>wife wants
>the daughter to experience some portions of life as she did.

There's certainly some value to having obstacles

But too many people grossly overvalue hardship. IMO, the world, as a whole, is hard enough. Arbitrarily throwing more of them in someone's way to "toughen them up" or whatever, is backward thinking IMO.

My wife thinks my 11 year old is good to stay home for short trips.

Sure. Most likely. But... nah. Nope.

My wife says she was left alone for hours at this age.

Cool. So was I- and I was left for *days* on multiple occasions, with siblings to take care of.

That doesn't mean I use that as my basis for whether or not my child, in today's climate, where we live, should also be left alone.

We've talked to her about everything under the sun, so she's aware of things that can happen. The kids don't answer the door if there's a knock, we do. But she's forgotten on occassion, we get an amazon delivery or whatever.

My thing is, shit happens. There are whole ass podcasts and youtoube channels dedicated to telling the stories of shit that happens.

Hell I remember one story where a girl, I want to say she was 9 or 10, called her mom to say someone was at the door. Mom said not to answer the door. I don't recall the rest, but the person at the door was the landscaper at their trailer park (or something like that), and had gotten in through a bathroom window. He raped and murdered her.

We live in apartments, it's all too easy for a neighbor to notice both our cars have left and come up to snoop around, see if the door is left unlocked or whatever. And what if a window is open? Etc.

I don't know who pays attention to what, but there's WAY too much evidence showing that there are a LOT of those people out there, and there are plenty of situations where those sorts of people act on sheer opportunity.

There's just no practical reason to leave her. I asked my wife, how will you feel if something happens?

The answer: nothing will happen.

WHAT?

Fuck all that.