British mother defends letting her 15-year-old travel through Europe unaccompanied by an adult

British television personality Kirstie Allsopp was so excited when her 15-year-old son Oscar returned from a three-week European train trip with his friend that she posted about it on social media, sparking an immediate backlash.

“My little boy came back from a three-week Interrail trip,” she wrote in a thread on X on August 19. “He turns 16 on Wednesday, so due to hostel/travel restrictions he went with a buddy who is already 16, but they organised the whole thing: Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Marseille, Toulouse, Barcelona and Madrid.”

In her first post, Allsopp acknowledged how dangerous the journey was, adding: “In this increasingly risk-averse world, it is vital that we find every possible way to give our children the confidence that only comes from trusting them.”

The viral post has been viewed 2 million times so far and sparked many strong opinions, such as this one:

• “It’s absolutely insane to make a 16-year-old responsible for a 15-year-old! Too young to be travelling alone.”

• “Two 16-year-olds are travelling alone through Europe. I can’t imagine the safety risk they/you took by allowing them to come along. I agree that they must be very mature and sensible boys to undertake this adventure, but at 16 you take a big risk… I’m glad they are back safely.”

• “That’s way too young for my taste.”

Although Allsopp admitted that there are many “haters” on the internet, she also received a lot of support:

• “I think this is fantastic. My son (18) has just returned from a seven-week trip, all the way from the UK to Albania. Had an incredible time.”

• “An incredible experience and an adventure. It’s completely normal to travel around Europe at the age of 16. But as children in Germany, we also walked home from school at the age of 7 and took the train alone at the age of 10. Parents want independence from an early age.”

• “Good for him and for you. When I finished middle school, I went to France and worked for three months in a hotel bar in a small village. I really enjoyed it and I would let my children do the same.”

In an Instagram post on August 25, Allsopp provided further background on the trip.

She wrote that her son had made the trip after completing the tests administered to young teenagers in the UK, but her original post had serious consequences and sparked a social services investigation.

“Never in my life would I have thought that a call from the youth welfare office could be connected to this,” she wrote.

Allsopp, who cites Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” as inspiration for increasing her parental risk-taking, posted another thread on X on August 27.

“Every year, children who have completed their GCSEs travel around the UK and Europe; it is a rite of passage that has been going on for ages,” she wrote.

“Do I regret that tweet? Yes and no. Yes, because it was a lot of trouble and Oscar is not happy,” she continued. “No, because looking at some of the responses I’ve received, we obviously have a much bigger problem with fear, xenophobia and restricting teenagers’ rights to explore the world than I could have ever imagined.”

Allsopp also said that the call from the youth welfare office was “simply absurd and made me very angry.”

Her post suggested that there would have been no problem if her son had turned 16 before the trip. “The obsession with this age limit is bizarre,” she wrote.

However, Allsopp said the situation also had “a positive side” because it had sparked a discussion about “how we can best help teenagers to become confident, capable adults and how objectively and realistically we perceive risks”.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com.