Do you miss making last minute plans with your spouse? Do you wish you could go shopping......alone? Do you miss going for dinner without having to take each child to the bathroom, twice?
As most parents know, when you have children, your vocabulary quickly changes to include words like: diapers, bottles, pacifiers, snotty noses and dirty bottoms, and undoubtedly, BABYSITTER!! For the next decade, at least, the opportunities to enjoy a night out, unplanned and totally spontaneous, are out the window like late nights at a club and sleeping in till 9am!!
After years of paying babysitters and bribing family members to "watch the kids, pleeeeeease!" we long for the days when we can trust our kids to stay home alone, so we can finally go grocery shopping alone, without kids asking for fruit gushers or fruit roll-ups, or the tempting chocolate at the check-out (oh wait, the chocolate part is me!!!)
So at what age is it legal to leave your child home alone? Or does that responsibility depend on how much you trust your child not to discover and demolish your chocolate stash? Apparently, age 10 seems to be the answer from most of my friends with children close in age to mine, and considering my son will be 12 in December, that answer was like music to my ears! (Justin Bieber of course!!!)
So if your child is at least 10 years old, you might want to try leaving them home alone for a short period of time, and if your chocolate stash goes undiscovered, it's a go!! You have officially entered Chapter 2 of parenthood, and your life just got a little easier! Enjoy grocery shopping alone and not having to hear "I'm staying in the car" every time you reach your next destination! Amen!
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