Parenting

We reached a watershed moment with our son today when he went off "into town" with his mates on their own for the first time.
Three of them, aged 12/13 were dropped off in Cardiff for a couple of hours, armed with a few quid and their mobiles to give us the call when they were ready to be picked up.

I'm sure there are some people out there whose kids have been going out and about on their own for a long time at a much earlier age than ours, but I don't hold with that. We don't mollycoddle him, (wrap him up in cotton wool, but neither do we let him do whatever he wants to. And nipping round the corner to see his mates isn't the same as spending several hours in a big (and today, very busy) city centre. Despite the fact a couple of them are actually quite big (my son now takes the same size shoes as me!) they're still children. there's no getting away from the fact that times have changed. When I was his age I used to disappear for the day to go fishing - quite often on my own, but that was 30+ years ago in a quiet and rural part of Lincolnshire, not in urban South Wales.

It was therefore a slightly nervous couple of hours, but of course they were fine, had a great time and now will probably do this regularly. More taxi servicing!