Letting 15 year old Son travel to Europe by rail

Boz

Because of her class and education KA is very sure of herself; doesn't care to be challenged and arrogant to post it on X - from where SS found it.
I must concede I do not like the woman. Being told to 'Make do and Mend' by a rich aristo, did it for me.

What shocking inverted snobbery.

In all aspects of life you meet and can know people different from you and know and understand their life style, both constraints and freedoms.

All the great social reformers from Elizabeth Fry, to Florence Nightingale and so so many others showed how people born into wealth could identify with and help the unfortunate. What makes you think, without being a great social reformer KA cannot do that?

As I said inverted snobbery

mae13

Would Ms Allsop have given her blessing to a 15 year old DAUGHTER doing this?

Why on earth would she treat a daughter differently? IME girls often mature earlier than boys. I went to Germany for two weeks aged fifteen with a school friend. We travelled to Germany on our own although we were met in Munich and taken to our B&B in Oberammergau. We had language lessons in the morning but were free for the rest of the day and evening and we used our free time to travel to all sorts of places. We had a wonderful time and our tutor Manfred travelled with us back to Munich on the train. He had a little brown case with the making of a Manhatten cocktail in it and we all had a cocktail. I felt very grown up. We had couchettes on the train journeys from the ferry to Munich which was also very exciting. The only drama was having my bottom pinched by some random man and missing our bus home from Schloss Linderhof but we cadged a lift on a coach with a school trip! I learned a lot and not all of it was language based. I'm very glad that my parents didn't wrap me up in cotton wool but they had both left school at 14 and started work!

BlueBelle

But it’s very different flying to visit a family to wandering around Europe maybe staying in hostels etc Cold I see nothing wrong in a 15 year old flying to visit a family hopefully being met at the other end
Again 15/16 in student accommodation is only a step above boarding and I m sure that’s safe too this is a totally different situation

In what way is living on your own in your own flat without any supervision "only a step above boarding"?

But it is the norm here.

Monica I don’t think you need to worry about Bozs inverted snobbery, Kirstie has much more actual snobbery in abundance 😂❤️

I was in full time employment before i was 16!

Oldbat1

I was in full time employment before i was 16!

As was MrJ oreo he left school aged 15.

Sorry Oldbat!,

JaneJudge

Monica I don’t think you need to worry about Bozs inverted snobbery, Kirstie has much more actual snobbery in abundance 😂❤️

I judge her by the same standards I have for other people and she is no worse or better than anyone else. I really do not give a toss about her background, or anyone elses for that matter

I know nothing about KA apart from her TV persona, but I agree with her reasoning with regard to her son’s trip which I think she expressed well.

I suspect Kirsty knows her own son. I bet he had a wonderful time.
I think whoever contacted social services had a axe to grind. I would be annoyed if someone done that to me.
I dont know why it concerns other people anyway.

janejudge why do you think Kirsty is a snob? I don't think she is. I just find her someone with strong opinions.

rafichagran

janejudge why do you think Kirsty is a snob? I don't think she is. I just find her someone with strong opinions.

I like KA, yes she can be out spoken but so what she is obviously happy in her own skin and is not afraid of hard work.

Constant struggle to put up with partners 43 year old daughter. Full of herself and always on about money! Which, incidentally is not a worry for her at all. Her daughter ( 18) just the same

I think that some 15 year olds are 10 year olds. Some 15 year olds are 30. My youngest son opened his first physical shop at 17. When I was 17 I was living away from home, lived to party and had no intelligent
capacity at all. We can fall off a balcony (hopefully won’t) at any age.

Sago

I was heavily criticised for leaving our 16 year old home alone while we went for a weeks holiday.

I saw no issue with this, friends of mine were quite shocked.

He is sensible and everything was fine.

I did leave my children at home alone in their later teens, one had a party but cleared up afterwards and not too much in the way of breakages. Personally I think they could get into more trouble at home with friends egging them on.
Ms Allsopp knows her son better than we do and I’m sure she had a good talk with him before he left for Europe. She would know whether or not he’s a boozy show off yob, they are the ones who fall off balconies. The family live in London so are presumably well able to avoid doing things that incite street violence and theft.
I hope he’s enjoyed it.

I suppose it depends on the child, they may be sensible at 15. I’ve got a 31 year who holds down a responsible job, but I’m not sure I’d let him go travelling by train across Europe he’s lost more keys, wallets and passports than I can recall

Lord Nelson went to sea as a midshipman at the age of 12..

Scotsmum

In the UK you can join the army at 16.

In Scotland you can also still get married at 16. Would anyone expect the couple to stay under parental care? Just wondering…especially if they have become parents themselves.

In the army you start training at 16, you don’t go in the front line.

It may be legal to marry and have children at 16, but honestly I can’t see many people thinking it desirable at such a young age.

Obviously KA’s son had a comfortable cushion of wealth behind him which would have helped in an emergency. I would imagine from his background he would be confident and very articulate.

But I tend to think of the case of poor Jay Slater who clearly did not have the survival skills or resources to cope alone.

My first thought when I saw Kirstie mention her son on X was that my three boys would have loved to do that. At 15 they would all have been capable of organising themselves and travelling with a friend. Most of us would love our children to be with us forever but, hard as it is for us, good parenting means they should be independent and seeing the world for themselves

Would depend on maturity of the 15 and 16 year old whether I'd let them go travelling abroad. Some 15 year olds travel far and wide in UK to attend festivals, music concerts and never heard of SS being involved. Marriage at 16 without parental permission depends on where you live in UK. 16-18 year olds still being responsibility of parents, why are parents not held responsible in courts when the teens commit offences. Amazed SS had the time to respond to the issue.

Me too, from the age of 11 I had an hours journey to high school , walking for 20 mins through parkland then getting two buses and another walk at the other end, I did this up until 15 and a half , then off to work travelling all over London, I consider that I was quite sensible and would have been fine travelling through Europe, all with the bonus of mobile phones and the internet, far too much nannying in this day and age.

4allweknow I expect whoever reported her would have gone to the press had nothing happened....of course it could have been a journalist anyway to stir up a story.

It’s different being expected to be somewhere and an alert would be raised if the child did not appear. I think things changed about the time of the moors murders but now people have forgotten. One of our neighbours was a policeman on that case and he said his blood ran old.Then we've had the Wests .our mindsets have changed but people forget. And of course this sort of thing doesn’t over the Channel.

I think Kirsty Allsop is cross because the reporting was malicious rather than based on real concerns. A similar thing happened to the MP Stella Creasy earlier on this year, where someone reported her on the ground that her political views meant that her children were not being properly cared for. At various stages in family life, you may be asked if your family has ever had any contact with social services. Both of these families will now have to declare this contact for many years to come.

What we used to do at 15 is different to now, society has changed so much. I agree you can't make them scared of life but I think it's irresponsible not to make them aware of dangers. Bad things happen, that's a fact unfortunately.