Kirstie Allsopp, TV presenter and mother (and stepmother) to four boys, has posted online that she received a call from social services after allowing her 15-year-old son to travel across Europe without parental supervision. Oscar, who just finished his GCSEs, went interrailing with a 16-year-old friend for nine days. Kirstie says she was reported by someone targeting her and falsely alleging neglect.
‘It’s been a huge shock, not least for Oscar,’ Kirstie wrote on Instagram, also telling The Mail on Sunday that she received a call from the council that left her feeling ‘sick’ and ‘very, very cross’. The social worker apparently wanted to know what safeguards she put in place for her son's travel, but she was not told how the referral had been made or by whom.
Oscar will apparently stay on file with child protective services, at her local council the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and would be kept open ‘in case there was another referral, and we needed to come to your house and look into this further.’
On Instagram, Kirstie further explained her decision to let Oscar travel alone. ‘It is our job to raise our children to leave the nest, the enormous cost of nests aside,’ she said. I knew that we were becoming a more risk averse culture in the U.K. and the US. My time is Switzerland has taught me a lot there, as in Japan, children walk to school alone and are encouraged to learn early to be self-sufficient and trusted to make sensible choices.
‘I knew that wasn’t happening as much at home and I was interested by the walk of @jonathanhaidt and others who see a link between less freedom [and] trust and more mental health concerns amongst young people,’ Kirstie continued. ‘‘So when I said Oscar had done what so many, many young people did after O Levels, and now after GCSEs, and gone inter railing, despite being Summer born and therefore young for his school year, I knew some people might think [hmm], but I thought his trip was inspiring, and it never occurred to me in a million years that a call from children services would be involved, it’s been a huge shock, not least for Oscar.’
She went on to write that she hopes everyone stops and thinks about the freedoms we all had as children, and whether more harm can be done by the restrictions and fear we impose on children nowadays.
A spokesperson for RBKC said: ‘Safeguarding children is an absolute priority. We take any referral we receive very seriously, and we have a statutory responsibility for children under 18 years of age.’ According to the RBKC, it’s standard practice for records to be retained until a child’s 25th birthday.
Kirstie has since received support online after posting about the report, with many agreeing that was unnecessary for social services to get involved. ‘You are an inspiration, so many parents wrap their children in cotton wool and then expect them to fly the nest,’ one person responded. ‘And as you rightly said on BBC Radio 2, so many parents give their children phones and unsupervised access to the world yet dare to poke at your parenting style. The world has gone crazy, a sea of contradictions and lack of common sense.’
What do you think?