My daughter wants to go abroad without me

[Protectivemama]

My daughter will be finishing secondary school next year and will have just turned 16. She wants to go on holiday after she leaves to go to Benidorm with her cousin, aged 23, who's offered to pay for the entire thing and will be taking her 2 yr old. My daughter has never been abroad before and neither me or her dad will be in the position to go. It's not that I don't want her to have such a wonderful opportunity but I think she is still far too young and not mature enough to be travelling abroad without parents so I've said no. For context, me and dad have been separated for many years and I hardly know the cousin(his side of the family) anymore but my daughter is very close to her. My daughter's safety is the most important thing in the world to me so when I think of all the things that could go wrong it reinforces this belief but AIBU??

If i was 16 firstly I wouldn't be asking I'd just be telling you my plans but if you tried to stop me I'd just move out and live with my dad or cousin. She's 16 not 6 you don't own her she can make her own decisions and should be quite independent and capable by that age.

No she couldn’t!! It’s illegal for a child under 18 to be married in England ffs.

Do you live in a city or a nice area

What does that mean? Cities are not nice areas? What’s a nice area?

I must tell my old law school friend, who is now a partner in a top firm, that she is not a responsible adult because she had her three daughters by the time she was about 28.

Imagine not knowing ANY woman who had had a baby in her 20s. How limited is your social circle?

I'm meaning if you live in a city I'm assuming education is more important as their are more job opportunities and its more expensive to live. By a nice area somewhere, where an average starter home is like 300k so you need a good career tto start life. Where i live an average starter home is about 80k their isn't amazing job opportunities so its completely the norm to maybe go to college get an average job meet someone and settle down together.

Not in my circles it’s not! Literally almost no one has a baby in their 20’s. The few that do have been a surprise.
20’s are for uni, travelling, partying, career building and being foot loose and fancy free. Marriage comes late 20’s - mid 30’s and kids early / mid 30’s to 40’s
Its a talking point if someone has had a baby before 30

A talking point having a baby before 30 wtf you do realise people in their 20s are fully grown adults right

Yes I do live in a more expensive area of the country and London is a commutable train ride away.
Education in my family is of paramount importance. All money and effort is poured into education and sports.
Uni for most, degree apprenticeships for others. No, most people do not go into work at 16 or 18, they are in further education until 21, and then sometimes a masters, or masters whilst working.
Having Babies don’t even factor in plans! In fact, would be a disaster.

Erm,,; yes… but being a fully grown adult doesn’t mean you automatically have a baby growing inside you.. there are choices..

I do know some as I said, but most that did were surprises- a couple were not. I know loads of women! Where I live, most people are studying and pursuing a career in their 20’s and not wanting kids!

But you understand a lot of people don't live like that and people are hairdressers, electricians, nursery nurses, mechanics etc etc so they started adult life way before which meant they could settle down and plan a family a lot sooner. By the time you left education at 21 I'd already been working 5 years and had my own home.

It not about having a baby it's about you being shocked when adult women choose to have a baby

I don’t know where you live but it was very nomal where I live 20 years ago. There are still a lot of relatively young parents. You’re right about choices, I had my family early and did both my degrees in my early 30s. Hit the ground running career wise and leapfrogged over my contemporaries who were then having kids. There’s more than one way to live a life.

I had ds1 at 18 and ds2 at 20 ( I have 2 younger dc's too). They were most definitely not an accident, ok not my finest choice at 18 but in hindsight I can see why I did it. It made my life harder, but I'm sat here running an electrical engineering company in a very male dominated industry. So I've done ok!

But I digress.....
OP - please do let your dd go. My dd is just coming up for 19, but at the same age as yours she went to Borneo for 4 weeks (including a 5 day trek in the rain forest) with school. The following year she went to Tanzania for 2 weeks with college. You have to let them, and help them when you can, grab life experiences where you can. It's hugely character building and encourages their independence and self reliance.

looking at the price of properties in London, clearly limited because not many people could afford their first property and a baby in their 20s 😂

or even want one, people like to travel and establish careers first. So what?
It wasn't a judgement, it was factual, but you seem to be taking it a bit personally.

people like to travel and establish careers first.

Some do, some don’t.

I take it you actually realise that not everyone is best suited to staying in further education till 21?

You’re coming off as being rather narrow-minded and superior on this thread, just so you know.

It's nonsense, anyway. Good universities have creches these days. My eldest spent some time in one where I was doing my Master's. The girl who took out the contract law prize (a big deal) brought her adorable baby to many lectures (often just to drop off her dictaphone and wave at us all). My assignment partner in tax law had little boys. The national mooting champion one year was heavily pregnant. Etc etc.

If you went to university yourself, how did you fail to notice all these people around you?

I also remember one professor going into a rant about how the students who were parents were the only ones who ever did all the required reading- precisely because they had no spare time!

I did go - albeit 20+ years ago but I can 100% tell you that amongst the hundreds of people I knew there, not one of them was a parent. But then pretty much everyone I knew lived in halls or student housing, and all were similar age to me- 18/19/20/21

N't and if your kid isn't bright enough or interested in doing a degree in any shape or form, you're still happy to play 30 plus grand into a waste of time? Because it's the most important thing ever? Absolutely ridiculous to suggest it's the only sensible option .... Considering all this education you claim to have you'd think you'd have a broader world view.

And also, shit happens. People get raped, people make poor decisions. Going and doing a masters won't stop you getting pregnant accidentally.

I’d love to know where you went because there were a lot of other mature students when I did my degrees in the 1980s and many of them were parents. Clearly you live a strangely insular life since you don’t know anyone who became a parent in their 20s either.

The ones with kids probably weren't living in halls...

If you went to university yourself, how did you fail to notice all these people around you?

We obviously didn't go to the same university, because there were NONE when I was there 😂

Even the mature students who went on same or evening courses didn't take kids with them...Someone brought their dog once, that's as far as it went.

You mean you didn’t talk to anyone who looked older than you so you knew nothing about their lives.