Good mother or total spoil sport?

[Mumtotherescueagain]

Dd is angry with me. She has hatched a plan to go to a well known fun park at the end of her study leave, with friends. This would be around a 2 -2 1/2 hour journey involving motorways. There would be 4-5 people in the car driven by a female driver who would have passed her test at the absolute most 3 months before.

I have absolutely refused to allow her to do this. She is 17. I have told her why which is because I don't think it's safe. I have told the reality of this situation, the first funeral I ever attended was a girl the year above me at school killed driving with friends in the car.

I feel wretched about this because dd is having a tough time atm and she is angry with what I've said but I can't help that. I don't think it's safe.

AIBU?

YANBU OP, no way at all.

DS1 is 17 and learning to drive, some of his friends have already passed. None of them are experienced enough drivers that they could cope with 2/2.5 hour long journeys each way with cars full of their friends. If that makes me smug, then smug I am - as well as being completely unfazed by the smug label.

I'm sure that there are other travel options available and I would be encouraging my 17 year old to look into them.

I can well remember being 17 (and that was a looong time ago).
I used to hitch from one end of the country to another,wild camp,manage my own money,remember to turn the gas ring off after I'd cooked -all sorts of stuff that involved an element of risk.I was perfectly capable of risk assessing my own actions.I think we give 17 year olds way too little credence for their own survival ability.
I think I was also brought up to be able to be resilient,determined,and independent though -and its something I'm mindful of passing on to my dc's because I'll always be grateful for my parents enabling me to spread my wings at quite a young age.It made me the person I am today.

I don't much like the sound of you, op

If MN is such a disappointment to you perhaps next time you could ask for advice on OnlySensiblePeople.co.uk

I don't really understand the '18 is a fully fledged adult' argument. Adulthood is once you are fully independent of your parents it doesn't happen overnight but is usually a gradual process over several years.

And op a bigger proportion of people this morning agree with you than last night.

I agree Toby.

DS1 will be 18 in a few months, some of his friends already are, and some are older. None of them are fully fledged adults - they are all living at home or in halls at University and travelling home regularly. They are all still very much dependent on us as parents, although they are starting to spread their wings. They won't be fully independent for a few years yet.

I went to a lecture by a neuroscientist on adolescent brain development. An under 20 is 4 times more likely to have a crash when they are driving with friends than on their own. A 20-25 is twice as likely & at over 25 there is no added risk. An adolescent, for neuroscience purposes is an under 25. I would be apprehensive about the length of the journey with the full car, also is it going to be a cheap old car the teen has saved up for or something more robust?

You sound pretty smug with your passive aggressive 'thank you for letting me appreciate my clever, sensible, wonderful daughter'.

I doubt she is any more or less sensible or wonderful than the rest of our teenage kids on this thread.

She will and won't be sensible over the next few years but she will be finding her way through life, having experiences, making judgements good and bad.
You will only know about 10% of it anyway because she won't tell you about the rest.

As most have said we all worry ourselves sick over our kids but you have to let them do these things and have fun without unfairly injecting them with fear.

Far better to tell them the world is a largely fun and safe place and to go and grab it with both hands then tell them it's a scary world where they could die at any time.

I thought it was well known that younger drivers are more at risk, especially with mates for passengers - the insurance companies aren't being "smug" when they set premiums and restrictions.

Follow the money is fair advice whether at the bookies or insurers.

There are dangers in so, so many areas of life though funnyossity. Where do you draw the line in what you do or don't allow them to do?

It looks like a no brainer for me but I appreciate other people have different views!

Haha. Nice response OP. Definitely not smug and passive aggressive at all.

Oh aren't you the perfect Mother OP with your "wonderful" Stepford DD who would never ever dare to lie to you or go behind your back on anything, that's reserved for fhe delinquent teenage children of everyone else on Mumsnet eh?

The amusing thing is as I said above OP sounds exactly like my Mother. 'Oh she'd never lie and deceive!'. Only thing is, I was lying and deceiving and a dozen other things as well that I became an expert at hiding.

Stifling. And eventually it implodes.

YANBU to worry but YABU to forbid it
I was away at college/uni after passing at 17 and regularly drove groups of friends etc. Although I wasn't against telling them to pipe down!
I still lived at home in the holidays but my parents couldn't really stop me from driving anywhere

OP,read how many people are resentful of being 'stifled' by parents and learn.Life is risky,but they have to experience it.

Nobody tells you,though,that having a child gives your heart permission to run wild outside of your body FOREVER!

My mum was never stifling and always let me make my own mistakes but she would have had a blue fit over this. It's funny, I was talking to her recently about a very similar case a friend of mine was going through..... Her attitude was I was always a very sensible teenager - maybe those who claim to feel 'stifled' weren't.

I'm howling at that last post.

Good luck OP.

?????

I wasn't stifled as a teenager (it's only through sheer luck that I'm still here) - which is precisely why I'd be saying "nope".

My mother would have viewed me the same as you do your daughter op. She was a complete control freak, so much so I became the perfect, compliant, understanding-her-worries-about-me daughter to her face. Behind her back? Not so much.

I also moved out as soon as I could at 18, she stifled me so much.

That said, I do understand your worries, my children are fairly young at the moment, if I think too deeply about what's to come, it terrifies me.

The OPs post toby

The key thing is no alcohol. Is there any risk of that? Is your daughter's group of friends sensible/mature? If it's 2.5 hours each way that will be an exhausting trip if there is only one, new, driver, with lots of distractions in the car. But you are now at the stage when your daughter will make up her own mind about things like this. Make sure that she understands the risks.

YANBU. 2.5 hours of driving each way for a new driver including motorway driving plus an active day at a theme park is VERY tiring.

17 year olds are not fully fledged adults, they are LEARNING to become adults and they need to learn to assess risk with guidance. I quite understand that they want to book a lovely treat for themselves but I would not be happy with this.

my clever, sensible , wonderful daughter

        OMG

I can totally understand why offering to drive them is NOT a reasonable compromise.

They could get a lift from someone's mum to Alton Towers when they were 13/14/15. Or catch a train or coach. The fact is that now one of them is 17 and can drive they don't need parents' involvement. It's one of their first opportunities to hatch a plan to do something and then do it genuinely independently. It is that aspect that excites them more than the actual theme park rides.

Obviously that's not much help, just wanted to say it because all the posts saying take them yourself, pay for their train, find them a suitable alternative are making my 17 year old self want to sob with frustration.