A comical, yet authentic narrative by a former feral, latchkey kid.

The Age of Inattention

Let’s face it, if you’re reading this you’re probably a GenXer looking for other GenXer’s to either reminisce or commiserate with. I’m also almost certain you look around at the state of our world and whisper “WTF” countless times a day! You watch in disbelief at the unfathomable “helicopter parents” (affectionately referred to as HP’s going forward) who schedule every minute of their children’s lives. The HP’s decide who, when, where and how their kids will play. Extracurricular activities are pasted all over exceptionally detailed calendars providing exact instructions to parents/caregivers/siblings/co-parents who needed to be where/when – who has snack, AND – most importantly, who was responsible to pick them up?

As GenX’s we watch all of this scheduled chaos and fondly reminisce of a childhood that could only be likened to J.M Barrie’s Lost Boys in Peter Pan. Feral children left to fend for themselves, without so much as a second thought from our parental units as they embraced the new two income family ideology. Moms, once housewives, were now in the workforce forging their way up the corporate ladder! Dads were trying to figure out how to maintain their position in the male dominated workforce…thus the Latchkey Kid was born.