There are two important questions confronting any parents with young kids: are you giving them autonomy and have you equipped them with the competence to be truly and safely independent?
I remember the strange combination of fear and admiration I felt when someone close to me revealed that their 16-year-old son was going to travel to the other side of the world to study in a European city and would be gone until they were 18.
His mother travelled with him to settle him into his new school, staying with him for several months. Think on it — a child, all the way over there, miles from home. And as his years of study went on, I watched his social media feed and his wonderful between-term travels, his independence in the world a thing to behold.
The father of the 16 year-old traveller I mentioned earlier reminds me that when he was 15, he went camping and fishing with his mates along the Campaspe River for a week at a time: one parent would drop the boys, another would pick them up seven days later. Nobody turned a hair at this perfectly reasonable adventure for young men wanting to stretch their wings.
It's fascinating to reflect on what has made us risk averse, what has made us afraid for our kids. A friend who worked on the royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse says the facts are indisputable: the 1970s were some of the most dangerous times to be a child in Australia, particularly in some deeply Catholic communities: road accidents were higher, cars were less safe, sexual abuse was never discussed. And yet we were ranging far and wide through all of it.
Kirstie Allsopp's son has returned from his rail journey, and his mother publicly seethes about the mischievous report made on her: she says, "This isn't about the social services call: the issue at hand is increasingly risk-averse parenting & the impact it may be having.
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