Latch-key children

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Jump to: navigation, search
This article does not cite its references or sources. You can help Wikipedia by including appropriate citations.


Children left unattended after school until their parent(s) returned home from work came to be known as 'latch-key children' due to the house keys they carried.

Latch key children began to spring up in large numbers during World War II, when the drive to get women working in the understaffed industrial industries changed the role of mother from homemaker to employee. Children began to show up with house keys tied around their necks with ribbon, or pinned to their shirts.

According to the US Census, as many as one third of all children between the ages of five and thirteen may be coming home to empty homes for one to three hours.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latch-key_children"
Personal tools