A question of trust

Another heated debate about parenting and to what extent you should trust your child to do their own thing without fussing and fretting and watching them like a hawk.

There's been a lot of criticism of Kirstie Allsopp, the presenter of a TV property programme, for allowing her 15 year old son and a 16 year old friend to take a rail trip round Europe on their own.

Even the local council has got involved, with Social Services starting a file on her for supposedly neglectful parenting.

Kirstie Allsopp insists that she knows her own child and had no doubt he was mature enough to make such a trip and cope with any problems that arose. Which he did.

It seems to me that it's entirely up to the parent to decide what their child is capable or not capable of. What business is it of other people to judge them and tell them they made the wrong decision? What do they know about the child's capabilities?

The assumption is that parents are too laid back and let their children do anything they want without properly observing them and keeping them out of harm's way.

As you know, Jenny and I don't have any children, but I imagine that if we had done I for one as a rather anxious individual would probably have been over-protective and over-watchful, deterring my children from spreading their wings and finding their way in the outside world.

I'm sure I would have exaggerated all the dangers and conjured up all sorts of dire eventualities. I suspect I'd have been an alarmingly neurotic parent.

Pic: Kirstie Allsopp

High risk

I always wonder what it's like to live with someone in a high risk occupation, or who enjoys high-risk pastimes. Does it terrify them or do they just take it in their stride?

I imagine they must be always scared stiff that their partner will sooner or later have a serious accident and end up either dead or disabled. It would be hard to take it in your stride when there's a very real risk that today might be their last day ever. And if you have children then the possibility of their losing their father is an added worry.

I had a friend once whose husband was a police officer, and I don't think she ever lost her terror of his dying on the job. He worked in a city where acts of violence were common and many police officers had been injured or killed.

The number of high-risk occupations is large. Police, fire fighters, the military, construction, bomb disposal officers, jobs involving hazardous materials, working in a covid ward. Plus the high-risk pastimes like sky-diving, rock-climbing, bungee-jumping and potholing. So there must be many anxious partners out there, trying to suppress their fears and just carry on with their daily life.

Do they try to persuade their partners to do something less risky or do they accept that they love what they do so much they couldn't possibly give it up?

Luckily neither Jenny or I have had high-risk jobs or pastimes. I wonder how I would have coped if Jenny had been a police officer, say. I suspect the answer is not very well. I would have had feverish imaginings of her being caught in some melee involving guns and knives and ruthless criminals. Carrying on with my daily life would have been quite a struggle.

Pic: Israeli police woman

Risk averse

I'm a decidedly risk-averse person. I seldom take really major risks, and when I do it's often on Jenny's prompting, as she's much more of a risk-taker than me. As it is, even ordinary everyday errands can make me nervous.

Men are supposed to be good at taking risks, but that doesn't apply to me. I guess I'm too afraid of failure, too afraid of everything going pear-shaped and me feeling like a total idiot.

But I've taken big risks in my life from time to time. Especially with property. I've taken a chance with biggish mortgages and managed to keep paying them. Jenny and I bought an expensive flat without getting a surveyor's report and luckily it turned out to be structurally sound.

I guess the biggest risk I took was moving from London to Northern Ireland with Jenny. We both gave up our existing jobs, confident we'd soon find new ones. It took us longer than we thought (and Jenny decided to do a PhD in the meantime), but we both eventually found excellent jobs.

Of course relationships and friendships can involve risk-taking, something we tend to overlook. I gambled on a future with Jenny and the gamble paid off. I've gambled a few times on what seemed like solid friendships, only to see them inexplicably melt away.

When I do take major risks, it's for a good reason. To better myself, to enrich my life, to get out of a rut, to have some long-term security. I'd never take risks just for the hell of it - things like rock-climbing, bungee-jumping, slot machines, or betting on election results. I guess some people like the sheer adrenalin rush of extreme risk.

I think the biggest risk I could take would be a life-or-death operation - one that could either save my life or kill me. I think I'd take my chance and hope for the best.

Playing safe

I used to think I had a strong instinct for self-preservation, which is why I've resisted all those things that spoil other people's lives - like eating too much, drinking too much, abusing drugs, slipping into a couch potato lifestyle.

But when I look a bit more closely, I have to admit it wasn't self-preservation that steered me away from all these habits but other quite random personal characteristics that aren't so impressive.

Eating too much makes me feel queasy and unwell. Drinking too much totally numbs my brain. Drugs might have claimed me if it wasn't for not knowing where to get them. And I could have been a couch potato if it wasn't for the physical restlessness that stops me sitting for very long.

Although we humans are supposed to have a strong self-preservation instinct, actually I think it's pretty feeble and often overwhelmed by our tendency to act on impulse regardless of the consequences. Especially when we just want to enjoy ourselves.

All the time I see people doing amazingly risky things, blatantly dicing with death and injury, oblivious to self-preservation. Motorists overtaking on blind bends, jaywalking pedestrians, drunks about to totter off station platforms, householders on wobbly ladders. They defy all the dangers, convinced they won't come to any harm. Or not even caring if they come to harm or not.

The honest truth is that often I'm as impulsive and reckless as the next person, and self-preservation is the last thing on my mind. If I've never come to any serious harm in my life, it's really more luck than judgment. I can stop feeling self-righteous because I'm not as canny as I think.

Another smug self-appraisal bites the dust.

Risk assessment

My attitude to risk is very contradictory. Some highly risky things don't bother me at all. Others bother me a lot, probably more than they ought to.

I have no qualms about flying, even right across the world. I know there's always a risk of crashes, of fires, of hijacks. But statistically it's the safest form of travel and I have every confidence my next flight will be disaster-free.

I'm okay with driving too. I know that's a very dangerous form of travel, and that serious, possibly fatal, accidents occur all the time. But I'm confident that as long as I'm always alert and attentive, catastrophe is unlikely.

On the other hand, I'm very nervous about hospitals and operations. I'm aware that most operations are routine and successful, but I'm rather too aware of the small percentage that go horribly wrong and leave you in a worse state than before - or even dead. I mean, just suppose I'm one of that small percentage?

I'm also wary of financial risk. I keep my money in the bank and that's it. I'm suspicious of investments and fancy money-making schemes that may go suddenly pear-shaped, swallow up all my money and leave me penniless.

I can be very timid about making big changes in my life, be it a new job, a new home, even a new political allegiance. It might seem like a positive move, it might enhance my life, but what are the unforeseen consequences? Could I be making a reckless mistake, one I live to regret?

Oddly enough though, I was quite sure that moving from London to Belfast was the right thing to do, even though I had no job to go to, I had no relatives living there, and the peace process was only in its early stages. I somehow had confidence it would all work out, and it did.

Why am I quite nonchalant about some risks and over-anxious about others? Why am I so inconsistent? The vagaries of the human mind are a constant puzzle.

A yen for risk

I'm fascinated by the way people crave risk as much as they crave safety. Human nature demands this strange contra-diction.

On the one hand we want safety. We want a home, a job, friends and family, things that make us feel protected and secure, things that ward off the horrors and uncertainties of the outside world.

But at the same time we don't want to feel too staid and set in our ways, we want a bit of excitement in our lives, so we also want risk. We drink too much, eat too much, drive recklessly and take dangerous drugs, busily compromising the very same safety and security we're striving for the rest of the time.

Some people go farther. The reliable bank clerk and home-owner who also has a yen for rock climbing, sky diving, bungee jumping or surfing. Or even a fervent desire to work in war-torn countries where they face death every day. They can only take so much safety and security before they crave the exact opposite, something that is physically threatening but gets the adrenaline going like nothing else.

Personally I have a strong yearning for safety, and I steer away from risk. I'm a timid soul who seldom does anything riskier than exceeding the speed limit or standing on a cliff-edge.

If I feel any sense of risk in my life, it's only the vicarious danger oozing from the media, with its screaming headlines about cancer epidemics, plane crashes, multiple pile-ups and mass shootings.

I guess that's one reason we're all such avid news-consumers. It gives us that exhilarating whiff of looming peril that livens up our usually predictable existence. It persuades us we're taking constant risks when in fact we've never been safer.

But I think I'll pass on the bungee-jumping for now, if that's all right with you.

Rough and ready

Someone accused me the other day of "undignified" behaviour. Well, frankly, I've never seen myself as especially "dignified" in the first place. I'm just a very ordinary person fumbling my way through life in a rough-and-ready fashion, probably more stupefied than dignified.

In fact I'm rather suspicious of anyone whose aim in life is to be dignified. It suggests someone who's rather stiff and starchy, rather defensive, afraid to be themself in case they do something embarrassing or stupid or laughable.

They would rather do nothing at all than see other people looking down their noses at their unseemly or uncouth conduct. They would rather be "dignified" than interesting or amusing or witty.

But surely to live your life, to be who you are, or simply to enjoy yourself, you have to risk losing your dignity every minute of the day? You have to risk the inevitable pratfalls and cock-ups that go hand in hand with spontaneity and experiment.

I associate "dignity" mainly with those public figures whose reputation seems to rest on being aloof and pompous and never saying anything candid or off-message. The only result is that hardly anyone trusts them because their "dignity" is more important to them than getting on with the job.

I also associate "dignity" with emotional repression - not showing your grief or rage or even wild excitement because it's "undignified". Bottling everything up and pretending everything's fine is more "appropriate" than letting it all spill out and maybe making other people uncomfortable.

So no, I'm probably not a very dignified person. But I'll settle for being a sometimes toe-curling plain speaker.

PS: Isn't dignity just another word for respectability? Or is it something more than that?

Cliffhanger

No way would I buy a house near a cliff edge, however stable and secure it was supposed to be. Cliffs are unreliable things, they can be rock solid for decades and then one day collapse dramatically.

As London property developer Sue Diamond has just discovered. She bought a six-bedroom clifftop house in Torquay, Devon, last week and just six days later a huge chunk of her garden disappeared in a 5,000 tonne rock fall.

Not surprisingly she's said to be too upset to talk about it.

I guess she decided it was a risk worth taking, as a house that would normally cost about £1.5 million was sold to her at auction for just £154,500. A pretty tempting discount for a spacious seaside hideaway with stunning views of the English Channel.

But the cliffs around Britain are eroding rapidly, and numerous houseowners have found their gardens, or even their houses, crumbling into the sea overnight. It's not a risk I would have anything to do with.

And it's a risk the buyer knows all about. They can't say when disaster strikes that it came out of the blue, they were taken unawares.

The people I feel sorry for are the ones who buy a lovely house in a pretty spot and are then faced with some totally unexpected development that ruins their little bit of paradise for ever. All of a sudden rolling green fields turn into a hideous housing estate, or a thunderous motorway, or they find a local factory is pumping out toxic chemicals.

They can protest as much as they like, but the politicians and local authorities seldom take much notice. They're written off as moaning Nimbys*, diehards standing in the way of progress, or hysterical nutters smearing some harmless activity. Or they're told "Well, you had it good for a long time. It couldn't last for ever."

They didn't see their purchase as risky, but it turned out to be just that.

* Not In My Back Yard
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Living with danger

I'm always humbled by people whose partners have incredibly risky jobs or hobbies but somehow have the resilience to accept the risk without being permanently worried stiff about them.

If your loved one is a police officer, firefighter, racing driver or rock-climber, you can never be sure they're going to return home in one piece - or even alive.

You must be often wondering how you would cope if you had that awful knock on the door to bring you the worst possible news. Or do you eventually get quite philosophical about it and just think "If it happens, it happens"?

Some people must face the prospect of their new love being constantly in danger and decide they simply can't face it, they'll settle for someone whose only occupational risk is a scalding from the coffee machine.

Two Northern Ireland motorcycling champions, brothers Joey and Robert Dunlop, were both killed while racing, and their grieving relatives have had to accept that they died doing something they loved and just wouldn't have been so happy doing something else.

Some people argue that it's irresponsible to choose such dangerous activities when you have a family who love you and depend on you and will be devastated if you come to harm. But if that's what you enjoy, if you're good at it, if it enriches your life, should you back off solely to be risk-free? And end up a bored, frustrated pen-pusher?

If you're the one at home though, it must be quite a relief every time your partner rings to say "I'm on my way now, sweetheart. How have the kids been today?" And for a few blissful hours, you can relax and stop worrying.