One of the harder questions for me, currently, as a parent is figuring out when my son is old enough to be home alone for a certain amount of time. He is just a couple months away from being 9 and when I was his age (1993) my parents would let me and my younger brother, he was 8, stay home alone while they went to the grocery store. The store was only 10 minutes from our apartment, we were never alone more than 2 hours, and even though we didn't know it every single adult in the building was keeping a secret eye on us. To me and my brother, though, we thought we were hot stuff because we were home alone for up to 2 hours.
Then there were the times where we would go home after school, have about an hour or so until our mom got home from work, and our dad wouldn't be home until around 6 or 7 depending on the jobs he had to do. So we got a little more home alone time after school on the days our mom had to work. We never knew we were not truly alone, our parents very rarely told us that our neighbors were keeping an eye out for us. It meant a lot to us that our parents trusted us. The older we got the more alone time we got in the apartment. For the most part nothing every happened. I mean, there would be a few sibling squabbles, but we were only 19mo apart so they happened more than if there was a drastic age difference. If our parents knew they were going to be gone longer than the normal 2 hours we would normally have a neighbor knock on our door after 2 hours to make sure were hadn't killed each other or trashed the apartment.
This was the early 90s for crying out loud. It was a hell of a lot safer than it is now. The only time our parents really regretted leaving us home alone was when my brother decided he was pissed at me, we were 11 and 12is this time, and he locked me out of the apartment. He not only locked the door knob, but he locked the dead bolt too. He refused to answer the door no matter how much I yelled or pounded on the door. Then my genius ass remember the whole 3 weeks of karate I took before I got kicked out for Chuck Norris-ing some kid in the gut. So I stepped back, took my stance, and side kicked the door as hard as I could. Lo and behold the door opened! The door was also broke. I did not break the wood of the door, nor did I do any damage to the door frame. I am still amazed at that. What I did however, was kick the door so hard it completely jammed the dead bolt in a locked position. Thus resulting in the landlord having to be called, along with our parents, to explain what happened to the door to get it fixed. Needless to say, it took my parents a while to trust us alone for more than 30 minutes for a while.
So this brings me back to my original question. In 2013, knowing how much the world has changed in 20 years, when is the right age for your child to be trusted with an hour or two of being home alone? I have had people ask me why I don't allow my son to be home alone while I go to the store or go to the end of the block to the pony keg and I just tell them that mentally and emotionally I do not think my son can handle it. There are, however, times during the weekend where I will run to the store, leaving my son there, but my dad is asleep in his room. So my son is not alone alone. There is a grown adult just feet away that he can wake up if anything happens. I know my son won't answer the door when someone knocks on it, and we don't have a home phone so I don't have to worry about that, but if my dad was not there I don't think he could handle it. If he is on the computer and I tell him I am stepping outside, but he doesn't register I said it, he freaks the hell out when he finally notices that I am not in the apartment. I won't even let him walk the .5 mile to school by himself. He is too easily distracted and even though its practically a straight line to his school, he will still somehow manage to get his ass lost.
So for me, personally, my son may not be able to stay home alone until he is 10, or 11, or even 12. It all depends on the maturity level of the child, how well they listen to what their parents teach them, and whether or not there is enough trust within the child themselves to handle not having an adult around 24/7. Some kids may be able to handle that now, but my son can not. So I ask you, when did your start leaving your kids home alone or when do you plan on it, for those with younger kids? How old were you when your parents started leaving you home alone?
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