Latchkey kid

You could say the advent of television, post-war prosperity especially, and then for the second half, Vietnam in your living room as part of that television, those are defining characteristics of boomers.

Latchkey kid.

is the defining characteristic of Gen

X.

Yeah, that's a great question.

I say I'm a latchkey kid.

For those that aren't familiar with that, my parents divorced when I was four, four and a half.

And my mom, I lived with my mom.

think there was a time in the 70s where parents were trying to retain their own selves while having family and kids.

And that's where we saw the divorce rate skyrocket and all this sort of, what was the key thing? Latchkey.

Latchkey kids.

Both

parents had a job.

What was that called in the '80s? Uh, it was called a latchkey kid.

Yeah, I was a latchkey kid.

Latchkey just meant you would come from, from school and your parents were at work still.

Right, so you, you had the, the, the key for the house on your, on your necklace on, like, a, on, like, a, a shoestring.

A shoestring.

Did you guys ever play it? Probably not.

I remember playing it in Latchkey, um, you have to after school, when, you know, m- mom or dad couldn't pick you up, you went to Latchkey, and one of the things they had there was a TV on a cart, the old TV on the cart with an NES, and-

It was called Latchkey?

It was called Latchkey, yeah.

That's what it was called.

That's hilarious.

Jump it off.

Latchkey kids.

Latchkey.

That's exactly right.

[laughs] That's what we are.

Yeah.

Latchkey kids.

Yeah, I was latchkey.

It was making sure your kids had the money the latest brands, that they would be able to go to college, that you had the 2.2 kids with the golden retriever and the white picket fence.

Well, that came, that bore the latchkey kid generation, Gen X.

Latchkey kids would come home to an empty house because their parents were trying to provide monetarily and provide resources, but they weren't providing emotionally.

And again, generalizing here, but Gen X, which makes up 50% of the parents of millennials, they became the helicopter parents.

They're like, I'm not gonna do what my parents did.

Peaked at number seven on the Billboard albums chart, had the popular songs, The Fire Inside, and Real Love.

In 1996, A+ released Latch Key Child.

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