{"id":5353,"date":"2010-06-11T08:43:27","date_gmt":"2010-06-11T06:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/?p=5353"},"modified":"2010-06-11T09:31:13","modified_gmt":"2010-06-11T07:31:13","slug":"screw-your-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/5353","title":{"rendered":"Screw Your Dreams!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"60557005\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what I\u2019d say to my teenager if they told me they wanted to sail around the world, climb a mountain people die on, bungee jump, skydive or \u2026 oh, I don\u2019t know\u2026 roller skate? \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s probably a blessing for my imaginary children that they don\u2019t actually exist because this is one of those times where I wonder if I\u2019d be a terrible, unreasonable and overprotective parent.<\/p>\n

This morning I saw an article<\/a> about a 16 year old girl who is attempting to sail around the world solo. \u00a0She is also currently missing after setting off her distress beacon during bad weather on the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

In the last entry from Sunderland on her blog, on Wednesday, she wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The last few days have pretty busy out here. I’ve been in some rough weather for awhile with winds steady at 40-45 knots with higher gusts. With that front passing, the conditions were lighter today.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Her family said she had hit 30-foot swells. The Australian government has dispatched rescue ships<\/a> and an airplane in the search, which is focused some 2,000 miles west of Australia.<\/p>\n

Her older brother, Zac, sailed solo around the world last year, at age 17. Unsurprisingly, her parents are being criticized for letting their daughter, who is an accomplished, competent sailor, attempt this trip.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ok, so she is an accomplished, competent sailor\u2026 but she\u2019s also SIXTEEN!!\u00a0 At what point do parents stop looking out for their child’s dreams and start looking out for their safety?\u00a0 I know that supporting your child is important. I understand that it\u2019s crucial to their growth and future independence to urge them to dream and reach for their goals\u2026 but sailing around the world alone? At SIXTEEN? Ugh.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll be able to scrape together a lot of sympathy for these parents if things go badly.\u00a0 Ok, I will empathize with them and pity them for what they are going through, but the bitchy little part of the back of my brain will be pointing my finger and saying something along the lines of \u201cIt\u2019s your own fault!\u201d.<\/p>\n

There was a highly publicized court case not long ago here in the Netherlands where the court stopped a 13 year old girl from sailing around the world alone<\/a>.\u00a0 I believe that this was the right decision, and seriously, is there that <\/em>much difference between 13 and 16?\u00a0\u00a0 Other than a strange attraction to boys, PMS and if they are lucky\u2026 some sign of some breasts?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 In Canada a 16 year old can drive, they are only 3 years away from being able to drink.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s a mere two years away from being declared an adult and technically at that age they are able to be mothers, some of my friends were<\/em> mothers at that age.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s SIXTEEN!!<\/p>\n

I truly believe if I was ever lucky enough to be a mother that I would support my child in every way I can.\u00a0 I\u2019d urge them to follow their dreams and try to nurture a thirst for knowledge and a desire to make something of themselves. \u00a0I would want them to be happy.<\/p>\n

I also believe I\u2019d love them enough to at some point say Screw your dreams, I said no, now go do your homework… <\/em>and be happy to have them still alive<\/strong> and possibly hating me for it when they are old enough to make these decisions for themselves.\u00a0 I\u2019d be all about being the bad cop in this situation, no doubt. \u00a0Yes, I want them to be happy, but not when the risk is their lives<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Ok, one could argue that you can die at any time, and that’s true. \u00a0I know, I know… people love to give the whole argument that your child could be hit by a bus on the way to school. \u00a0They’d be right too, but the chances are increased when your child tells you that their biggest dream in the world is to play chicken<\/a> with a bus driver and you give them that supportive nudge out into the street.<\/p>\n

The whole sailing around the world thing seems to be such a trend with teenagers at the moment. I really can\u2019t help but question what is wrong with their parents that they even entertain the idea of this.<\/p>\n

What do you think?\u00a0 Would you allow your child to do something like this on their own at that age?\u00a0\u00a0 Do you support the decision this girl\u2019s parents made in allowing her to attempt to sail around the world on her own?\u00a0 What do you think about the case here in the Netherlands, do you think the court made the right decision?\u00a0 Do you think it was up to them to decide or should it have been the parents\u2019 decision?<\/p>\n

*EDIT* \u00a0Apparently she’s been found<\/a>, my feelings still haven’t changed though. I’m hoping this scare has shocked some people into action and that the next parents who are faced with this decision will think twice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s what I\u2019d say to my teenager if they told me they wanted to sail around the world, climb a mountain people die on, bungee jump, skydive or \u2026 oh, I don\u2019t know\u2026 roller skate? \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s probably a blessing for my imaginary children that they don\u2019t actually exist because this is one of those times …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[478,127,59,90,57,108],"class_list":["post-5353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-tantrums-rants","tag-american-news","tag-children","tag-dutch-news","tag-idiots","tag-rants","tag-scary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5353"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5355,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5353\/revisions\/5355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}