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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2851 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The families that can't afford summer

When I was 12, I learned how to do laundry. I already helped with the cooking. That summer I got a paper route. When I turned 13, I had a whole list of chores as my mom went back to work. That included keeping the siblings in line. I did not grow up with anyone in my peer group that got to do the summer vacation thing. When I was in my late 20's and finally ran into people who "Summered" someplace, usually Mexico, I could not process that such people existed.

The interesting thing to watch from the outside is that all these latch-key kids became helicopter parents, as the pendulum swung back to the other side of the crazy.