I Salute Kirstie Allsopp’s Parenting Skills. My Solo Journey Around Europe and the Middle East Aged 17 Was the Making of Me
I’ve been astonished by the hostility Kirstie Allsopp has attracted for allowing Oscar, her 15 year-old son, to go interrailing with a friend this summer. At least one person referred her to social services and she was duly contacted and asked what ‘safeguarding’ measures she’d put in place. She told the Telegraph her initial reaction was ‘real, real fear and worry and a sense of shame’.
I’m slightly hesitant to reveal my own ‘safeguarding’ failures for fear of triggering a wave of similar complaints. When my son Ludo was 13 he got a flight by himself to go and stay with a friend in Italy, and Charlie, aged 14, took a coach to Rotherham to see QPR. Much more dangerous than taking a train to Rome, I would have thought. In her gap year, my daughter Sasha lived in Mexico City by herself and Ludo, still a teenager, has just got back from a six-month tour of Latin America. When people ask if I ever worry about my children’s safety I tell them they’re probably safer than they would be in Acton.
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Your good Samaritan’s money was well spent.
No so fast Toby! There’s a reason your not considered an adult until your 18!
I didn’t realise that fact until I was 34, and that’s the whole point
Just because your parents are responsible for you doesn’t mean they can’t start giving you more autonomy. It’s a gradual process and it has to start somewhere. We’ve gone too far the other way. Anyway, IMO the real test of being a responsible parent is not the odd trip you send your kids on, but how you treat them as they are growing up, day to day, how you help them, what example you set them – all of that helps to form them and equip them for adulthood. You could easily be outwardly “responsible” but a terrible parent who sets a bad example.
The bottom of our street was the border until I was 17 and 9 o’clock was the curfew, or else (and ‘or else’ meant the bamboo cane my dad kept in the poker holder at the side of the fireplace)
Not saying it was right but travelling the world at a knieve age is rather risky!
Life is risky. Depending on which street you live in, your own street is risky.
I think your parents were right. In another house, none of the daughters were allowed to go out with a boy until they were at least 16, only on Fridays or Saturdays, and they had to introduce the boy to the parents first, who told him to make sure to bring the daughter home by 10:00, or else!
Now girls seem to start dating at 13— how society has fallen!
A Gym buddy from Argentina told me when he was around 14 they had a curfew at night, and he was out last when a Policeman punched him in the stomach and said….You are not supposed to be out after curfew so if you want to be treated like an adult, that is what happens. I remember saying goodbye as he was walking out by tapping him on the shoulder; a bit familiar if you like, he turned around like he wanted to hit me for a split second. I just laughed and shook his hand knowing that he’s not used to that where he came from.
“When people ask if I ever worry about my children’s safety I tell them they’re probably safer than they would be in Acton.”
Sums it all up really.
This entirely arbitrary way of measuring a person’s maturity, the number of revolutions they’ve made around the Sun.
People love stupid rules, don’t they! And they can’t bear to contemplate the possibility that people are not all the same, and may possibly have done a better job of raising a child that is healthier, wealthier and happier than their own.
Toby, thanks for this. It’s lovely to hear about your utterly, thoroughly, desperately irresponsible parents, and how they passed the baton to you 😉
Man after my own heart ❤️
100% agree. We get to where we’ve got – at least in part, and at least in my opinion – by overfeminising society which results in, amongst many other things, an attempt to remove all risk, and the new-world consensus of risk being a bad thing. It’s not of course – experiencing risk is a vital part of understanding what it is to be human.
More hysteria blown from across the pond!
Toby, you nearly died in Egypt. If Almighty God hadn’t sent that Christian to your rescue, you would have never made it home. I trust your grateful parents repaid him for rescuing their wayward son (who had probably decided to leave the kibbutz early and go to Egypt without telling them???)
Your misadventure shows that it’s better for parents to just wait until their kids are at least in their gap year to travel abroad, and never on their own. It’s no fun travelling on your own anyway!
A friend told me half a century ago that, even though her parents were wealthy and permissive enough to let her travel all around India and Europe by herself, she admitted that she would never do it again. Why not? She said that she would go to some famous site like the Taj Mahal, and stand there marvelling at it, taking photos with the other tourists, but when she turned to share the experience with a friend, as all the others did, there was no one there. No one to help her in difficulties, and no one to share the joyful experiences, either.
You see, Heretic, I don’t believe it was Almighty God. Nor Divine Intervention.
I believe we are surrounded by good people all the time; “Guardian Angels”, if you will. It’s just that most of the time, we don’t need them. When we do, they see that, and present themselves to us. We also learn to ask for help.
I have had the privilege of helping people who, like me, left themselves vulnerable to the kindness of strangers. Travel affords this opportunity like little else – for both the helper and the helped.
Life is a solitary journey. It’s when we know this, through experiences like Toby’s (and my own) that we truly appreciate the good in people, and thence seek friends to travel alongside, far into the future.
Imaginary friends need not apply. Seek the truth here and now.
Isn’t goodness itself kind of an “imaginary friend”. Existence itself, consciousness, goodness all seem to me to be intrinsically miraculous.
Good is what I choose it to mean. Good deeds.
God, or guardian angels, or good people.
But where does good come from?
Well done for remembering the origin of the word “good”!
As in bon
As in Dieu
As in bene
As in Deus
As in dobry
As in Bóg
As in mirë
As in Zot
🤔
But no, everything has to revolve around the English language.
There are thousands of gods, but don’t worry; yours isn’t just good, it is the best!
We are also surrounded, more and more, by evil humans in the physical world, influenced by demons in the spirit world.
Like this one:
Hot coffee poured on baby in Brisbane by stanger: Tragic new photos emerge | Daily Mail Online
Disturbing theory emerges about why a stranger poured hot coffee on an innocent baby | Daily Mail Online
I don’t understand the fuss.
Boys of that age regularly carry knives in London and Labour want to give them the vote. They have already made them available to men we used to call perverts.
My son went to a Swiss scout camp alone when that age and a year or so later toured Europe on Interail.
If children are properly brought up and know how to behave and take responsibility they are likely to be safe. Unlike the current Cabinet who should be accompanied when crossing a room, never mind crossing the road.
Scout camp is a different thing, like a school trip, where the young people are there to learn new skills and supervised by adults, not just wandering aimlessly around on their own in a foreign country.
Actually, I am going to stop being polite now. So, between adults, I think you’re a bit of a fool.
Thank you, Moderators, for editing out the profanity, according to your own rules for the comments sections.
The moderators were not involved here.
At 17 I went to NZ for 6 months to work on a sheep farm.
Fantastic experience.
That is admirable, and more acceptable if it was like a kind of apprenticeship, arranged by a larger organisation, and you were there with other young people learning about sheep farming, all with the permission of their parents.
See my response just above this one.
While I agree that parents should have more sway than teachers, kids are also individuals who should have more agency the older they get. There is a court case based on that but can’t remember the name off hand. But this is coming from someone that used to wander off by myself from the age of nine to help of the farms of my school friends. That was the privilege of growing up in the 80s & 90s in a small village. All I remember were the stranger danger adverts and put one into action once when someone offered me a lift. I shouted no F off, slammed to door and ran through a field.
The arrival of mobile phones has made a big difference as you can communicate almost wherever you are. But it might be that they might encourage more recklessness than in the days before.
I consider myself you be an ‘early roamer’, but that was in the 1960’s and 70’s. By good fortune, nothing untoward happened to me, but its a different world now, and what was considered a bit edgy them, is downright bloody irresponsible today. In the end its a decision for Kirsty and family to make, and so long as it is legal and they accept the consequences, they can choose what they bloody well like.
Perhaps a few hackles have been raised because Ms Allsop was busy telling us how to behave during covid, when it was really none of her business to tell us what to do..
“Ms Allsop was busy telling us how to behave during covid”
Did she, I don’t remember that.
In 2022 Kirsty Allsop spoke out vehemently against Covid restrictions in hospitals, against lockdown and also school closures.
When we were 16, four of us decided to hitch hike to London to celebrate finishing our O-levels. We slept on the grass in Hyde Park opposite the Hilton. We saw Sony and Cher on the Embankment! After a week they went back but I stayed on, and after running out of money blagged my way into a job washing up in the shadow of the GPO tower. I was offered drugs, survived an attempted grooming by an older bloke and was accused of theft by the cops for no good reason. But I hitch hiked home from the Edgeware Road and survived. Definitely character building – but not advisable to imitate in today’s London!
Lovely photo of Toby and his wife!
In 1932 Lennie Gwyther, at nine years of age rode his horse 1000km from Leongatha to Sydney to see the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He was celebrated and that is a mark of how our culture has changed.Lennie Gwyther | Monument Australia
Good heavens what’s all the fuss about man up everyone for goodness sake stop being so wet.
I went to Paris when I was 15 with my mate Jim Morrison (no relation!). We had a great time staying in the Montmartre surrounded by nightclubs and prostitution. All on the dubious idea that we would improve our French for the coming O levels. I believe I got 5% in my French oral! We even met up with another friend who was there by himself staying in another part of Paris. Everyone school teachers and parents thought it a great idea.
Trouble is nowadays we are all being taught to mistrust each other as part of the divide and rule campaign and which will be exacerbated by the current administration. We should learn to look after ourselves and tell governments and their busybodies to take a running up.
End of rant.
Bravo, Toby! I guess being a bolshie sceptic helps keep you alive.
And “safeguarding” keeps you living, but not alive!
Fantastic stuff, Toby. I couldn’t agree more. What are these ridiculous parents doing wrapping their children in cottonwool and ruining them in the process (turning out milksops). Unless the children rebel, of course, which the ones with any character will do.
Lovely to hear about the devout Christian coming to the rescue – hope you kept in touch.