TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp says that she does not think she would not have been reported to social services for letting her 15-year-old son go abroad if she had “been an ordinary member of the public”.
The Location, Location, Location host, 52, revealed at the weekend that a report was made to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), her local council, after she revealed that she allowed her teenage son to go on an interrailing trip with a 16-year-old friend.
Allsopp told Times Radio on Monday that it was “a malicious call, made by someone who was obviously trying to upset me”.
She added: “Social services should have recognised that and dealt with it, accordingly, malicious calls are actually an element with all social services.”
The presenter also called the fact that the council service had the time to call “utterly bizarre”.
She also said that she does not think social services would “have treated me in exactly the same way had I been an ordinary member of the public”.
Constant chats with mates, and online, about how much we all travelled unaccompanied; to school, to grandparents, to pen pals, to babysitting gigs, now it’s all 😱 what the heck has happened? Is this all 24 hour news? Because the stats are very clear, travel is safer than ever.
— Kirstie Allsopp (@KirstieMAllsopp) August 25, 2024
Allsopp explained that the reception to her post, where she revealed that Oscar, now 16, had gone an European interrailing trip to celebrate his GCSEs, has been “extraordinary”.
“That leaves me with a feeling of, ‘do I regret the tweet? Yes, because it’s been a load of hassle’. Do I regret the tweet? No, because it’s very clear that this debate needs to be had’, because there is something really troubling going on with this extraordinary change in actually a very short amount of time,” she added.
“There’s generations of people who have travelled very freely all over the place, and now there’s this group of people, who are terrified and who are restricting their teenagers.”
She called the change in perceptions “deeply worrying, deeply worrying”.
Allsopp said: “Until 1972, 15 was the school leaving age, the majority of people left school at 15 and got a job.
“And what has changed? Why are we infantilising children?
“Why are we saying that they’re not capable of travel?”
She said that her son Oscar had saved money for the trip himself, and “has never been in any kind of trouble or done anything irresponsible in his life”.
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 organised the whole thing; Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Marseille, Toulouse, Barcelona & Madrid 1/3
— Kirstie Allsopp (@KirstieMAllsopp) August 19, 2024
“We know that there are some kids who, at a certain age, are more mature and some who are less and obviously we should let parents decide that,” Allsopp said.
“It was, until very recently, absolutely standard for young people on any budget to explore and get as far as they possibly could.
“What has changed? Why has it changed?
“And this increase in adolescent mental health, which is a crisis, we talk about anxiety all the time.
“It’s like a buzzword, anxiety, anxiety.
“Anxiety leads to depression, confidence leads to happiness. Being trusted, being confident, makes you feel better about yourself and happy.
“So are our kids anxious because we are fearful, we are holding them back, and this is leading them to be depressed?”
She also said: “We have to let our children be mentally and physically happy and healthy, and wrapping them in cotton wool and stopping them going places and filling them with fear about the world will not make them happier and will not safeguard them.
“In fact, it will do the reverse. ”
Allsopp also said that some people “are making a fuss just for the hell of it”.
She also said: “What is happening here, is that we have been convinced that bad things happen more often and they just don’t, the world is actually a far safer and healthier place than it was 70 years ago”.
A Kensington and Chelsea Council spokesman 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.”
