I know times have changed but would this have ever been OK, even in the 80s?

[Duckcurtains]

I friend of mine, now mid 50s, parents split when he was young. Mum moved abroad with new man and he didn't see her again until that relationship broke down, when he was 23. That's not the bit I'm asking about though.

He and sister, three years younger, stayed with Dad, who seems to have raised good kids. They're all very close still.

However, when friend was 14, Dad's employer moved their base 200 miles away and Dad was working away M-F , leaving friend and 11yo sister to look after themselves during the week.

It sounds like they were fine, they both see it as dad doing what he needed to do, but shouldn't "someone" have been on that?

It wouldn't have been deemed acceptable in any decade, there should have at least been a responsible adult close by in case of emergency, but as you stated, Dad was doing what he had to to support the kids, and they didn't seem to come to any harm.
Petty sure social services would have been on it though, if someone had reported it!!

Was it right? Of course not but it did happen - DP's parents moved out to be caretakers which came with accommodation and left him at 15 with his 12 year old sister. He left school to get a job in order to pay the bills as his parents cancelled everything in their name. They moved back 3 years later and kicked him out. Then kicked his sister out when she was 16.

I think the bar for any kind of SS involvement in family life was pretty high in the 1980s so the situation would have needed to be causing problems that were visible to the authorities (eg. school truancy) for SS to be alerted

The concept of "I'm really worried about X family so I might contact SS" didn't really exist in the 1980s

Well, it wouldn't have been usual, no. But it wouldn't have been seen as the end of the world either, so long as the kuds seemed ok with it. Especially having 'lost' the mother. Just a Dad doing his best.

There was nothing like the same involvement from schools, that's for sure. As long as we seemed ok, we'd have been left to get on with it.

why are you bothered by it now?

In any decade ? Really?

Even when girls were sent to work from age 11?

Being fully independent at 16 was quite normal in the 80s , you could leave school and get your own flat , so leaving a 14 year old wouldn't have seemed so off at all - it's probably equivalent to leaving an 18 year old today since I think most kids don't leave home / education until their 20s now ?

I don’t think it was acceptable in the 80s to leave an 11 and 14 year old home alone for the best part of a week, no.

Agree with those basically saying it wasn't really deemed ok, but it wasn't unheard of and it's very unlikely that any action would have been taken. People would have just accepted that it's what their dad needed to do to put a roof over their head and they seemed to be coping.

I had friends where everyone knew how shit their home life was, with alcoholic or neglectful parents, but no one every interfered or reported it, and I'm pretty sure Social Services would have done little about it.

I don’t think it would have been acceptable, no. That said, I was regularly left at home for days at a time when my mum travelled for work from 12/13. I was home all day every day for at least a year (my mum stopped bothering to take me to school) from 10/11.

I’m sure the school must have asked where I was. No idea what she told them, probably that I went to a different school. I assume because records were not electronic, it was probably harder to chase, and we were a sufficiently ‘middle class’ ‘naice’ family that she was probably taken at her word.

Thankfully, I was fine and nothing ‘bad’ happened and I was (of necessity) very mature and independent, but it wasn’t great for me overall and could have been dangerous if I hadn’t been so lucky. I can see how many children must have slipped through the cracks.

I'm mid 50s too, and it definitely wasn't normal in my experience. Among my friends, most of us weren't left alone while parents went in holiday until 16-17. We still had babysitters until we were 13-14.

From age about 9 I was left alone all day if I was off school sick - certainly not babysat at 14

I think leaving a 14 year old for a week was unusual but not considered abuse or neglect

It may be a class think though

I'm not "bothered", I'm interested. He's an interesting character and we had a good chat about our childhoods and what makes us how we are.

Agree with the previous poster about it likely being seen as a single dad “doing his best.” Expectations for fathers were a lot lower 40-odd years ago: a neighbour of my parents was considered some sort of mystical deity by virtually everyone for not putting his DC into care when his wife abandoned him and the DC, it was just assumed he would. Your friend’s dad was gainfully employed and likely seen as an upstanding citizen, as long as his children were coping and getting on fine it would have attracted less attention than e.g. alcoholic or drug addicted parents leaving their children alone.

No , it wasn't normal or acceptable in the 80s.

I guess not but if they managed ok it might not have come to anyone's attention.

I can only speak from my own experience and say - absolutely not normal in any way. I am pretty sure that my mum, if she had known, would have offered to have the children stay with her, and I say this because I know women who did this at the time. I also have a friend who took a child in ds's class to live with her and her daughter for a year, so nothing like as long ago. In the latter case, SS were involved.

What I think might have been different back then is that my mum and my aunt would have expected a woman to step in in some form. If your friend had a female relative who didn't step up, they would probably have given that relative a hard time. Much more so than your friend's dad.

My oh parents moved up north when he was 14 and didn't register him with a school. He helped his dad building and on market stalls this was mid 80s.

It wasn’t right or really acceptable but it sounds like he was in a desperate situation and did all he could. Not acceptable though, and could have been very problematic.

Jeez, so M-F regularly? Not ok when I was in the 80s.

Dm died when I was seventeen in 1985. He would go abroad on business leaving me in charge of siblings 15, 13 and 11. I'd make sure we all got to school, were fed. laundry done, house clean. He didn't see it as a big deal and not sure I did either. Pretty sure had I been two or three years younger df would still have done the same as well.

I think it was more acceptable than it would be now. Not ideal, but not the end of the world either.

Did they have good neighbours and family friends around in case of emergency?

I was 11 and 14 in the 80s and I would have been shocked if I'd heard that this was happening to anyone. It wasn't normal and it would not have been acceptable. If we had known anyone in this situation, my mum would definitely have intervened. I suppose it's the kind of thing that might possibly have been on Grange Hill, and then it would have been resolved in some way that didn't involve the children just fending for themselves.

I'm also mid-50s and I was the babysitter at 13-14 (paid work). I definitely didn't have a babysitter once I was in secondary school.

That said, I wasn't left on my own until 17 (sister was 15). That was for 2 weeks and was fine as I could drive by then.

I had school friends in the early 00’s who were left alone for weeks at a time.

One friend at 14 used to be alone every weekend and large parts of the school holiday as her parents bought a caravan and used to go there every weekend and holiday - once she was old enough to protest they just left her at home.

I had another friend who from year 10 (so 15? I remember it was our first GCSE year) was left alone mon-Fri as her mom was working away.

I wouldn’t have said it was the norm though - the selfish teen in me, who was happy we had a house to party in, knew not to let on to my own parents how abandoned these two friends were as they would definitely have called social services.

I'm a bit older (60) and my mum was in hospital for long spells of my childhood, once I reached secondary school age we didn't go into care any more when mum was in hospital (often for months at a time), social services were no longer interested as dad was deemed to be a dad doing his best. Dad worked long hours then spent most of his evening visiting her, sorting out the kids and the house was left to me for the most part, there were no grandparents/aunts/uncles popping in to make sure we were OK and mum usually managed to alienate the neighbours with her behaviour so they didn't check in on us either.

I mean I understand babysitting for an evening, but I don’t think that’s the same as being left to parent a younger sibling every day with no parent even in the same town. Babysitting would have been seen as acceptable - I don’t think being left to your own devices really was.