Kirstie Allsopp is a television presenter best known for her love of crafting and dishing out breezy advice about the benefits of knocking two rooms into one. But this week she briefly became best known as something else: “the world’s worst parent”, as she put it. Her crime? She let her 15-year-old go inter-railing around Europe with only a 16-year-old pal and his dad’s credit card for company.
This private family matter – which came to light after she announced it to her 387,000 followers on Instagram and the 434,000 on X – instantly divided the internet into two camps: those who went hiking alone up the Norfolk Fens with just a tent and a bag of crisps when they were five, and those whose parents are still driving them to school in their 30s (more on one of those in a moment). It unleashed a raft of hot takes, one anonymous complaint to Britain’s social services, which opened a file on her, and a question on a YouGov poll. The responses to the question of whether it was acceptable for a 15-year-old to travel around Europe alone were “it is acceptable” (30 per cent); “it is not acceptable” (55 per cent) or “don’t know”. There was, of course, no option for “none of my damn business”.
We live in a time when the question of how other people raise their children is a matter of fierce and very public debate. From the age at which you yourself should birth them, to the age at which they should be allowed to walk to school, or get a smartphone (I’ve held forth on this one myself), or start a skincare regime, there is no shortage of advice and opinions. Or outrage about those advice and opinions. There is an entire Instagram subculture dedicated to making you feel inadequate about what you put in your child’s lunch box, and another dedicated to slagging off the smug lunch box influencers.
Raising children was something previous generations just got on with. Now it is the latest frontier in the culture wars; you are either a free-range parent, a helicopter parent, a snowplough parent, a tiger parent, a panda parent or the kind of parent who cuts celery into dinosaur shapes to put in their child’s lunch box. What drives us to want to assemble ourselves into tribes like this, huddle into corners and fire bitter salvos at other parents? I have a hunch that the one thing that unites all parents, whoever they are, is blind fear.
[ Helicopter, free-range, concierge, lighthouse: What kind of parent are you?Opens in new window ]
Ireland’s best known tiger parents were back in the headlines this week. At 9.15am last Friday, in a rural part of Co Westmeath, a father dropped his child off for the first day of school. Enoch Burke (36) said goodbye to his dad and went to take up his lonely vigil at the gate of the school from which he has been suspended as a teacher.
The Burkes’ approach to parenting seems so far removed from the Allsopps’ they might occupy alternate multiverses, but it struck me after I read about both this week that perhaps they are driven by not altogether dissimilar concerns. It is always unwise to speculate about the motivations of other people, but fortunately, we don’t have to do too much speculation, because both Allsopp and Martina Burke, the mother of Enoch, are on the record on this.
Allsopp spent much of this week explaining her rationale for letting her son off on his inter-railing adventure. She is concerned that “we were becoming a more risk-averse culture”, and says she was alarmed by research by Jonathan Haidt and others that suggests there is “a link between less freedom and trust and more mental health concerns among young people”.
Martina Burke doesn’t talk much to the media these days, but back when she was best known as a homeschooling mother of 10, she offered her thoughts on raising children in a radio interview. “When I began to have a family, I took that responsibility really seriously ... Whatever happened, it was my responsibility,” she explained. “Other people are telling us what to do, and yet it’s not working because we’ve got massive mental health issues ... there’s an epidemic of mental health problems, anxiety problems, in young people.” Whatever you might think about the Burkes’ approach to parenting, or indeed the Allsopps’, these are relatable concerns.
Almost every week now, there is some new report about the dire state of our children’s mental health. (This week’s comes from a UK report that found that 15-year-olds there are suffering a “happiness recession” and Irish teens are almost as miserable.) Nobody really seems to know why it’s happening or what to do about it. And so we flail about banning smartphones and social media and encouraging young people to try mindfulness or team sports – all sensible ideas, but the truth is we don’t have a clue.
I suspect the real reason people such as Allsopp and Burke elicit such strong reactions is less about disagreeing with them, and more about being triggered by their enviable certainty that they’re doing the right thing by their children. Because despite all the performative tut-tutting, the diktats and contrived air of concern on social media, most of us are acutely aware that we’re winging it. Any time I’ve thought I’ve come within grasping distance of a clue myself, something else has come along to reveal it to have been a cruel mirage. After 18 years of being a mother, the only thing I can say with any certainty is that I am still making it up as I go along. Forget 15-year-olds let loose on the European rail network; that is the really terrifying thought.