What is reasonable. DS 25 going solo travelling.

OP obviously noone thinks you're unreasonable to want to hear from him. The way you are wording things is what is shocking everyone. If you have a good, adult relationship he will naturally update you as he would with any other friend or family member.

Have a read back of how you talk about him....

"Just trying to balance parenting a young adult and his independence."

• no need, as a 25 year old man there is no parenting needed and he is fully independent.

"Are kids the same? "

• he's not a kid

"he did do what most youngsters do and roll their eyes"

• because he's a fully fledged adult, the fact you refer to him as a youngster is condescending to him and any other 25 year old.

"I’ll be sure to tell my 25 year old adult that when he returns he should be moving out, buying a house, getting married and having children"

• now you're having a tantrum...

"Didn’t realize I was such a terrible parent up until now. Night "

• tantrum number 2

You most likely won’t have any peace of mind apart from the moment you are on the phone with him.

As someone who travelled before smart phones, just internet cafes. I called home or emailed once every tenish days. I was 20. I did give my parents a very rough itinerary before I left each time but to be honest never really stuck to it.

going through my emails recently I saw my dad emailed me saying can I call home just because he was wondering where our travels had led us, and I had not made contact in 20 days so he was just wondering. Reading it back as a parent I can read the worry but he kept the email so relaxed I just thought it was a check in not a worried at the time but now I can see between the lines. I didn’t call but sent email back saying I would call from next place in a few days and short update about what I had been up to.

I feel for you, but ask him what he is comfortable with but maybe every ten days. Say you will send him odd text in between but there is no pressure to him reply.

OP, some posters are being unfairly harsh.

It is entirely natural to worry and I imagine you’re extremely excited for him as well.

I would just suggest that he let you know every couple of days and if he doesn’t agree, ask him what he is comfortable with.

Once you get your first couple of photos and messages you will feel relaxed and even enjoy his adventures yourself.

You obviously support him else you wouldn’t have helped with the funding.

It is going to be ok.

What part of “it was decided between us” did you not understand?

It never even gets to 12h because like other posters have expressed, she updates the family group chat as she goes.

25 is far beyond his mum being able to make any demands to keep in touch, other than a casual "have fun, send me a text when you can" type arrangement. Telling someone to check in is both completely suffocating and will only make OP worry when he forgets to do so one week.

At 16 I had left home to go to university and my parents had no way to contact me at all, other than phoning the pay phone in my halls and hoping someone 1) answered and 2) bothered to pass on any sort of message they left. Mobile phones have trained people to think that you need to be in constant contact, but this is not the case - or indeed healthy - at all.

This is why DD and i also have agreements on how often to communicate when she’s travelling. God forbid but if something happens from point A to point B, the sooner we realise it the better.

It’s a different world today, but the good thing is we all have mobile phones.

I think a text every couple of days would be a good balance.

After typing my post, I’ve went back and read some really unkind posts to the op about being overprotective. As I said earlier my daughter has been travelling for 8 years between university and she still keeps her find my fiends on as does I our son who has a very specialist job in the military, because we don’t oversee their every move to it’s just useful and they can turn it off whenever they want.

No more than 12 hours without contacting you? That's your rule?

I'm sorry but that's insane, especially given that you're already tracking her location

He’s not A YOUNG ADULT, he’s A GROWN MAN.

I think that this is the whole problem. Offspring who still live at home with their parents in their mid twenties and beyond, consciously or not, are becoming infantilised.

I moved away from home at 18, and from that day on, I was independent, and my parents didn't focus on me or fuss over me, or actively parent me.

This generation of younger adults are, consciously or otherwise, being held back from full maturity by (having to?) live with their parents, and still being seen as needing parenting.

25 !
Surely it is entirely up to him

Finally, someone with some brains!

Nobody said he was. But I think it’s quite normal to worry when your kids are the other side of the world and to want to keep in touch but to question what people think is reasonable to check you’re not being OTT. Just an opinion.

DD Has done a lot of solo travelling since e turning 18 and we do have a few rules in place, but it was decided between us. You have to go with whatever he wants, really.

In our case we have live location (which is only useful if able to update), she sends me all her flights + accommodation details and no more than 12 hours without contacting me. It takes seconds to message someone.

Maybe for some it’s too much but so far so good.

I regularly travel alone. I usually call my mum and text my closest friend on arrival but other than that, I very much enjoy the lack of responsibility and freedom.

Think of it like this OP: if, whilst in the UK, your son had an accident or incident that required either police or medical attention, they would find a way to contact you. Might take a while but they would find his NOK. The police and other emergency services in SE Asia are parents too. They too would want the NOK of an injured person to be informed ASAP. They would contact the Consulate, who would check the arrivals details of all UK nationals and begin the process of elimination.

That’s how you’d know.

You being in any form of contact cannot prevent any accidents or emergencies. And they are hugely unlikely - we only hear about the extreme stories because, well, they are extreme.

Kids???? Did you mistake "DS 25" in the title for "DS 5"??

I think realistically a 25 year old shouldn't be asked to check in at all. Hopefully he will keep in touch though and sending him the odd message would be OK (I wouldn't message him more than once a week if it was me). If he was under 20 it might be reasonable to ask for the occasional message.

I think one thing I found reassuring when my 18 yr old went travelling was that I sometimes logged onto WhatsApp and it shows the last time they were logged on. It gave me the peace of mind that everything must be ok if they have been on WhatsApp in the last couple of days.

I think you will find the less you pressure him or set rules the more likely he will be to want to check in with you.

Checking in is for your benefit so why not ask him nicely to do whatever you'll feel comfortable with, and if he's not keen, ask him what he's willing to do by way of keeping in touch? I don't think it would be at all unreasonable to ask to subscribe to whatever SM he might use to describe his trip, and you could also ask him to have a brief text exchange (say) on Wednesdays and Sundays, just so you know he's OK.
BTW, no it doesn't make a difference that you've funded part of the trip. Wondering whether paying for things might give you a level of control is not a good road to go down!

our daughter first went solo travelling to Costa Rica at 17, only request was keep find my friends on and an occasional call maybe 10 days as if they aren’t in an area with good Wi-Fi and you expect call frequently you can start worrying unreasonably.
she is now 25 and at this moment under our roof after spending time in,India, Sri Lank, New Zealand and Australia, looking at grad jobs and so glad she has done her travels seeing how hard the reality of uk life is and happy to spend the next few years getting her nose to the ground stone of work,
I completely understand you wanting to look our for him,we never stop being parents,find my friends is great we still have it for our 23 year old son and 25 year old daughter they have us also, it’s not about what they are doing it’s just safety.,

Assuming this is about a 24 year old, OP is not being reasonable at all. That's a grown ass adult. Let him do what he wants, he's not a scared kitten!

You're fine OP, people on here can't stand anyone doing anything for their kids past the age of around 7. If your kid isn't walking to school in the snow for an hour by then, having packed their own bag and made their own lunch (paid for themselves from clearing people's drives), then they are never going to be capable of any independence or resilience.

Tell him you'd love to be kept updated on how his trip is going and if you haven't heard anything for a few day then message to ask him how it's going. It's better not to have set times or days as then you'll be worrying if he doesn't get in touch for some minor reason.

One of my older student DDs is away for a year in America. We have a family chit chat WhatsApp and she drops in and out and sends pics when she feels like it. That has worked well. It’s her choice to engage ( or not) .

OP you’re being very reasonable, sensible and normal. My DD is away for 6 months and using the Polar Steps app. Maybe your son would like to take a look at it. She’s using it as a kind of diary/photo store for her trip but it also tracks where you are. If you share your trip with someone they can see where you are and your posts. My DD tends to post photos every few days and in between I can see where she is which is reassuring. We also have contact in other ways probably every 2-3 days on average. But the app is a useful thing to record the trip and if he’s open to sharing it with you it’s a nice way to see what they’re up to without being too intrusive. A trip like that is a great thing to do. I hope he has a wonderful time.

No-one is saying you should ever stop caring, as I think you know.

I think it is the fact that you still want tp "parent" a young man who will soon be out of the first flush of youth. Describing him as rolling his eyes when you talk to him about drugs and stuff-as he was like Harry Enfield's Kevin the Teenager.

He could be in a job where it is his job to talk to young people and yet here you are, giving him "stranger danger" type talks, talking about trying to balance your parenting of him with his independence and saying he is not a fully fledged adult.

You even say "like most youngsters he rolled his eyes. They think they know everything" Anyone reading that on its own, would think he was 13.

I think that is what posters have been so surprised by, not the fact you care for him.

Care for him-we all must care for our children until we die-but parenting-no.

You have done that part of your job and he will never, ever be fully fledged if you lead him to believe he needs your parenting at 25. Sitting him down and talking to a 25 year old man about the dangers of travelling is unusual and, for my part, I don't think it's healthy