this is one for the sheltered country types. AIBU to let my PFB loose in the BigCity?

[AtYourCervix]

DD is 15. We live in the sticks. Front page news is when a tractor blocks the main road at rush 5 minutes hour. Today she and her friend have gone to the scary, wicked, big London.

I have been turribly cool about it. It will be character building. You must let them experience independence etc etc.

But my colleagues were horrified and I am expecting a call from social services at any moment.

AIU?

Wht the bloody hell do you think they will have got up to?

will they return mentally scarred by the experience? what awful things will they have seen?

Of course YANBU - she is 15.

London is (IMO) easier than most cities to navigate - the tube is all colour-coded and you are told exactly where you are at every stop (alight here for the Tower of London, etc) - much easier than buses.

Hope she has a great time.

Our DC are 17 and 13. DS has been knocking about on his own for at least two years and used to get the public bus home from school at 10. We live in zone 2 and he trots off to Camden, Fulham, Richmond, Wimbledon, West End generally, Clapham Junction, Wandsworth Common and seems relatively unscarred. DD is confident on a smaller scale but does known routes within a three stops either way on the tube.

Your dd will have had a fantastic timed. It will have seemed huge and busy and diverse and exciting. I couldn't live anywhere else.

Oh, she'll be fine. When is she due back? Does she know when the second to last train is? (the one to get her to aim for!)

i was fine with it until the colleague horror. then i thought maybe i was being even crapper than usual.

they have been fine so far. a couple of texts to say hello and that they were ok.
just got to negotiate their way back.

and my mum is like your colleagues, she's always convinced we will be mugged/starve/be lost on the underground and never seen again in big bad London town. It's full of crazies and criminals and a couple of nice shops in my mother's head. That I managed to live there for years without being mugged/starving/being lost to the underground is a mystery to her.

They will be fine. Try not to worry.

Did they have a plan in mind for when they got there? Its a huge place and unless you have decided what you want to do, you can end up wandering aimlessly for hours not really seeing very much.

When I lived in London in the early 90s, my brothers then aged 15 and 16 came over to stay. I didn't take time off work, but the two of them were independent and worked out an itinerary for themselves during the days. They figured out the underground, and found it fun navigating the A-Z I gave them.

And we all come from the sticks in the back end of Ireland, where our nearest neighbour is one mile away!

YANBU, your colleagues are mollycoddlers!

DOn't worry. They'll be ok.

I sent PFB ds1 (15) on his ownio on a train to a whole other city recently. I only had to text him 15 times AND before the event come on here begging for reassurance from MNers and I he was fine.

sorry, navigating WITH the A-Z I gave them....

There are hundreds of thousands of teenagers in London, all living totally normal lives.

Your colleagues are provincial and weird.

A friend never let her DD into London on her own until she late teens. Her first trip in on her own and she was knocked over by a black taxi because she had absolutely no road sense (injured, but not fatally!). They have to learn!

OMG - they might have been subjected to some terrible mime-artistry at Covent Garden

there is another train after this one. one change on the way back. so hopefully won't be delayed and miss the connection.

We've been to London twice in the last 2 years, and intend going again soon! My DS is 11 and loves the underground! He'd happily spend the weekend just exploring the underground. Theoretically, I feel he would be fine on his own even though I never would let him, but certainly at 15 once he had his mobile phone on him!

i think they went to madam tussauds. can't see the point myself but i'm sure they'll have had screaming giggling fun.

Good for them AYC!

They are on the train! phew!

she's back!

i have seen the photos. most of the maonopoly board, richard branson and lots of boys

she is knackered and very pleased with herself.

and tomorrow she's going to have to do it all again as we are all going todo som echinese new year-ing.

I let DS go at that age, but there was a lot of gasping-with-horror in our Devon village.
What do all the London kids do? (I said), wait for mummy and daddy to take them to HMV?

He didn't return robbed, kidnapped, or a crack addict :)

Well, I grew up in the middle of nowhere and went to school - a girls' school -in a market town. when we were 14 it became the thing to pack casual clothes in your school-bag & bunk off for the day to that thaar London. And go to Oxford Street! Topshop! The thrills!!

Though I have to admit that I was far too goodie goodie ever to actually do this, pretty much all my friends did.

But I did used to head off to the nearest two cities with my sister and my cousins.

Nothing shocking ever occurred.

They will be fine. Your colleagues are being alarmist. London is pretty safe for two girls together, especially in the shopping bits. Probably more safe than lots of other places, for all the reasons mentioned elsewhere.

Having said that, my oldest (who lives in London and is almost their age) shows remarkably little inclination to go off exploring. I'm sure I'll be a bit less laid-back when he does!

Oh Jesus H Christ - the now 15yo and his mates took themselves off uptown nearly every day in the Y8 summer hols to go to Lords/the Oval/or hang round covent garden irritating street artists... mind you they were also taking themselves to nightclubs but hey-ho that one passed as a curiosity as well.

She can get married next year or join the army-I'm sure she can cope with London in the day time with a friend! I bet she has a mobile and can summon help in the unlikely event she needs it.