The latest parenting insanity is coming from England: Popular TV personality Kirstie Allsopp let her 15-year-old son go on a 3-week train trip around Europe with his 16-year-old buddy — and found herself
under investigation by child protective services.
Here’s the happy
tweet that started it all:
Kirstie’s story inspired a lot of folks nostalgically recalling their own youthful travels. But then, as dusk must follow dawn, the trolls followed the fans: He’s too young, the Twitterverse spat. Anything could have happened! The world is unsafe and so is Kirstie Allsopp!
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Kirstie punched back. Sure, every kid is different, but “the danger is in underestimating them, not in setting them free,” she
told the world. Her mother-in-law, she noted, went off to college at 15. Her father-in-law joined the Merchant Navy in World War II. Somehow they did this even before SIM cards and Google Maps! Were
their parents neglectful?
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Well, I guess that depends on who you ask. Because here’s the text she got from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) — her local Child Protective Services:
The social worker told Kirstie that she was obliged, by law, to look into any case that anyone called into the agency.
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Kirstie asked who had made the call. The agency would not say. (Same thing happens here.) Kirstie tried to explain it was probably someone who disapproved from afar and was trying to teach her a lesson. (Like this case.) The agency said that didn’t matter. It added that Kirstie’s file would remain open and that it was “standard practice” for a case to remain open till the child turned 25.
That’s quite a long definition of “child.”
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So here’s the deal: We all know Child Protective Services agencies exist for a reason. Their job is to protect children from serious neglect and abuse.
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Not from parents allowing their kids to do things on their own that they know their kids can handle — including the bumps that of course are part of any trip. A parents’ job is not to make sure their kids never encounter any challenges. Ideally, it is to make sure they can handle them. “Prepare your child for the path…not the path for your child.”
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The problem in this case is not only the blood sport of mom-blaming in our culture. It’s also that the government is given no freedom to err on the side of common sense. They are obligated to be obtuse. So perhaps all we need to do is fight fire with fire: If the goal of Child Protective Services is to keep kids safe, let’s at least put children’s mental health on one side of the scale. Yes, a child on a train trip might get lost, or fall on a cobblestone, or even (as her son almost was) get pickpocketed.
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But kids kept overprotected long after they are ready to start being part of the world
are in danger, too, of depression, anxiety and passivity. There’s a danger in keeping kids in the passenger seat of their lives when they’re more than ready to take the wheel.
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Kirstie herself admits she said no, when her son first proposed the trip. But then she thought about it more and realized he was ready for this adventure, and that it was her job as a GOOD parent to safeguard his confidence, self-respect, development and joy in life BY LETTING HIM GO.
You might say she let go…to
Let Grow. (Yes, shameless plug for the nonprofit that grew out of Free-Range Kids!)
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So I salute Kirstie for growing, too, and for embodying the Let Grow motto, “When adults step back, kids step up.” And for pushing back on a culture that allows outsiders too much sway over the everyday decisions of decent parents. As she so pithily put it: “It’s up to parents to decide who is or isn’t grown up enough to start spreading their wings.”
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Amen. And if you’d like to make sure your own local laws here in the U.S. do not mistake parental confidence for child neglect,
here is information Let Grow’s legislative efforts. So far eight states have passed “Reasonable Childhood Independence” laws stating that neglect is when you put your child in serious, obvious, unreasonable danger — not anytime you let them do something on their own.
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Your state could be next!
And Kirstie — maybe it’s time for a law like this in your country, too?
So many things wrong here, but not the parents decision to let her son travel. The biggest one is the the social worker was”obligated “ to investigate a complaint against her and would not tell her who made it. Or if it was anonymously. So anyone anywhere can weaponize cps and ruin a persons life on a whim. Was this person even aware of the child’s trip before mom posted? Does she even know or has met them? Are cps now going to be perusing social media and news posts for cases to investigate? I’ve said it before and will say it again . If you are worried enough to make the report you should be willing to give your name and relationship( family member, neighbor, concerned stranger) and the accused needs to be able to face their accuser in court. Long rant I’m sorry but this hits very close to home for me.
I’m going to repeat a comment that I made quite a few years ago.
In April 2017 17-month old Semaj Crosby was found dead in Joliet Township, Illinois, in the filthy and litter-strewn home she and her mother shared with others. This is a tragedy.
Illinois’ DCFS as well as every other organization responsible for child welfare have a very challenging job — there’s no doubt about this. They don’t have enough resources — and never will — to adequately protect all the little kids like Semaj Crosby.
But this is exactly the reason that these organizations need to do a much much much better job of prioritizing and triageing their cases. While kids like Semaj desperately need help DCFS is wasting everybody’s time talking to the mother of some 15-year old kid who was taking a train trip. I can accept that DCFS can’t save every child, but I can’t accept that they waste resources on frivolous investigations like this when kids who truly need our help suffer.
I was going to email you (Lenore) to ask if you’d heard about (tongue-in-cheek) “Britain’s Worst Mom”.
Of course you had.
The vehemence of some of her detractors is astounding. Here’s Máiría Cahill from the once-sensible country of Ireland:
https://m.independent.ie/opinion/comment/mairia-cahill-kirstie-allsopp-allowing-her-son-to-travel-alone-at-15-is-a-parenting-fail-in-my-book/a121420279.html