Kirstie Allsopp Defends Allowing Her 15-Year-Old Son To Go Interrailing

Kirstie Allsopp, co-presenter of Location, Location, Location (among others), has responded to online criticism about her teenage son’s recent solo trip to Europe. 

On Monday, the TV personality wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “My little boy has returned from three weeks inter-railing, he’ll be 16 on Wednesday so he went with a mate who’s already 16,” inadvertently starting a debate that spanned several days.

Many online shared the opinion that her son was simply “too young” for the interrailing trip, while others thought it all depended on the child in question.

Shortly after her original post, Kirstie responded to some of the criticism thrown her way, writing: “If we’re afraid our children will also be afraid, if we let go, they will fly” under her main status. 

She tagged Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation (which links rising mental health issues among young people to “the transition from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood,”) and Lenore Skenazy, founder of the site “Free-Range Kids” (which aims to fight “the belief that our children are in constant danger from creeps”) in her response.

“For obvious budget reasons inter-railing isn’t on the cards for everyone, but in this increasingly risk averse world it’s vital that we find any ways we can to give our children the confidence that only comes from trusting them,” she said. 

“Of course I missed spending the summer with our son, but I’m so proud of him and my loss is nothing compared to his gain.”

Kirstie spoke more about the online criticism on BBC Radio 4′s Today programme on Wednesday.

“He’s a very sensible young man, he’s never been in trouble at school, so when he said he wanted to do this I thought: ‘Right, OK, good on you’,” she said on the show.

She added: “I struggled on an emotional level because I knew I’d be not seeing him for quite a lot of this summer, and he’s only got two more years of school and then he’ll be at university.

“As a parent there’s always that thing of: ‘Oh I want to be with my child,’ or ’Is it good for them to do their own thing?’.”

As the debate raged on, it led to a separate conversation about whether Kirstie would feel the same way if she’d had a daughter who wanted to make the same trip at the age of 15. 

In her Radio 4 interview, she maintained her stance, saying: “Girls face different dangers, but statistically boys are more at danger from violent attacks from strangers.”

“We are looking at a mental health crisis with young people… We have to ask ourselves, how much of this is because of our fear and our worry?”

The TV star is no stranger to online controversy. 

She has previously garnered backlash by suggesting young people “sacrifice” more to get on the property ladder, calling anyone who uses a plug-in air freshener a “moron” who is “poisoning” themselves, and saying getting people to move their washing machines out of their kitchen was her “life’s work.”

She even previously deactivated her X account back in 2018, over the controversy surrounding her choice to smash her kid’s iPads for gaming outside the permitted times.