When do you first remember being left home alone

[WomenHour]

I think it was around 9 , my mum had to go to work so she left me and my brother for a few hours.

About 6 years old. it was just normal for me and everybody else at that age

From about 8 is when I was left and made my way to another district for school alone.

My oldest we have just started to let stay home if he wishes while I do the shop since he will be home for around an hour after school while I’m getting the youngest siblings now his going into secondary.

I used to babysit my little sister when I was about 10.

I had been allowed to be at home alone for several years before that.

Really young maybe 6 or 7. My mum was a nurse, used to leave early and my sister, 3 years older, was supposed to walk to school with me but she always went off with her friends. Not unusual where we lived though, plenty of adults around if we needed them.

I lived alone from 16. I was very independent.

There was a school strike when I was 10. I had to come home and eat sandwiches left by my mum. No real issues to be honest. I liked the space and complete control of the telly. It would not happen now, we did not leave our own kids until they were well into their teens (13/14) and then only for a few hours. They were at University before we would leave them for weekends.

@Gingerfish91 I lived alone from 16. I was very independent.

This always intrigues me. How do you live alone at 16? You can't enter into rent agreements, mortgages, loans etc. How did you support yourself? Where did you live?

I know there are homeless young people, or those living in hostels or supported living, but just 'living alone' seems to be something that appears pretty impossible for most teens of that age.

I left home (or rather was chucked out of care) at 17 in 1979 but I went straight into a live in nanny job. There was nowhere even then that I could live alone.

I lived without my parents at 16 as I had an 18 year old boyfriend who got a council house for us.

My friend at the time was also 16 and she was classed as estranged from her parents. She was given a council flat and claimed income support etc. I assume she would have had a social worker and they would have played a part in housing her adequately.

There are also people who will rent rooms out, and you could be a lodger I suppose if you could earn enough to pay your rent.

I've also known people to be housed in flats by family members. Mum or dad moves in with new partner and leaves 16 year old in old home. That kind of thing does happen.

@ThisMustBeMyDream none of that is really 'living alone' though is it.

I know people who lived without parents at 16. They lived on a remote island and so for 6th form they moved to the mainland to study at the local college. Without parents and just lived in student type accommodation

I was really young, maybe 4? My sister would have been at school and I wasn't poorly so I must have been too young to start school yet. My mum was doing cleaning jobs to make ends meet as a single mum back in the 80s so must have been desperate. We lived above a butchers shop and I remember going downstairs and out the door which shut and locked behind me.
The men who worked in the butchers asked if I was ok and took me in the shop where one of them drove up the road to find my mum. She was walking back from her cleaning job and must have been so embarrassed!
I remember the butcher gave me a Cornish pasty which I hate to this day! I remember sitting there looking at the sawdust on the floor nibbling the pastry..

From about 9 whenever I was home ill. Single parent mum had to work, and no time off for ill children in the 90s.

I loved it. I’d be left a lunch, a blanket and be allowed to watch whatever I wanted. Free Willy was a favourite video on those days!

Age 9 was left in the care of my then 13 year old DSIS which was akin to leaving me in the care of wolves (though the wolves would have probably been safer).

Just before Dparents left, she chucked a large plastic ice cream tub on the open fire, the ensuing inferno set the chimney on fire and she threatened to thump me if I told parents!

Luckily they came into the room to say bye just as a large burning cinder fell down the chimney. They quickly dealt with it so house didn't actually burn down!

They paid for a babysitter next time they went out!

Honestly the first time I remember being left on my own I was probably about 13/14. It was at lunchtimes during term time when my parents would be at work and my other siblings were at school, uni or work. I do have three older siblings (and two younger) who are 9 years, 7 years and 4 years older than I am so I'd often been left at home with them. I do think that anything under high school age is probably too young to be honest.

I was a latch key kid after school from about 9 in the early 90's but my brother was 2 years older and also home. My mum was usually home by 4 30pm as she was a teacher. Also left for a couple of hours around same age if mum went to the shops etc. I liked it, have always been independent.

When I was 14 I got a job babysitting two pre school children in the evening while their parents worked. That is a bit scary thought now.

Nokidshere

Yes there was family allowance. But this was not a lot. We lived in London and we were poor.

There was no child maintenance for us and there wasn't help with childcare. My Mum worked in central London so there were train fares to come out of that too.

@nokidshere

When my mum remarried we moved to my step dads 200 miles away mum Always hated it and when I was 16 she moved back with my younger brothers To start a business. . I was just starting college and didn’t want To move And nor did my older sister so We stayed in the house. My parents paid the mortgage and bills. My sister moved in with her boyfriend about 2 weeks later Leaving me on my own. My dad came up once a week and did the shopping etc.

I was probably about 7/8, and it would be for 2 or 3 hours, 1 evening a week while my DM went to college.
She would give me my tea before she went, and I knew not to answer the door, to say she was in the bath if the phone rang, and not to make myself any food (not to use knives, kettle, microwave or cooker)

I had a front door key from about 6 years old, for the half hour between getting home from school and her finishing work, but I would go to my aunties and wait for her there more often than not.

nokidshere at the privileged/ poor little rich girls (although they seemed fine, not unhappy) end of the scale I had a both a friend and an acquaintance at boarding school, both of whom left at 16 and then lived alone.
One had parents living in a troubled middle Eastern country who owned several properties in the UK and gave/ lent her a flat to live in while she attended an FE college, having not done well enough for A levels, and worked part time. They thought it would be good for her apparently. It was I guess. She had two older half siblings at university in the same city, living in different areas of the city, as emergency contacts but didn't see them much. She eventually made it to university herself. She wasn't truly independent (certainly financially as she had no rent to pay) but she definitely lived alone. I visited her for long weekends almost every holiday while I was at 6th form telling my parents her sister lived in the same flat, which wasn't true

My acquaintance was in a different school year but her mum had died much earlier, when she was very small, and when she was 16 her dad sold his business, gave each of his children their inheritance and fucked off to live on a yacht and "cruise". She was the youngest and bought a cottage in a pretty village beloved of retired people, slightly oddly. She dropped out of school for a while, then later did secretarial qualifications, later she started working. She lived alone - though her financial independence was due to the privilege of having been given a very substantial sum which she lived on for quite a while. She got married in her 20s but she definitely lived alone from age 16. She had family friends in the area and older siblings scattered throughout the country, but nobody specifically "looking after" her.

I think only the very wealthy and the very poor/ underprivileged usually live alone at 16. It's not an "ordinary" experience but it happens.

Even now a colleague's daughter lives in a rented room with an elderly couple several hundred miles from her parents because she wanted to do a specific apprenticeship not widely available and has a place in a city at the other end of the country. My colleague got her settled there, checked everything out etc but and is on the find of the phone. The couple aren't in charge of her and weren't part of any specific arrangement for the apprenticeship, they were just looking for a lodger. Her daughter is 18 now but was 16, nearly 17 when she moved. She's also living alone to most intents and purposes - at least not with a carer or parent.

I was never left completely alone until I was around 15/16, but I often babysat one or both of my younger brothers from the age of 11. I wouldn't have allowed either of mine to babysit at that age, but they've been allowed to stay home alone since they were 10.

I walked to school and back by myself from about 7/8.
I looked after my two younger sisters 3/4 from about 11 for 4plus hour stretches, whole weekend days by 12/13.

My older DS I would leave for 15 mins to go to the corner shop from about 9 and when he started secondary school he walked to school by himself. He’s 14 now and stays at home all day by himself but not overnight. DS2 is nearly 11, is hyperactive and poor impulse control, he very occasionally gets left with DS1 for 30 mins max. I know I have to prep him for secondary school soon but I can’t cope with it! DS1 was very rule orientated, DS2 not so much!

From age 7, for 1-1.5 hours after school every day. Usually my 9yo sister was with me but sometimes she went to the library or a friend's house and I was on my own.

My ex's niece lived 'alone' (shared a flat with students) when she was 16 as she was going to a specialist art high school in another city (not UK), its not entirely unusual here, especially when smaller high schools close down so even for teenagers just wanting to go to a normal high school they might have to live away from home in student accommodation, there was one in the place I was staying in in my Erasmus year (which was a bit worrying, as it was the party building which definitely is not suitable for a 16 year old but she mostly kept herself to herself)

@nokidshere

Really?

Of course it is living alone at 16. I've given you the example of my friend who was housed in a flat claiming benefits at 16. How is that not living alone???

Living in parents properties alone, again... it's still living alone.

Even living in shared accommodation (lodger, renting rooms or any other arrangement) is living independently, albeit not alone as such, but certainly not like living with your family.

@nokidshere I lived in a house share at 17. I was working and paying rent. The landlord wasn't bothered that I was 17, there was no formal contract. This was in 2007.