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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to send a nearly 9 year old 100 yards down the road to the chip shop

235 replies

workshy · 13/05/2012 18:28

having left over roast beef and chips for tea but had no frozen chips in yes I know I'm a slattern but it is sunday so sent DD, who will be 9 next month down to the chippy which is on my road, to fetch a bag of chips

she was 'escorted' home by a woman who had happened to be in the chippy and though I was totally unreasonable to let her go to the chip shop by herself at that time of night (it was ten to six when she went)

have I totally lost it in my ability to make reasonable decisions about my child's safety or is she a nut job?

OP posts:
insancerre · 13/05/2012 20:01

what would happen though willowisp?
abducted by aliens, fall down a crevice that opened up, run away with the circus?

Fizzylemonade · 13/05/2012 20:01

I was a latch key kid at 8 1/4, that was back in the 80's.

There are lots of children who walk home from my son's primary school who are year 3 or 4 and they cross a busy dual carriageway using the crossings and travel at least 1/4 mile.

I think as long as your child is fine with the journey and they have a bit of street sense then I would let them.

DS1 is just 9 and I let him queue for stuff and pay for things, with me some distance behind him pizza hut in food court I even let him carry his own tray Shock He has also just done his second residential school trip, the first one being in year 3.

Emphaticmaybe · 13/05/2012 20:07

isancerre you know what every parent who doesn't feel comfortable about letting their kids do stuff independently at a young age is worrying about, and as rare as those things are they are still much more likely than being abducted by aliens or even joining the circus.

squeakytoy · 13/05/2012 20:08

My dd is almost 9 & I won't even let her (not that she asks) walk down the road to her friends house.

So your daughter never gets to play out with her friends then? :(

Willowisp · 13/05/2012 20:09

Er...Sara Payne, Jamie Bulger....? I don't trust anyone & at my dd's age, I consider her vulnerable.

Maybe a bit extreme, hence me asking the area you live.

usualsuspect · 13/05/2012 20:10

I wouldn't give a child of 9 out on their own at the shop a second thought tbh.

I think its a perfectly normal thing for a 9 year old to do.

Willowisp · 13/05/2012 20:10

Yes of course she play with her friends, but not on roads !

usualsuspect · 13/05/2012 20:10

And I live on a council estate

Willowisp · 13/05/2012 20:12

Obviously a demographic thing then as you don't see kids out on their own around here until they are, at minimum year 6.

McHappyPants2012 · 13/05/2012 20:12

Any one feel jealous of a chip shop being opened on a Sunday ( a proper chippy)

Yanbu you know your child better than any one Regarding if they are safe enough to go to the chip shop

Emphaticmaybe · 13/05/2012 20:12

Oh and the falling down a crevice thing actually happened to one of mine. She fell through a BT man-hole cover while playing with friends on the street when she was 6. Luckily her 9 year old sister was there to catch her before she fell the 8 feet and pulled her out. I'm really not making it up.

gomowthelawn · 13/05/2012 20:13

I think your DD will grow up to be a confident independent young woman.
YADNBU

Clary · 13/05/2012 20:15

Dropdeadfred: "I wouldn't let my daughters out alone until they were secondary school age - just my choice." I agree, very odd choice.

Did you then let them walk to and from school all at once? Gradual independence (walking down road within sight of the house at first etc) is surely a better way to help your child? Those others who say it is not OK, I wonder at what age it will be? Lots of kids hereabouts walk to and from school without an adult at 9yo.

OP no not U at all; my DS2 is just 9 and has been playing out with an 11yo mate from the street most of this weekend. I often can't even see where he is .

He seems to have survived tho

CinnabarRed · 13/05/2012 20:15

Playing devil's advocate, I suppose it does depend a bit on the road. I'd be fine with a "normal" suburban road; less so with an unpaved rural one, or a dual carriageway she had to cross, or a street full of drunks from the pubs. But presumably none of those apply here or OP would have said.

lolajane2009 · 13/05/2012 20:17

that women is a nutter imo

wherearemysocks · 13/05/2012 20:17

I live in Central London.

I also let said 7yr old go upstairs in a department store to use the toilets and trust her to find her way back down to me.

We were out shopping the other day and were in a shop when she realised that she had left something in the coffee shop that we had just been in so she went back (just next door) to get her stuff.

I think you just have to know your own child and trust when they are ready and trustworthy enough to do little things on there own. Wrapping them in cotton wool doesn't do them any favours at all.

She does keep asking me when she can walk to school on her own, but as that is a mile away and involves crossing a few fairly busy roads I tell her that that is many years off yet.

ilovesooty · 13/05/2012 20:17

I walked a mile and a half to and from school at 8. YANBU.

IAmBooyhoo · 13/05/2012 20:20

all the chippys round here open on sundays. usually around 5pm. i thought it was normal?

Original poster
workshy · 13/05/2012 20:23

I live in a small town in west yorkshire

my road only has houses and a footpath on one side, isn't a through road and the chippy and paper shop are on the corner

you do get people hanging around the shop after about 8pm and they can be a bit noisy but they always move out of the way if you walk past etc

OP posts:
Blu · 13/05/2012 20:24

'The area' is irrelevant in terms of assessing a child abduction threat - shopping centre and lovely rural village idyll in the 2 cases mentioned below.

Yes, I was allowing DS to go to the shop at almost 9. We live in a non-leafy part of S London, but a very high ratio of people recognise each other and the children out and about because so many go to the same school. DS would pass the front doors of about 4 friends to get to our corner shop.

TandB · 13/05/2012 20:24

Bollocks. I want chip shop chips now.

The nearest chippy is unfortunately about 2 miles away, along a country lane with no pavements, down a big hill, up a bigger one and down a bigger one still, through a residential area, across two main roads and along a high street.

It would be OK to get nearly 3-year old DS out of bed and make him go get me some, yes?

Yes?

Blu · 13/05/2012 20:26

Me too - wondering whether to tell 10 yo DS to get dressed again and go out for chips Grin

valiumredhead · 13/05/2012 20:27

Good grief, the kids round here all walk to school and have been since they were 9 and ds has been going to get me things from the shop since he was 7.5. What an odd woman!

Blu · 13/05/2012 20:27

I mean, that's reasonable on the night before his SATS test, isn't it?

Krumbum · 13/05/2012 20:27

Yanbu, however tinkertitonk is.

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