I’m scared to let my son walk to school on his own

My son is growing up in the centre of a busy town, and it doesn’t feel safe

According to First News, the newspaper for children, “most councils in the UK recommend that children can walk alone to school from the age of eight.” This revelation gave me quite a jolt. My son’s eight. And the thought of him walking to school on his own utterly terrifies me.

Perhaps that sounds daft. It’s certainly hypocritical. For one thing, I used to walk to school on my own when I was his age. But then, I grew up in a quiet suburb on the outermost reaches of Edinburgh, opening out onto endless fields and woods and the Pentland Hills. There was little traffic. My son, by contrast, is growing up in the centre of a busy town in Kent, its roads thundering with lorries all day long, but in particular during the early morning and late afternoon: the same time as the school run. It doesn’t feel safe.

Then of course there’s the clammy parental fear of strange men lurking behind lamp posts, patiently awaiting the opportunity to pounce on an unaccompanied schoolchild. Maybe at the time I was just blissfully oblivious, the way small children are, but I don’t recall many parents having that particular fear back in the 1980s, when I was at primary school. Perhaps they’d simply decided that all the paedophiles were far too busy presenting BBC TV programmes to bother with the Scottish school run. We parents of the 2020s, however, are rather more jumpy. So that’s another reason not to let my son leave the house on his own. At least not until Father Christmas has brought him his very own Taser.

In truth, though, it isn’t just the thought of him crossing busy roads that scares me, nor any anxieties I may have about “stranger danger”. There’s something else. It might seem small and silly. But I suspect that many other fathers will know exactly what I mean.