But Mom, he got to sail around the world!

Well said Write.

We bitch about parents who coddle their kids. We bitch about parents who don't.

 

Because they, or their paents, are not choosing to do any of the above.

 

So, the parents apparently home-schooled seven children, according to Fox News. Maybe WriteThinking can redirect, but this sounds like a weird family. These parents were looking for money and fame. I have no doubt that we will find out that her boat was woefully inept for dealing with this particular endeavor. These parents suck.

 

That's how I thought such things worked: there's always a boat or something tailing along to make sure crap doesn't happen. Sounds like they forgot that part here.

 

Why do you think the parents were looking for money and fame? Circumnavigations don't make you rich. Hell, most people probably never heard of this girl until she went missing.

Though, I guess TLC might have given the family a reality show for when the shows featuring the Roloffs, Duggars or Jon & Kate Plus 8 went on hiatus.

 

TSP apparently missed the word "almost" in the quote.

 

As to the parents, as has been mentioned (and linked) in the thread:

1. When the older son did the same trip, the dad was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
2. The boat is apparently a fortress and damn-near unsinkable. Which is probably the only reason she isn't belly up.

 

I don't know what to say to you. You're a nice guy, but I couldn't disagree with you more on so many of your posts on this thread. What/who are you protecting? The family wanted the exposure, which is what they got. The family will make money off of this. Which is what they wanted. How can people in the media be so oblivious? I think your personal proclivities are getting in the way of your common sense.

 

Parents are supposed to do what they can to protect children, not live vicariously through them.

 

I'm sailing away
Set an open course for the Virgin Sea
'Cause I've got to be free
Free to face the life that's ahead of me

 

Not protecting anybody, just a difference of opinion about the possibilities a 16-year-old isn't incapable of making that trip. Or climbing Everest. As I said, we've had threads ripping parents for coddling their kids (do a story on my son, the backup QB!) and we've had threads ripping parents for allowing kids too much independence.

I still don't see how the family would make money off this trip. Circumnavigations are not big money makers. Maybe they had some scheme to make some money off it, but I just don't see it. I freely admit I might be wrong about the marketability of the brother-sister duo who sailed around the world.

I'm no more "oblivious" on this issue than others condemning the parents are clueless.

That said, this all flared up while I was working on a story about a 20-year-old girl who just completed a safari where she bagged the African Big Five (leopard, lion, rhino, elephant and Cape buffalo). As a college student, her parents financed the trip. The lion charged her and got to within 20 yards before she killed it. I spent about two hours talking to her and her parents. She's an incredible kid. One of those kids that everybody would look at and say "Damn, she's got her shit together better at 20 than I did at 30." So I probably did project some of that conversation over to Sunderland.

Add to that my week-long solo backpacking trip when I was 15, then yeah my personal experiences do make me wonder if maybe, just maybe, this 16-year-old was capable of making this trip. Had I been mauled by a bear or drowned during a stream crossing — and the Internet and SJ existed in 1983 — I don't like the idea of my parents being ripped for my actions. Even though I was only 15.

So, yes, my personal proclivities are getting in the way. Just like everybody else's are affecting their views on this.

 

And sometimes we can't even do that.

I can't be with any of my sons 24/7, let alone all three of them. I have to trust that they're going to make good decisions for themselves when I'm not there to oversee the process.

That said, I'm not going to comment on what these parents should or should not be doing regarding the decisions they are making or letting their children make. Other than to say they are the ones who have to live with those decisions. The rest of us, well, it might be fascinating theatre.....for a while....but eventually it slips into "who cares?" territory.

Inky says it well too.