doing so provide a family environment that works well.
In two-parent families, the fathers take on a larger share of the household tasks and child care and this seems to have benefits for the children.
In the working class, employed mothers indicate a higher level of well-being than full-time homemakers and this, in turn, affects their parenting in positive ways.
Even in the middle-class, where employed mothers do not show a higher level of well-being, neither do they show a lower one.
While the quality and stability of non-maternal care for infants and young children is considered important, the employment of the mother itself does not seem to have the negative effects often proclaimed.
The developmental impact of self care is thought to depend on the circumstances.
The child characteristics, type and amount of self care, and family circumstances are factors in the outcomes of self care.
Younger children and children, who were experiencing behaviour problems before self care, begin appear to be more adversely affected by it.
Children and young adolescents, who hang out with peers and who spend long amounts of time unsupervised, also seem to experience more negative outcomes than other children.
Children from low-income urban families also appear to be at greater risk from self care.
Nevertheless keeping in view the broader visions of the educated working women, the latch key kids reared up in these families invariably emerge as independent (minded), though aggressive and robotically successful in their career graph.
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