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Original poster

DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD BE SENTING EIGHT YEAR OLD TO CO,OP WITH £20 Note CROSS A BUSY ROAD IN THE DARK.

141 replies

flowers114 · 26/02/2006 14:28

Hi All
A Question for you Do you think A 8 years old should go to a co.op with a £20 note cross a busy road in the dark.

OP posts:
heavenis · 26/02/2006 17:54

No I don't think you should send an 8yr old to the shops in the dark across a busy road. Would the 8yr old want to go ?
What Neighbour hood thing is this for ?

brimfull · 26/02/2006 17:57

why not give her the keys to the car,much quicker?

tuppenceworth · 26/02/2006 18:29

Only if it's an emergency, like you've run out of Rizla papers or vodka or something like that!!

heavenis · 26/02/2006 18:31

So flowers you responce to these answers is...........

Tinker · 26/02/2006 18:31

I've sent mt 8 year old to the Co-Op with a £20 note. Not when dark though, and no busy road.

lockets · 26/02/2006 18:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

FrannyandZooey · 26/02/2006 18:48

I would only send a child out with as much money as I could afford to lose, if you see what I mean. So - £20 - no. Across a busy road - no. In the dark - probably no. But a sensible 8 year old nipping to the shop - yes.

jampots · 26/02/2006 18:58

i guess its a good idea if you want a craft shag with no kids around

jampots · 26/02/2006 18:59

obviously a "crafty" not a "craft" - no sticking things on other things and bodging holes in other things

brimfull · 26/02/2006 19:27

lol,japots

Elf1981 · 26/02/2006 19:40

When I was little, we used to pop to the shop for bread / milk. Kids even used to go with a note from their parents saying it was okay to buy a pack of fags, and they'd get served! This was about 15 years ago though. No busy road to cross (it was a five min walk round the corner).
Not nowadays though. I'd never send my DD when she is that old. I'm not letter her out of my sight until she's old enough to be married and I'm going to vet them! The world has mutated into an evil place unfortunately. Same reason why kids dont play on the street anymore like they did when I was a kid (the only ones on the street now seem to be the yobbos!).

NotQuiteCockney · 26/02/2006 19:47

A friend's 9-year-old goes to the corner shop on her own. It might have been after dark when I saw her do it, but not much after dark, and it wasn't after 6pm.

If they're meant to be getting themselves to secondary school on their own at 12, surely they need some practice before that?

(I don't think the world is any more dangerous than it was when I was a kid. I just think the dangers are better-known and widely discussed, particularly in the red top press.)

Elf1981 · 26/02/2006 19:59

I do think the world has changed a LOT since I was a kid, and I'm only 24! When I was younger, my mum and dad lived on a little avenue in a small village (they still live there, I've moved away). We knew all the neighbours by name, all the parents were friends, or at least good speaking terms. All the kids were around the same age, we all played out in the street til late, playing cricket / football / handstands / hide and seek etc, we'd go on bikerides and walk to the shops by ourselves. We'd go to town shopping on our own (probably early teens) and catch the bus home and walk home from the bus stop by ourselves. We never had mobiles, our parents never worried about where we were, as long as we were back by the right time.
Nowadays it seems like a day doesn't pass when something awful hasn't happened to somebody. A 15 year old girl got off the bus in aforementioned village and was dragged into a field and raped just before Christmas. I dont know whether society is rotting, or whether I have lost my childhood innocence when nothing affected us.
(I was joking about letting my DD out of my sight, she's only 20 weeks so I'm a neurotic new mum at the moment!)

NotQuiteCockney · 26/02/2006 20:09

Elf, first of all, stranger rape/molestation is really rare. Which is why it gets the media attention it gets.

When you were younger, I don't think they covered these stories in the same graphic lurid details. (And probably you weren't reading the papers, and/or your parents weren't eager to tell you about these things?)

But people have been doing horrible things to each other since forever. But generally, they do it to people they know, not strangers.

Elf1981 · 26/02/2006 20:20

NotQuiteCockney - I do appreciate that it is rare for stranger rape etc to happen. I dont think my parents shielded me as such, me and my sisters always knew about a young girl who had been raped and murdered in the village before we moved there.
I do think society has changed as a whole, I personally would love to live in a place where all the kids could play nicely on the street. I dont think there is anywhere like that anymore, nor do I think we know the majority of our neighbours. Either I grew up on an odd street, or society has changed a lot!
But, if anybody lives on a street with loads of other families and all the kids play out on the street, I'd love to know about it!!
I still personally feel that if I had a 8 year old child I would not let them walk to the shop in the dark by themselves. Good point about walking to secondary school, but again, when I was growing up, you'd just join the other bunch of kids off the street walking to school! Walking home, I think about ten of us used to wait for each other and would all walk home together. We'd walk as close to somebodies house as possible before carrying on. I lived the furthest away from my friends so had about twenty houses to walk past on my own before I got home

NotQuiteCockney · 26/02/2006 20:24

Ah, I do know all my neighbours, but I live in an odd sort of cul-de-sac. And growing up, we didn't know all our neighbours.

It's true that kids aren't generally allowed to play out any more. My friend with the 9-year-old doesn't let her kids play out, but then, in her street, all the back gardens are joined up, so the kids can all play safely there, without access to the street.

In Montreal, they still have back alleys, and kids are still allowed to play out in the alleys. Their moms can generally hear or see them from their kitchens, though, at the backs of their houses. It's a nice arrangement.

My eldest son is 4. I doubt he'll get to play out on his own until he's 10 or something, and that seems a bit sad to me. But then, there never seem to be any kids playing out on their own around here, anyway.

cutekids · 26/02/2006 20:31

my nearly 8 year old hasn't got a clue what a £20 note means-although her nearly 7yr old brother and nearly 6 year old sister do!-so that proves instantly that you couldn't go by their age, only by their mentality. As far as letting a child go to the shops in the dark...sorry, not in this day and age..absolutely no way. Not even in daylight would i let them go out further than the end of our cul-de-sac...not until they're at least 14!!!

tuppenceworth · 26/02/2006 21:13

I can remember playing out from dawn till dusk and riding for miles and miles on my bike with my friends, and this was in the mid 80s when Sarah Harper was abducted and murdered. It was a very high profile case of a 10 year old girl going to the corner shop to buy some milk that struck a chord with all our parents because of her commonplace normal-ness of the task. She would be 30 now.

P*ss taking aside, I think this thread shows overwhelming opinion that we wouldn't let out 8-year-old children go to the corner shop unless we could stand at the front door and watch them all the way there and back, and even then we'd wonder if there was a paedophile serving them in the shop.

Where did things go wrong?

7up · 26/02/2006 21:35

ah elf youve made me reminisce about the good old days now!making me feel old, i remember being sent to the shops for mincemeat from the butchers and half ounze of old holborn for my dad and a box of swanvestas!i was only about 8. my mum said everyone smoked then. i remember playing out in the woods, going off cycling and just generally having a brill child hood out and about. shame they cant do it now, more traffic, more people, more dangers

Elf1981 · 26/02/2006 22:30

tuppenceworth - with you on where did it all go wrong. Things did happen but it never seemed to be as often as it does now. In Keyworth where I lived, it was a 16 year old who was raped and murdered in 1983 called Colette Aram. She was walking home from her boyfriends house. The case remains unsolved. I dont think that it influenced the way that my parents brought us up, obviously at the back of their minds but we did play in the street. Nowadays it seems like every "trusted" person has mutated into a potential evil being.

7up - we used to go to the corner shop on our bikes, with the tags from the bread packets on the brake wires, and the scariest thing that would happen would be being chased by a dog! I was eight in 1989, what a wonderful time it was!

Tortington · 26/02/2006 22:55

theres always been horrid things - my mother shat herdelf becuase the moors murders happened only up the road.

my kids have been going to shop since they were 9 or 10. never after dark, not crossing main road. and not with £20.

mumeeee · 26/02/2006 23:28

No an 8 year old shouldn't cross a busy road by themselves and shouldn't be out in the dark even without a £20 note.

goldenoldie · 27/02/2006 08:37

your avin a larf....................

MerlinsBeard · 27/02/2006 09:20

Not convinved this is not dear

sparklymieow · 27/02/2006 09:24

i think its dear too.