16 year old darts player and his 21 year old girlfriend.

[Witchcraftandhokum]

I'm no darts fan but I've seen loads about this new player Luke Littler who is 16 and is doing very well. His girlfriend is 21, am I the only one who rinks this is inappropriate? (Despite the fact that he looks about 38).

Me too.

I've reported it too

Never have I seen such horrible and over invested comments about a young lad from grown women. Ugh.

Some of you should be ashamed of yourselves

MN should not be hosting threads tearing down children on their site.

So being concerned for an age difference is ok but commenting on his look, weight, prospects is even more ok?

I don’t think comments on appearance are ok, but you have made unkind comments about the appearance of others in the past @ssd so it’s ironic that you’re fighting others so hard about it.

I can see how it sounds a bit weird. But I was 16 and my first boyfriend was 20, we both worked as Christmas temps at Boots together. We were together 4 years, my family never thought it was weird at the time

Then they made a mistake. He didn’t finish school (left in spring term of yr 11) and only has one GCSE (in sport).

Lots of kids leave school at 16 (or earlier) to go into work. School doesn’t suit everyone. He’s earning more than the vast majority of people do and will be set up for life.

I would imagine he has socialised through his taking part in tournaments with mainly adults and maybe not socialising as much with children his age

but adults still need to leave children alone and not pursue relationships with them until they become adults themselves

‘Lots of kids leave school at 16 (or earlier) to go into work.’

any school having a young lad leave school at 16 with one GCSE would be considered to have failed him.

He’s clearly not been educated properly if he can’t even leave school with a 4 in basic subjects like English and Maths. Unless he has SEN or something preventing him from getting a basic education.
Well done him for being good a darts, but so don’t think a kid leaving school with a single GCSE is anything to celebrate.

Fascinated about how everyone is so bothered about the 21 year old who has just entered his life and nobody is the slightest bit concerned about the parents who have been dragging their Prodigy in and out of pubs since he was small, did nothing to ensure he got more than one GCSE and ate far more likely to make money out of him than she is. It's not like he couldn't have been a darts champion at 18, is it? So why the rush?
But yeah, let's all brand the 21 year old a paedophile gold digger purely on the basis of what, considering his life experience, is a miniscule age gap.

Why would you care?

People in sports get endorsements in addition to prize money. Also there are other avenues to make money other than being a top flight competitor.

Top flight. See what I did there. I'm here all week etc.

@Longma you clearly have zero understanding of professional sports. He will make far more in sponsorship and endorsements than he will in prize money.

@Utterbunkum would you have said the same about the parents of say, the Harry Potter actors? Or is your criticism only levelled at working class parents helping their kid make the best of himself?

But yeah, let's all brand the 21 year old a paedophile gold digger purely on the basis of what, considering his life experience, is a miniscule age gap.

It's not miniscule though and I find it hard to believe that your average parent would be thrilled at the prospect of their son or daughter dating a 21 year old. There is a huge power imbalance that is not the same as a 21 year old dating a 26 year old.

It is very unusual for 21 year olds to include 16 years olds in their dating pool, especially for women who generally speaking are a hell of a lot more mature then men the same age. Why would you? Your average 21 year old has either been in the workplace for three to five years or has recently left uni and embarking in their first professional role. They are probably living in a flatshare, semi if not completely independent, have a relationship or two under their belts, have more life experiences and generally way more mature. Your average 16 year old is still at school, wholly dependent on their parents for meals, clothes and a roof over their head, they most likely skint and any money they do have would be from a weekend job or pocket money, they cant drink, drive and their folks would probably need to open a bank account for them. They are still very much immature insofar as dealing for the first time with the various issues and responsibilities that an adult relationship entails irrespective of how old they look or behave. Seriously, why would a 21 year old find dating a school kid desirable? It might be 'legal' but many find it very odd, if not a bit creepy.

I'm with you OP.

Obviously I fully support his career, good on him. But protecting young people who live in the spotlight and are thrust into a very grown-up world at a young age is incredibly difficult and hugely important.

I wonder how effective his family and career-support team really are if they've tacitly given their blessing to a romantic relationship that has a deeply inappropriate age gap at this point in his life.

My heart goes out to the lad.

‘He won't get anywhere with only one GCSE?? He earned £200k yesterday. In one day. How did you do?’

let’s hope he does make a long term career out of it. Doesn’t burn out. crash out. start losing. Because he’s qualified for sod all else at the moment.

I’m a sports coach. It doesn’t matter if your kid is destined to be next Emma Radacanu, Raheem Sterling, Beth Mead or Ronnie O’Sullivan they need to be able to read and write properly,
have an education, don’t specialise too early.
You can go to school AND excel at sports or arts or music or whatever. The 2 aren’t mutually exclusive.

Lauding someone for only having 1 GSCE and essentially flunking school is just sad.

@TheCadoganArms but he's not "the average 16 year old" is he? He's not in school or college, he's not dependent on pocket money and a paper round for cash, he's been living and competing in an adult-dominated environment for years. The only thing he has in common with the average 16 year old is his age. And as @Utterbunkum points out, he is far more likely to be exploited by his parents or manager than some starstruck girl.

The infantilisation of teenagers is ridiculous - a generation or two ago most 16 year olds would have been starting on their adult lives of work and courting. I blame all the unthinking cod neuroscience that seems to get trotted out: "ooh, the brain isn't fully developed until they're 25!", used as any excuse for idiotic behaviour in what in any other era would have been regarded as an adult. Now people can't even conceive of a 16 year old of having agency.

‘would you have said the same about the parents of say, the Harry Potter actors? ‘

Famously, the Harry Potter production included an on set school where all the child actors were tutored and taught.
They had a legal min of school hours to do while working on the production, and most had normal school outside that too.
The school hours on set was as scheduled and organised at the filming.

They also had chaperones to ensure that they stuck to the max hours child actors are allowed to work in a day ( dependent on age)

it’s why so many tv shows and films showing ‘teens’ in high school use young adults in their 20s. You don’t have to promise to educated adults or limit their working hours in a day.

You picked a poor comparison…

"My heart goes out to the lad."

Why? Because he has what seems to be a nice relationship, decent personality, and £200k in the bank? Poor kid 🤣🤣🤣

@puncheur, yes, I absolutely would if plenty of their peers hadn't been involved in the industry, their schooling was so disrupted they only got one GCSE and there wasn't the industry support and regulation. As it is, child performers can still be victims of financial abuse from parents and it still isn't ideal for them, as the many documented cases of child actors having poor mental health in adulthood has shown.
My point is that the young man wouldn't be in a position where he might be attractive to a 21 year old in the first place if he wasn't already living a vastly different life to his peers, and the question has to be asked, why, in a sport where it is very uncommon to be competing at this level at this age, he is there at all.

@TheCadoganArms in normal circumstances, I would agree with you, but nothing about this is normal. This young man has done more at 16 than a good many 21 year olds have. He will have more in common with a 21 year old than he does with the average 16 year old. I addressed this further upthread.

@puncheur I do agree fundamentally with you about the infantilisation of young people in comparison to the past, but we aren't living in those days now, and this young man is a rarity, which is why people can't get their heads around the fact that he IS, in today's world, going to have more in common with a 21 year old.