To think people in the UK are very lax generally about children being left alone?

[Toxicityofourcity]

Not from the UK. Some of the threads on here baffle me when it comes to leaving children alone. Children as young as 10 and 11 getting themselves home from the school, bus etc and letting themselves into an empty house. Being left for a few hours on their own. Have just read a thread about a 16yr old being left for 4 days... because she has to mind some cats?!? WTF? I just don't understand. This is not something that's done in my country at all. Is it a cultural thing? Do people not worry about house fires, accidents, abductions etc.? I just really don't understand it. But here on MN it seems totally acceptable?

I’m funny about 10-11 year olds being left, but I lived alone at 16 🤣

Well at 16 I was at work full time, paying rent to my parents and looking after myself. I certainly would have been more than capable of looking after cats for 4 days. I always came home to an empty house at 11 as my parents both worked. I also managed to get to school and back by myself negotiating public transport.
If anything I think we baby children far too long now. There have been posts on here recently that have blown my mind with very late teens/early adults incapable of doing the very basic tasks in life alone. If my 17 year old can go out in her car alone she is absolutely capable of looking after a pet for a few days in her house. The most common little job loads of the kids at my secondary had was babysitting from the age of 14!!!

I assume she survived!! 😁I remember feeling a bit envious of your lifestyle and freedom, as I trudged through freezing rain to get my kids to school. I think you were pregnant at the time and struggling to walk, let alone ski?

I'm originally from Japan. I started going to school without my parents at the age of 6. The school was 30mins away from home on foot. It is also normal for children from 6yo to clean classrooms as well as the toilets after school everyday.

16yo should be old enough to be alone for a week if the person is independent. I started living with my sisters alone when I was 15yo due to my parents had to move where my nan lived and look after her. I came over to England for 2 weeks alone when I was 16yo.

Now we have gone way way too far tbh. Young people starting work have very poor life skills and social skills. They lack basic problem solving skills and really are only comfortable when they have detailed instructions on what to do. Kids starting university can’t even cook or use a washing machine.
A generation of anxious adults who are afraid to make mistakes has been created because they have subconsciously gotten the message they aren’t capable because their parents were over protective.

I find it weird the OP is from Ireland bc when I was 15 I remember being taken on holiday by a friend who's family was Irish and we were allowed to hitchhike everywhere- she was 16, me 15 and it's only about 22 years ago.

We hitchhiked everywhere and roamed free and every car you got in it was "what's your surname?" And then you figured out how you were related and they seemed to know everyone's granny, mum, auntie etc whatever car you got in and be of some relation vaguely to my friend

At the time I thought it was crazy bc it was unheard of to hitchhike by then in the UK and certainly not the ages we were would have been encouraged in the UK - but there, we were. It was somewhere close to Tralee as I remember that name

Not all parents have the privilege to drop off and collect their late primary/secondary age children but there's a reason chicken shop grooming is a thing. It focuses on parents who are not able to be present. Especially at an age where children and more independent and move away from the family unit more to form their views of the world.

That being said, leaving it too late is just as harmful in the long run as you get children who are not streetwise and cannot access risk.

Oh yet another Brit Bashing thread.

How delightful

Yeah I was pregnant and it hurt so bad to walk, was hell the times I did walk with her. But yeah, she survived 12 now and has no problem going anywhere in town by herself but won't ski unless she has to for PE lessons (or for a free bag of sweets in the yearly children's ski race)!
My youngest is getting close to that age and I can't imagine him doing the same, completely different personality, but he'll be going to a different preschool anyway because I'll be at college so he won't have to go alone until a year later than she did so enough time for his confidence to build up.

Must say I’m bemused, @MrsMorrisey . At only 15, where did you move to, and how did you support yourself?

People saying "in my day" it was normal - yeah it was normal.

What was also normal in Ireland in the 70's & 80s were 9 year old's driving tractors on main roads with their littler siblings sitting on top of the turf in the trailer 10 ft high happily bouncing around.

Car seats and seatbelts were not used. Cars were routinely packed to the gills with kids piled in on top of each other travelling to matches or well, anywhere. And no Garda would stop you for it. Kids could buy alcohol and cigarettes. Adults could drink 10 pints and consider themselves sober to drive. Sun cream was for people on foreign holidays, not something you put on your children playing out in an Irish summer. I hitch-hiked from Mayo to Donegal, and had done so for years, until the women in the midlands went missing. We trusted priests and youth coaches with our kids.

Ireland was massively lax and children's rights were trampled on if they existed at all and it's possible that we have gone too much the other way, but we are a generation where 1 in 4 have been sexually assaulted. That might feed into the over protectiveness that some Irish feel. It doesn't necessarily mean that we are hovering over them putting their socks for them on at 17 either!

I fell in love and moved in with my boyfriend. We both worked as I had left school at year 10. I'm in Australia. Rent was very cheap back then and we rented a small unit.
Unbelievable that I made such a decision.
Never in a million years would I let my child do that.
I was very mature but still.

Admittedly it was back in the early 90s, , and we did get some seriously raised eyebrows from other school mums, but when they were 13 another mother and I allowed (after a lot of agonising) our dds to go by train to central London, tube across London, followed by train to Dover, where they went as foot passengers on the ferry to Calais for the day. They wanted an ‘adventure’ and to practise their French.

I won’t pretend I wasn’t having kittens until they were safely back!

That dd is now in her 40s - I definitely wouldn’t allow it now.

My child is the year group baby and is still 16 despite just completing 1st year of A-Levels - she will have been 18 for a mere few weeks before she moves across the country for university next summer, where she will live without adult supervision for 3 whole years.

We have left her for one night and then a weekend a few times with the dog. Her grandparents live a 5 minute walk and a 2 minute drive away.

OP, when do you expect youngsters to prepare for huge life events such as university if it’s inappropriate and unsafe for parents to take a staged approach to spending nights alone?

Not sure if you’re just trying to wind people up. Where have you seen people say they leave their 16 year olds for 4 days on MN or in the UK like you’re making it sound?

Did anyone else read the Babysitters Club books when they were younger? 11-13yos being paid to look after others peoples children! I have no ideaif that was an actual reflection of American society in the late 90s but presume it wasn't too far fetched.

Then there was the story just last week about the teenager keeping her younger siblings including a baby alive in the Amazon rainforest for a month. If a teenager can do that I'm sure they can catch a bus home...

My Irish family members aren't at all how the op describes, if anything life is more lax. No dedicated school bus (use public ones) and walking alone from 9, staying home alone from 10 ish just like in the U.K. continental Europe tends to be even more laid back.

@PuttingDownRoots

Never read the books but my kids babysitter in the USA was 13, she lived 2 streets away and was very responsible having done the babysitter course and first aid at school. My dd has autism and she was far better than adult sitters to be honest

I agree! I've lived in a few different parts of the world and the U.K. is very late with giving kids any freedom. At my nephews school they don't allow them to walk to school alone until they are ten!! How ridiculous!

OP, are you from, a small town called Ireland in Arkansas or somewhere? Because I’m Irish and I can’t relate to your posts at all. Find them a bit nutty.

What nonsense is this.

The UK is GB plus N. Ireland.
GB is England, Wales, Scotland.

British are anyone born in the UK. With people in N.I allowed to have either a British or Irish passport. Or both.

Ireland, as in the Republic, are Irish with Irish (EU) passports. With the right to move freely in the UK including working, because of the ‘common travel area’. Some Irish depending on when they were born have British rights of nationality etc. As do some British people in regard to being Irish.

From a continental European perspective and indeed American or World view, culturally the nations of the UK and Ireland are similar, though they are not the same.

There’s a of faux outrage and hand wringing from the OP here about these alleged masses of 10/11 years abandoned at home in the UK. It absolutely does not correlate with my experience. I think most parents have become terrified to let their children gain independence.

I feel sorry for your kids OP if you’re as suffocating, dramatic and OTT as you’re portraying yourself on this thread.

I know.

It always starts with “I’ve been reading MN” and some shit click bait news online and my brain is now FRIED at how people in the UK do/don’t this thing, because of course what I read is fact and represents everyone.

I worry about some people’s levels of critical thinking skills and how they manage jobs and life generally tbh.

Are you in the countryside OP? If so, that maybe why it is not the norm, as you aren't seeing the day to day city life

I'm Indian but UK born and my parents were born in Uganda but I was left at 14 for long periods but we were always taught about being road smart over being academically able, which in this day and age, I'm so thankful for.

It is super normal for kids to be allowed that responsibility but that also comes from having trust and maturity of the child. I have a soon to be 7 year old and I don't think I'd be able to leave him alone even as a teen, but that's because he has additional needs but if he didn't have sen, I'd base it upon his maturity and trust

I love how looking after some cats is made out to be such arduous work. Opening a few sachets and chucking some Dreamies in their direction is just too taxing for a 16 year old.