British TV personality Kirstie Allsopp let her 15-year-old go on a three-week train trip around Europe with a friend, age 16. Ms. Allsopp then published a proud, happy comment about it on X — which has prompted an investigation by child protective services.

Last week, Ms. Allsopp wrote that, “My little boy has returned from 3 weeks inter-railing, he’ll be 16 on Wednesday so he went with a mate who’s already 16 due to hostel/travel restrictions, but they organized the whole thing: Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Marseille, Toulouse, Barcelona & Madrid.”

Her post inspired plenty of nostalgia from folks fondly recalling their own youthful travels. But many others criticized her, raising all the usual ruckus: He’s too young. Anything could have happened. The world is unsafe. And so on.

Ms. Allsopp came out fighting. Sure, every child is different, but “the danger is in underestimating them, not in setting them free,” she told the world in a Daily Mail article. Her mother-in-law, she noted, went off to college at age 15. Her father-in-law joined the merchant navy in World War II at age 16. Were their parents neglectful?

Maybe that depends on whom you ask.

Ms. Allsopp received a text from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, her local child protective services agency.

An agency employee told Ms. Allsopp that she was obliged by law to look into any case that anyone called into the agency. Ms. Allsopp asked who had made the call. The agency would not say. 

Ms. Allsopp tried to explain that it was probably someone who disapproved from afar and was trying to teach her a lesson — like in this case. The agency said that didn’t matter. 

The agency employee added that it was “standard practice” for the agency’s case file regarding the matter to remain open until her child turned 25.

That’s quite a long time to consider someone a child.

So here’s the deal: We all know child protective agencies exist for a reason. Their job is to protect children from serious neglect and abuse.

Not from life.

Not from parents allowing their children to do things on their own that they know their children can handle — including the bumps that are part of any trip. A parents’ job is not to make sure their children never encounter any challenges. Ideally, it is to make sure they can handle them. “Prepare your child for the path … not the path for your child.”

In this case, the problem is not just the blood sport of mom-blaming. It’s also that the government is given no freedom to err on the side of common sense. Agents are obligated to be obtuse and obsess over imaginary physical dangers to children while ignoring how all this requisite paranoid parenting might negatively impact children’s mental health. Overprotected children are actually in danger of depression, anxiety, and passivity.

Ms. Allsopp herself admits that she said no when her son first proposed the trip. Then she thought about it more and realized he was ready for this adventure, though — that it was her job as a good parent to safeguard his confidence, self-respect, development, and joy in life by letting him go.

“It’s up to parents to decide who is or isn’t grown-up enough to start spreading their wings,” she wrote.

In America at least, eight states have passed “reasonable childhood independence” laws stating that neglect is when a parent puts a child in serious, obvious, unreasonable danger — not any time a parent lets the children do something by themselves. Maybe it’s time to adopt a similar law across the pond.

Creators.com