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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

15 year old from Croydon to Guildford

72 replies

BlueBerryRep · 31/12/2018 13:47

DD wants to go out with a group of 8 friends to Guildford on the train to go ice skating or something in the afternoon. I said no because it’s too far and I can’t pick her up if something goes wrong. She said that I’m being ridiculous since I barely let her go out around Croydon with her friends and that most parents are already letting their kids go up to London alone. AIBU? Should I let her go?

OP posts:

Almondio · 31/12/2018 15:17

Let her go. Travelling on public transport and developing indeendence is such an important lesson to learn. You're doing her a disservice by thinking she'll fail...talk t9 her about the route, ask her what she'd do if she needed help, get her to think of a back-up plan and let her go.

This year my 15 YO DS travelled from the north to London on his own, to meet a family member and stay with them. I felt I owed him the opportunity. He loved it and didn't get lost, mugged, pickpocketed or anything else that fleetingly crossed my mind.

BuffaloCauliflower · 31/12/2018 15:24

@WakeMeUpWhenGoodOmensIsOn because the Guildford Spectrum has a full sized ice rink and there aren’t that many about.

EvaHarknessRose · 31/12/2018 15:53

Its good to let them go so you can figure out what stupid stuff they do when unaccompanied ‘what’s that photo dd?’ ‘Oh Ellie took us up to the top level of a multi storey car park in Cardiff and we took pictures of the view’ . They were 15.

DappledThings · 31/12/2018 15:57

This is the age I started going to see my grandparents alone on the train from Birmingham to Cambridge with a tube change.

ForalltheSaints · 31/12/2018 15:59

As it is on Wednesday, yes. Beware the fare increase takes place then, so a disguise so she does not appear on tv may be appropriate.

Sparklesocks · 31/12/2018 16:05

She needs to learn to navigate transport/be independent for when she becomes an adult so I’d let her go. Also she will be with her friends, not alone.

MrsSchadenfreude · 31/12/2018 16:06

YABVU. DD2 was flying unaccompanied to Texas at that age, coming home from school on her own via train and tube. DD1 used to go with her mates to Disneyland on the RER at that age (we lived in Paris then). I travelled from London via train, ferry and train to Alsace with two changes of train at that age. Let her grow up!

Haffiana · 31/12/2018 16:11

No. Keep her scared and anxious about traveling and don't let her grow up and become capable of handling her adult life.

At least you will feel OK.

LakieLady · 31/12/2018 16:20

One of my nieces regularly travelled from Tunbridge Wells to her gran's in New Addington at that age (possibly younger). I reckon that would be just as complicated as Croydon-Guildford. She went shopping in Oxford Street with a friend before she was 16, too.

Another niece went from Croydon to Somerset on her own by train at 15, to stay with a friend who'd moved away.

She'll be with her mates, they'll all have phones, there'll be other parents ready to pick them up if they run into transport problems, and even if the direct train isn't running it's just one change at Clapham iirc.

Mind you, I'm intrigued as to why they want to go to Guildford to skate. Have they not got a rink at Somerset House this winter? That's easy to get to (or used to be - the 68 bus from Croydon used to stop almost outside).

VioletCharlotte · 31/12/2018 16:27

Yes I'd let her go. At 15, both my DS used to travel to London on their own (45 minute train journey) or to Thorpe Park (2 trains and a shuttle bus).

How is she ever going to learn if you don't give her any freedom? At 16/17 she'll be wanting to go off with friends to gigs and festivals. At 18 she may week be going to uni. You have to let them go sometime.

memememe · 31/12/2018 16:39

yes i would, but tell her to get off at london road station as its a much shorter walk to the spectrum, or otherwise she can use the park and ride bus from the town center.

Macarena1990 · 31/12/2018 16:49

I'd let 12 yo DD do that journey as long as she was with her friends.

DollyWilde · 31/12/2018 16:54

I grew up in Guildford and at 15 my very overprotective parents were tentatively letting me into central London on the train, mostly to skulk around Camden, buy a hoodie and come home. I was one of the ones with the least freedom in my class.

Incidentally I now live near Croydon and there’s nothing she’ll run into in Guildford or in a train station that she wouldn’t run into in Croydon.

Oblomov18 · 31/12/2018 17:02

Is there going to be a HUGE drip feed of .......dd anxiety? Mum anxiety? Some other major issue?

ReflectentMonatomism · 31/12/2018 17:04

Is there going to be a HUGE drip feed of .......dd anxiety? Mum anxiety?

There have been several similar threads over the years in which parents with anxiety have come to AIBU seeking assurance that their mental health issues make it fine to confine their children to a ten yard radius at nineteen. Luckily AIBU is robust enough to say "no", but I can imagine that in the right context "I don't let my daughter go to London because it makes me worried" is given a round of hun-ing.

SoupDragon · 31/12/2018 17:12

Streatham has a full sized ice rink if you'd be happier with that.

Guildford is surely only a single change of trains at Clapham though isn't it?

SoupDragon · 31/12/2018 17:13

Meant to add that I think you should let her go to Guildford.

Camomila · 31/12/2018 17:21

She should be fine. I do that journey regularly and its straightforward, just 1 change at clapham junction.

In the evenings I see lots of kids in secondary school uniform do almost the same journey as me. They get on at Guildford or Woking and then stay on the train to Clapham Junction and presumably change trains there to go home.

mindutopia · 31/12/2018 17:29

I was flying on my own at 14, not even as an unaccompanied minor (don’t think that concept existed back then). My mum dropped me off at the airport, I checked myself in, got on the plane, got off and got a taxi on my own. If she’s otherwise responsible, sounds fine to me.

Carter86 · 31/12/2018 17:33

As long as she realises that South Western Railway are in strike today, so although she might get there, she might not be able to get back

cravingmilkshake · 31/12/2018 17:38

Hi there,

I'm from Guildford (well now live in romsey) but am in Guildford every couple of weeks.

It is relatively safe- however, I wonder how they will get from the train station to the spectrum (where the ice rink is) it is walkable but a very busy main road and a huge wooded area (we used to go and get drunk after the ice skating)

Unless they get an uber or a cab - cabs are all a teal colour in Guildford so easily seen and then you know they are licenced.

pinkdelight · 01/01/2019 10:48

I'd be fine with it, but if it's helpful, there's also an ice rink in Streatham - direct trains from West Croydon to Streatham (not Hill or Common, just Streatham).

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