Psychology says the generation that raised itself - home alone after school, resolving its own problems, feeding itself from whatever was in the cupboard — didn't come out damaged. It came out with a

Key Points:

• The "latchkey generation," children who came home to empty houses in the 1970s and 80s due to working parents, experienced unsupervised hours that fostered a unique psychological capacity: comfort with solitude and emotional self-regulation.
• British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott's concept of "the capacity to be alone" highlights that being alone without anxiety is a sign of emotional maturity, developed through experiences of secure aloneness, which many latchkey kids inadvertently practiced.
• Research shows that comfort with solitude correlates with lower depression, fewer physical symptoms, and greater life satisfaction, suggesting that the unsupervised time helped children develop important self-soothing and internal locus of control skills.
• Unlike previous generations with more supervised home environments or later generations with structured activities and constant digital connectivity, the latchkey generation uniquely benefited from unstructured, solitary time during critical developmental periods.
• While acknowledging that some latchkey kids faced neglect or unsafe conditions, the article emphasizes that for many, this experience was an unintended but valuable lesson in independence, emotional resilience, and the ability to find peace in one's own company.