Máiría Cahill: Kirstie Allsopp allowing her son to travel alone at 15 is a parenting fail in my book

“Boys don’t have to be as careful as girls,” my daughter Saorlaith said, when we discussed TV presenter Kirstie -Allsopp’s son Oscar’s recent inter–railing trip around Europe. I can’t be the only parent whose heart is still in my mouth at the thought of what could have happened to her 15-year-old (now 16) and his 16-year-old friend who travelled without an adult. Perhaps it is precisely because I am the mother of a teenage girl and not boys that I was horrified at Allsopp’s decision.