latchkey

It’s a lovely landing for a latchkey kid who grew up eating Jack in the Box, and we’re not mad at it.

She mentions: "I was a latchkey kid, so I grew up with a lot of fast food and TV tray meals."

Don’t tell helicopter parents, but the gleefully transgressive flicks that entertained a generation of latchkey wildlings are coming back in style.

She says growing numbers of one-parent households, unmarried parents and “latchkey kids” who walk into empty homes after school each day have eroded the foundations that taught past generations to endure routine stress.

“I think for latchkey kids of the ‘80s and ‘90s, celebrities filled in for the family members we wish we had,” she said.