leaving 12year old at home alone while we're at work?

[mofro]

Im FT at work and DH is self employed workung long hours. Eldesh DH is in Y7, settled well at new school. Hes' s dropped to school by us in the morning, and has a bus pass for coming home, has a house key and is at home alone from about 4.30pm until we get home for6.30/7pm.
He knows house rules,;is v sensible and is either doing homework, tv or playstation.- doesnt answer door or phone unless its us.
Have 2 other DC who go to family member after school which i pay for.
Had a lecture from my Dsis about abandoing him, how its wrong, what if house burnt down etc....and its kinds stuck in my head!!

Been a SAHM for years, doing crappy atrempts at self employment so i waa there for kuds and now finally gave a great FT job..but feeling guilty....

Was told by another family member she wdnt pop round this half term as i needed to spend time with my own kids as they never see me :-0

Very happy and confident kuds...but they alao moan a lot to me and obviously others about me and DH working so much, i.e. full time

I think it's horses for courses ... ( Not helpful )

At that age DS1 loved spending time on his own - very sociable on his own terms but needs lots of down time - but his slightly older ( 8 months difference ) cousin used to come home with him every night as he hated going home to an empty house ( His Dad's a single parent and worked til 6.30ish )

DS2 is 3 years younger so I was always around doing the school run until they both started getting the bus home from middle school and I could work until 5 ...

Perhaps ask your son how he feels about it?

At not much over that age I happily waved my parents and siblings off on two week holiday! Being forced to spend 5 days with my mum at 12 would have been awful (I would basically have been doing it for her, not me)

You feel fine about it (practically - forgetting mum-guilt), if he feels happy and fine about it then screw the other people's opinions.

"I sometimes wonder why i bother with an opinion as most times ops know what they are going to do anyway."

Because it's just your opinion and not the law of the land The OP needs to work and a small amount of time alone for a 12 year old is perfectly acceptable. Not everybody works just a few hours a week, some work more to put food on the table or refuse to allow the other adult to pick up up the financial burden.

So some people never give their 12-year olds any independence and alone time? While my parents are great, I certainly didn't want one of them hovering around me for every minute of the day at that age.

Like chunky I also stayed home happily for 2 weeks when I was just turning 12. Not a problem.

I do remember getting into lots of trouble one school holiday aged about 10 when my Mum was out and I decided to make face cream ala George's Marvellous Medicine

I was left alone at this age - both in the morning from 6.30 ish and after school for about an hour. Had to do own breakfast and sometimes made own lunch (if I wanted to save up my dinner money ) but not own tea. Honestly, it was fine and I did some growing up too - I even used to clean to surprise my Mum when she came home.
And as for only the parents ever looking after their children - for goodness sake this is ridiculous and would deny my DCs lovely Grandparents (and my DCs) the fantastic relationship they have with GPs...who spoil them rotten when I am not there. I, of course, pretend I don't know and they have a ball. What a way to make working parents feel guilty.

I think it very much depends on his character, as others have said.

I'm proud to be a feminist and would defend any woman's right to work full-time if she wants or needs to. The last thing I want is to make you feel guilty, as you are obviously a very thoughtful and caring parent and anyway it's the responsibility of both you and your DH, not just you.

All that said, I was left alone a lot after school as a child and, looking back, I was bored and lonely. The thing is, I would never have been able to articulate this at the time -- for some children, particularly around this age, challenging the status quo just doesn't feel safe. And because I was never offered an alternative, it didn't occur to me that it could be any other way so I never even asked myself whether I was OK with it. I just remember that I really enjoyed the days when I had an after-school activity or was invited to a friend's house, and vaguely dreaded that feeling of coming home to an empty house. Is there any way you could offer you son a real alternative, so that if he says he's fine with being home alone you'd know it really was his choice and not just being compliant?

I was home alone in the holidays from the age of 12, and maybe for an hour or so after school everyday. I loved it - I was allowed my best friend over and we were allowed to go to the shops/cinema/park so long as we rung our parents first to let them know.

It was a million times better than being forced to go to my parents work/holiday club/a childminder which I'd done for years beforehand and which was something I hated every minute of. Twelve is too old for regulated, supervised childcare like that - they need independence and the chance to do other things.

My parents worked full-time and didn't have the holiday to be there all the time - they had a mortgage and bills to pay, and the money they saved on childcare went on lovely family holidays and fun days out when they did get time off.

OP, you know your son best. If he's happy to be left at home and knows who to contact in an emergency, then there's nothing wrong with it.

It's completely irrelevant that we were left alone while parents holidayed... That's as everyone knows, prosecutable now whether anything goes wrong or not...simply if its found out about,

Has someone said they were left alone while parents went on holiday? That's completely different to being left alone IN the school holidays day time while parents are at work.

And, indeed, different from what the OP is talking about - leaving her son on his own for a couple of hours at the end of the school day...

comfy You can express an opinion without coming across as sanctimonious and smug. Your post about the OP's younger children being 'junked off to someone else' is just unneccessary and nasty - she hasn't asked for an opinion about that but you felt you'd give it anyway.
I have suffered loads of guilt throughout the years about working FT and the DCs going to CM/nursery/ASC/coming home on their own etc. I don't bother with the guilt anymore because they've all turned out amazingly and seem to quite like me. DS2 (6) is sitting at my feet doing a painting which says,'I love my family 10000 %'. DD 12 is making badges to sell for charity and DS 14 is off taking his grade 6 piano.
There are a handful of MNers who are very vocal about how parents (ie mothers) should be constantly on hand for their DCs until they reach adulthood, even if that means never working. Well, sod that.
OP, I'm sure your DS is fine. If you've been a SAHM in the past, this is just a bit of an adjustment. I've never been a SAHM so the DCs just see me working as normal, as do millions of other children with working parents.

Wow amazing the varients in peoples views . . . i got told by my friend who knows I don't like using childcare that the majority of accidents happen in the home! so there I am, staying at home with my child and apparently I am putting her at risk!!!! you just can't win can you?
I think Comfy has been given too much of a hard time. I have to agree with her and this is the reason.
I am a working single mother who uses childcare very rarely and if I do it's usually after school club. I manage this but cutting my coat according to my cloth ... My priority is looking after my daughter myself so I would rather go without designer clothes, a newish car, holidays, gadgets, nights out, haircuts even etc. etc. This year I have given up my National Trust membership as one of many cuts i've made - there are plenty of free things I can do instead.
I work in a school as a Dinner Lady even though this isn't my background and it's physically demanding and completely unglamorous.
I think Comfy was right, people ask these things and want you to agree to justify their actions and make them feel better. Sometimes it takes just one person to point out just cos the majority of people do something it dosen't make it right - that's what I call "sheep" mentality!
I'm sorry if this seems harsh and I do have some sympathy as this is much to do with the recession is this country. Latchkey kids are always associated with poverty and hard times but these days not many couples i know who say they HAVE to both work full time have any idea what being poor or what poverty is! I'd like to see them live on £57 per week like I did this Summer.

Deeky so do you think comfy's comments about the OP 'junking off' her younger 2 DCs to others were OK (despite it having nothing to do with what she was asking) ? And her diagnosing MrsDeVere as having a difficult relationship with her parents wasn't the slightest bit goady?

Not many on comfys side...... but I am..... and to the above poster was it ok for severe to call comfy a twat, in my book devere threw the first punch.....
And for the record no it is not ok for the child to be left on his own, but I really think the OP knows this.

Yes of course by "have to work full time" people don't actually mean that someone is holding a gun to their head. We all make choices. It's arguable if living on £57 so a 12-year old is never home alone is necessarily a much more superior choice.

YANBU if he's a sensible kid.

Deeky a mid days salary is very low and won't cover your living costs so presumably you have a lot of state help given you won't work more. Perhaps the OP believes people should provide for themselves and the choices they make rather than rely on other tax payers to do it.

Those that slate childcare tend to be the SAHP of a wealthy earner or use it as justification to not work and claim benefits instead.

Deeky, that is your choice and I'm glad it's the right one for you.

Not everyone works to provide designer clothes however. Some people need to pay the mortgage, some people work because they enjoy it, have worked hard for it or maybe even think that the job is doing some good in the world. All are important things to teach your children.

There is nothing to say that choosing to earn well means you value your children less than accepting a low skilled term time only school hours job. It's a choice, that's all.

There was a statistic yesterday that said UK was first globally in terms of women going to University, but something like 64th in terms of career earnings.

It easy to see why if all those lawyers have to become dinner ladies to prove they love their children.

Here's the article to clarify my finger in the air figures

i100.io/OT8chSb

I slate childcare because I prefer to look after my children than someone else. I unfortunately am a single parent, not out of choice and do receive Housing Benefit and Child Tax Credit. To pay my own rent i would need to work full time and put my child in childcare. Yes i feel a little guilty for this but I would like to see the government make Child Maintenance from absent parents compulsory so it's not left to the State to pick up the financial pieces. The Government also adds to the problem by not providing free or cheap childcare. Because I work under 16 hours I do not get help with childcare and earning minimum wage I would be working for £2 per hour.
Maybe i looked at it from my own personal situation but I do have friends who both work and waste an awful lot of money on unnecessary things. I think you can get into that mindset that you work so long and hard you deserve it. 2 examples; a friend who recently went bankrupt and had her house repossessed has just signed up to the Cambridge Diet at £45 per week? Another friend who complained and complained how they have no money for bills etc. bought a new all singing all dancing iron for about £130!
Perhaps it's easier for me as i being on a low wage I can justify not using childcare as it's just not worth it - if you earn £20+ per hour perhaps it is?

Yes NRP should pay support but a law making them would be very unfair when the PWC wasn't doing the same.

In your case though the state is only picking up the cost as you choose to work five hours or so a week for only 39 weeks of the year. You could work more hours and therefore not take the state assistance easily. Long term, it's a very bad plan.

Why shouldn't your friends spend their wages as they see fit, they have worked hard and earned it rather than had it from other tax payers.

The OP is perfectly able to decide if her child and children are in the relevant settings whilst she works. Children are very adaptable.

FWIW my own mum was a single parent, had to work very hard to provide for me (she did also have CM from my father, but still had to work hard to keep our family home) so I was 'junked off' to childcare quite a bit. However I grew up with a fantastic role model and I learned from her the importance of relying on oneself. Some of the comments here are so awful and judgy.

Deeky... you have made a very admirable choice.

I am a SAHM with my preschoolers and we go without, because I know that my children need my daily care in order to grow in to confident, strong, secure and well attached adults.

I personally think school is a big strain on children. The hours spent away from home, supervised in the very loose sense of the word but in no way guided, spending hours and hours surrounded by scores of equally immature children of their own age (a completely unnatural social setting, designed in the Victorian times). For me, sending my children to after school clubs / childminders / whatever outside of school hours is completely out of the question. I had children to raise them. Not so that they could be conveniently placed in amongst my life with the minimum of disruption to myself.

Deeky is right, IMO. Very few people really have to use child care. It is absolutely all about choice. We live in a smaller house than we could afford if I'd stayed in work. We live in a less than convenient location, for the cheap housing. We made sure we bought our house at the right time, when prices were heading down and mortgages were low, specifically so that we could survive on one salary.

When both of my children are at school, I'll go back to work. But DH and I will work together to make sure they are at home, with one of us, outside of school hours and during the holidays. This is someone we always wanted for our family arrangements. We always said, if we were going to have children, we'd do it properly. We see properly as taking full responsibility for our children. Being there for them. Making sure they're not lonely. Helping them with their homework. Giving them the loving one-on-one care and attention they don't get at school. Having plenty of time for them to talk to us, and us to them. This is not how either of us where brought up.

I'll have plenty of time to live my own life when my babies are grown up. But for now, my life is them. And I know 100%, that when I'm on my death bed there is no way I would ever think "I really wished I'd worked more and spent less time with my children".

I fully appreciate I, and a few others, are the odd ones out on MN. People make their own choices, and I respect that. But I do believe that we live in a society where it's OK to have your own wants, and to put them first. I don't think that's necessarily right. But it makes things a lot less difficult for people.

We are talking about a 12-year old and a couple of hours here, not abandoning preschoolers to be raised by wolves.