I think Kirstie Allsopp is right to let her 15-year-old son go Interrailing – and I plan to let my teenage daughter do the same next summer. I went to Paris on my own at 16 in 1985, and that was long before the added safety of being able to track kids on their mobile phones. I don’t remember my parents thinking my solo adventure was unusual, but then two years earlier, they’d already packed me off to live with a French exchange family for two weeks to learn the language – and all I came back with was several love bites.
The Location, Location, Location presenter’s son had already finished his GCSEs and has since turned 16, so he’s a year older than my teenager. And let’s face it, he probably didn’t have to slum it in backpacker hostels with the cockroaches and carry his own bog roll for three weeks across Europe. But the subject of holidaying alone had already come up with my own daughter after we got back from our European trek this summer, and she announced she was going to Amsterdam with her friends once she’s done her GCSEs next year.
Obviously this is all on the proviso that she’s out of the doghouse by then after nicking my gin and getting legless with her mates earlier this week. Since disgracing herself with my half full bottle of Gordons, I’m not sure that my vomity teen should be allowed out to the corner shop – let alone to a city well known for its lax attitudes to drugs. “Perhaps Delft would be a nicer destination for you all? It’s where the blue and white pottery comes from” I suggested “Are you joking me?” she snorted.
But before my teenager proved herself incapable of making a sensible decision, or even standing up, I had been planning to allow her the freedom to explore abroad and make her own mistakes. I recalled when all the Lambrini ran out at one of our goth parties in the 1980s, and on the hunt for booze, we drunkenly came across a bottle of Cinzano Bianco in the kitchen. After falling asleep hugging the toilet bowl in our shared student bathroom that night, I learned why every single thing had been drunk in the house – except the Dry Martini.
And now my daughter has learned the same thing – and I suspect my gin will be quite safe in the future. Yes she put herself in a risky position, but it was a controlled risk because I was there to pick her up and look after her. Now she knows that getting into that state could be dangerous, especially in a foreign city.
The reaction to Kirstie's decision has been mixed, and she is known to court controversy, but she’s right – kids need to learn how to judge risk, and they can’t do that from inside the four walls of their own bedrooms. However it’s become clear from the ongoing row that many consider it OK for boys to travel, but not for girls. We mustn’t make females a prisoner of their gender, but I do agree that sadly girls need to take extra precautions.
I learned this to my cost one night in the early 1990s when I had to walk home from a party in the early hours of the morning in North London because I’d run out of money. I was brutally assaulted by a man who I fought off, and I learned the hard way despite all the safety warnings my parents had given me. But I can now make sure that will never happen to my daughter because with phones and online banking, she never needs to run out of cash for a cab.
Generation Anxiety need to spread their wings – after all, if that can happen to me one mile from home, why would travelling across Europe be more dangerous? Siobhan McNally appears daily on the Community page in the Mirror.
