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- Newsgroups: alt.child-support
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!tellab5!chrz
- From: chrz@tellabs.com (Peter Chrzanowski)
- Subject: Re: "Key children", children with parents at work.
- Message-ID: <1992Nov19.183326.12326@tellab5.tellabs.com>
- Keywords: Children parents work
- Sender: news@tellab5.tellabs.com (News)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: tellab3
- Organization: Tellabs, Inc.
- References: <1992Nov18.082238.27983@hsr.no>
- Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 18:33:26 GMT
- Lines: 25
-
- In article <1992Nov18.082238.27983@hsr.no>, karl@hsr.no (Karl Martin Lund) writes:
- > Some friends of mine are working on a papir on what we in Norwegian call
- > key-children. It's children in the age about five to twelve years who
- > for some reason have no parents at home when they for instance arrive home
- > after school. The reason may be that the parents are at work.
- > BTW, is there an English term for key-children?
-
- In the U.S.A we call 'em "latch-key children". I'm not familiar with
- scholarly literature that shows this to be harmful to the children,
- although five seems MUCH to young to be home alone for any length
- of time.
-
- I've read of programs that match old, usually retired people with kids,
- at least on a phone-up basis. One of the things we've mostly lost is
- the extended family; chances are the parents' parents don't live
- close enough to provide attention for the kids.
-
- Of course, not all old people *want* to do this, or are good with
- kids, but I'm sure there are many who would enjoy having at least
- limited contact with children again; not all old people (I hope to
- become "old" someday, rather than a "senior citizen") want to live
- in old-people's ghettos like Sun City, etc.
-
- As a teen I rather enjoyed coming home to a parentless home ...
-
-