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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think my 14-year-old stepDD really should be able to take the bus/train on her own to visit us?

418 replies

cinnamontoast · 18/12/2013 21:35

DH complains about having to drive a round trip of nearly 400 miles in the school holidays to bring her down to visit, but won't contemplate her using public transport. At her age I was happily getting the train on my own to visit relatives at the other end of the country - and I didn't have a mobile. Surely learning to travel independently is an important life skill?

OP posts:

friday16 · 20/12/2013 22:55

So what's your point, pixie? Should we post links to all the car accidents that happened today as well?

shebird · 20/12/2013 23:10

If your SD and DH are not happy about it then no point forcing the issue. Things might be completely different in a year or so, more maturity and your DH might let go a bit more. Perhaps if he did the train journey with her once they would both happier about it.

pixiepotter · 20/12/2013 23:13

This kind of assumes bringing up a child scared of the world, and curtailing their independence until some magical age at which they are suddenly deemed to be able to cope, is entirely without consequence. Well, it isn't. Everything you do/don't let or encourage a child to do has risks attached to it. Intelligent adults do a reasonable risk assessment and, if the risk is not too great, give a child coping strategies and encourage them to get on with it. And, in the last resort, they are always there to pick up the pieces.

But we are doing that! Because our 'risk assessment' is different to yours, does not make us wrong or mollycoddling!!

And why would a child be 'scared of the world'?
They would be more likely frigtened of the world if they were put in a situation they couldn't cope with.And that is the kind of fear which is much much harder to overcome if not impossible.

curlew · 20/12/2013 23:21

Oh,ffs. This father isn't begrudging, or anything like that. He's got a dodgy knee and 400 miles round trip is a long drive. Which he does, willingly if with a perfectly natural complaint or two. The OP was canvassing opinions on an idea to make life easier for the family. But as stepmothers seem to be the second most hated group on Mumsnet, it has become a how very dare you even think of letting this precious poppet run the terrifying gauntlet of highwaymen and footpads who lurk on British Rail to lure the unwary into white slavery.

Teenagers like being capable and doing real things. It's sometimes hideously scary for us to let them, but that's our job!

whatever5 · 20/12/2013 23:23

She doesn't have to change at Birmingham, why is everyone so obsessed with the idea??

Earlier in the thread the OP said her DSD would probably have to change at Birmingham.

whatever5 · 20/12/2013 23:27

*There are 12. They are helpfully numbered 1 to 12.

For short trains, each platform has an A end and a B end, which I suppose might complicate things slightly. It's hardly the most challenging of concepts.

There's also the mysterious, for stopping trains to Liverpool and a few obscure services to Wales. Given it's cut into the end of 4B, it doesn't require deep skills to find.*

It's not that easy and it would be stressful for a 14 year old if they're on their own and not used to traveling on a train.

whatever5 · 20/12/2013 23:28

*There are 12. They are helpfully numbered 1 to 12.

For short trains, each platform has an A end and a B end, which I suppose might complicate things slightly. It's hardly the most challenging of concepts.

There's also the mysterious, for stopping trains to Liverpool and a few obscure services to Wales. Given it's cut into the end of 4B, it doesn't require deep skills to find.*

It's not that easy and it would be stressful for a 14 year old if they're on their own and not used to traveling on a train.

curlew · 20/12/2013 23:34

"It's not that easy and it would be stressful for a 14 year old if they're on their own and not used to traveling on a train"

Yes. Which is why everyone is suggesting that she has plenty of practice with someone lose before she goes on her own.

Oh, and if we protect out children from all stress they will be pretty pathetic adults.

friday16 · 20/12/2013 23:46

Earlier in the thread the OP said her DSD would probably have to change at Birmingham.

But then came back and said she wouldn't.

NoComet · 21/12/2013 01:29

There is or at least was the announcers nightmare.

A train that split in North Wales and it's two parts stopped at every single Un-prouncable place name north of Aberystwyth.

ilovecolinfirth · 21/12/2013 06:31

He's her dad and he's moaning about the trip? Wow!

Greenmug · 21/12/2013 08:49

Just asked DH and he says it normally takes him around 2 hr 45 min so I was a tiny bit off. But to be fair we live about a mile from the A1 and his DD lives about 2 miles from it at the other end so it's a slightly ridiculous comparison from me really! I dont know what I'm on about sometimes. :)

whatever5 · 21/12/2013 11:10

*Yes. Which is why everyone is suggesting that she has plenty of practice with someone lose before she goes on her own.

Oh, and if we protect out children from all stress they will be pretty pathetic adults.*

It won't really save the OP's DH a lot of effort if he has to go up and down on the train with her a few times until she is used to it.

No one said that children should be protected from all stresses. I think that a good parent waits until a child is mature enough to deal with something rather than forcing it on them before they are ready though.

I didn't do long unfamiliar train journeys that involved changes in Birmingham and other stations until I was 17 (looking at universities) and I didn't find it that easy. I think that was and probably still is usual. I certainly don't remember anyone doing that at the age of 14 and we managed to grow up into independent non-pathetic adults.

FrauMoose · 21/12/2013 11:40

I think increasing affluence car ownership, more two car families, and a decline in public transport - especially in rural areas - has meant firstly that fewer leisure journeys take place on trains and buses, so some young people are less experienced at journeys that don't involve cars.

There's also been a massive increase in publicity about 'stranger danger' so that the norms of parenting have changed rather...

friday16 · 21/12/2013 18:01

fraumoose has it right. The set of people who have the finances to travel en famille by train but do bit drive is small. Not null. But small. And people tend to underestimate the cost of car travel and overestimate rail (something the rail industry encourages by a complex and counter - intuitive fate structure, with things like F&F and group save rather hidden). Hence unless people travel by train for work, a lot if adults and most children will not make long distance journeys by train. So it becomes "other". Hence these debates, which boil dien to people for whom rail travel is unusual versus people for whom it's familiar.

curlew · 21/12/2013 18:09

If I was asked to say which individual had caused the most damage to the quality of our children's lives and psychological well being over the past few years it would be the lunatic who introduced the concept of "stranger danger"

saintlyjimjams · 21/12/2013 18:22

I am very pleased that 11 year old ds2 has to travel by public bus to school. It made him suddenly much more independent through necessity. The first few months he used to ring me if it was 5 mins late - now he just deals with it (I haven't told him not to, I just noticed that now he tends not to phone but moans about it when he gets home instead).

saintlyjimjams · 21/12/2013 18:23

And being ds2 he's had to deal with lost tickets & missing buses & full buses etc - all good practice.

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