Can you imagine being given this opportunity

ThatFragranceGuy said:
Do you require this burden of proof of all authors or just ones that squandered the opportunity to enjoy child neglect?

One of the weirdest takes I've ever read on here
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What 'burden of proof' is it you feel I am asking for? I have agreed with you all that there is a huge element of neglect on the parent's part but I also know you are an intelligent man, and with that assumption, I know you understand that there are two sides to every story.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
What 'burden of proof' is it you feel I am asking for? I have agreed with you all that there is a huge element of neglect on the parent's part but I also know you are an intelligent man, and with that assumption, I know you understand that there are two sides to every story.
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To be fair, you have changed tack a bit on this thread. You started it by making out that she should have been grateful and we would all have loved the same opportunity.
You are now accepting the parents were hugely neglectful but she might be exaggerating in order to sell books.
Nothing wrong with changing your view after a discussion btw.
 
Rofesleg said:
To be fair, you have changed tack a bit on this thread. You started it by making out that she should have been grateful and we would all have loved the same opportunity.
You are now accepting the parents were hugely neglectful but she might be exaggerating in order to sell books.
Nothing wrong with changing your view after a discussion btw.
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I still would have liked that opportunity that she got but think it should have ended after the two years voyage and before the true neglect kicked in.

I am sure it beats the dens, tarzy's, beck jumping and the holidays you mentioned or my holidays on the East Coast.

A week at Primrose Valley or sailing halfway around the world. It's a no brainer to me. :unsure:
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
Kids dont like school, but nor do they like having to educate themselves, no access or ability to develop friendships, no access to fresh fruit, being covered in salt, being abandoned 40 miles away from their parents and having to renew her own Visa. It is lucky she educated herself well as not many careers accept several years on a sailboat as a CV.
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I don't think it matters what kids think of it at the time. There is a reason why we don't give kids the choice: our ability to reason (with or without education) doesn't fully develop until later in life. We have to rely on adults to make decisions for us, and these parents chose what was right for them, not their kid. You accept whatever happens to you as "normal" as a kid; she probably didn't even realize at the time how unusual her upbringing was.

Whether she'd have loved or hated school, it makes not the slightest difference to this argument. Many adults around the world regret their lack of formal education, or not taking their education further. It doesn't mean they all loved it as kids.

I fully agree about the social development too
 
Norman_Conquest said:
I tend to watch a lot of Ben Fogle's programmes about people living and raising their children in the wild. The majority of these children are well grounded and live an idyllic lifestyle, but I am sure there are many in reality who would love to be running around a tarmac playground playing footy with other kids.
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I agree with you there.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
A week at Primrose Valley or sailing halfway around the world. It's a no brainer to me. :unsure:
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Not quite the full comparison though is it?
The choice isn't simply between a week in a local holiday resort or a 'sailing trip' around the world.
It is more like a choice between a balanced childhood in a caring environment or a decade of neglect and isolation.
As you say, a no brainer.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
Can you imagine being given this opportunity as a child and she's having a whinge about it stealing her childhood?

We went for day's out in the summer with our mum and dad over the moors and holidayed in a caravan on the Yorkshire Coast each year, never anywhere exotic but it was magical to us and the memories of Whitby, Scarborough, Filey and Bridlington live on. In my teens, we got adventurous and went to Heysham where my dad worked, Carmarthen Bay the following year and Great Yarmouth the next. That was my last family holiday with my parents, brother and three sisters.

I would have loved being taken out of school (I use to take myself out of school regularly and go up Eston Hills) and travel the world.


www.theguardian.com

‘Dad said: We’re going to follow Captain Cook’: how an endless round-the-world voyage stole my childhood

In 1976, Suzanne Heywood’s father decided to take the family on a three-year sailing ‘adventure’ – and then just kept going. It was a journey into fear, isolation and danger …
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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You read that article and that’s your take home? It’s horrifying.
 
I watch a channel on YouTube of a family who sail around the world and only spend 4-6 weeks at a time in their home country.

The kids are educated onboard using internet access.

Imagine seeing the world at such an age and resenting it. Crazy times.
 
“after I reached puberty, my relationship with my mother had deteriorated and she often didn’t talk to me for weeks on end, instead only referring to me in the third person, as if I was not there.”

I think this probably sums up how “well” this idea turned out.
 
Not going to get involved in the abuse debate, but I can see why she probably didn’t like it.
It’s not the same, but someone I know moved pretty much every 1-2 years as a kid and they hated it as it meant trying to make friends over and over again. They had some resentment towards their parents for it as they just wanted consistency and familiarity when growing up and never got it.
 
Randy said:
I watch a channel on YouTube of a family who sail around the world and only spend 4-6 weeks at a time in their home country.

The kids are educated onboard using internet access.

Imagine seeing the world at such an age and resenting it. Crazy times.
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She has given her account of how “good” it was, the way they did it. Why would anyone doubt it unless they too had done it the same way?

In fairness, it sounds absolutely grim. I imagine that she, as a child, like lots of people, couldn’t give a stuff about Captain Cook either.

Its easy to read it as an adult and think “I’d love to go to New Zealand” but that’s not really the point.
 
atypical_boro said:
She has given her account of how “good” it was, the way they did it. Why would anyone doubt it unless they too had done it the same way?

In fairness, it sounds absolutely grim. I imagine that she, as a child, like lots of people, couldn’t give a stuff about Captain Cook either.

Its easy to read it as an adult and think “I’d love to go to New Zealand” but that’s not really the point.
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Yes. Pros and cons.

Each family will be different. The example of the channel I watch on YouTube been the other side of world travel growing up.
 
Baffling how little someone can understand the importance of proper socialisation for children. There's small windows in children's lives where they need certain things in order to develop properly, denying a child that is neglect and therefore a form of abuse. Not to mention the aspect of endangerment which is clearly demonstrated by the injuries.

Depressing that someone who appears or at least claims to have delivered courses on neglect can come to such conclusions.
 
Randy said:
I watch a channel on YouTube of a family who sail around the world and only spend 4-6 weeks at a time in their home country.

The kids are educated onboard using internet access.

Imagine seeing the world at such an age and resenting it. Crazy times.
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This girl never returned to her home country as a child and it was long before the internet was readily available, so that's comparing apples and oranges.

It was 1976.

She'll have had what books they had on board, and her self described "benevolent dictator" of a father, her mother who didn't get on with her, her brother and some crew members.

That and staring out at an empty ocean day after day.

I presume your YouTube family were feeding their children properly too.
 
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TeaCider said:
This girl never returned to her home country as a child and it was long before the internet was readily available, so that's comparing apples and oranges.

It was 1976.

She'll have had what books they had on board, and her self described "benevolent dictator" of a father, her mother who didn't get on with her, her brother and some crew members.

That and staring out at an empty ocean day after day.

I presume your YouTube family were feeding their children properly too.
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Again.
I was providing a different viewpoint.
A life as a child sailing around the world and seeing everything this world has to offer can also be a great thing too.
Plus as someone else mentioned already, it would be interesting to hear the side of the parents, it's not like kids never over egg the pudding is it?
 
Randy said:
Again.
I was providing a different viewpoint.
A life as a child sailing around the world and seeing everything this world has to offer can also be a great thing too.
Plus as someone else mentioned already, it would be interesting to hear the side of the parents, it's not like kids never over egg the pudding is it?
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You were comparing it to a completely different situation, that's not a different viewpoint on what she went through.

Obviously it could have been a great experience if you take away all the awful things that she went through during it and included all the things that you'd expect a healthy childhood to include.

But that's not what happened.
 
Her father will be mid 80s by now (his age is listed as older than the article below in most other accounts), if he's still alive.

This was an article from 2019:

"Maybe being engulfed by storms with 60ft waves crashing overhead wasn’t the most traditional upbringing for a four and five-year-old, but I don’t think it did them any harm,” Cook says. “In many ways I think we saved them from the English education system.”

Says it all for me

www.telegraph.co.uk

Meet the 80-year-old sailing around the world – for the second time

Gordon Cook is not your average landlord, nor a run-of-the-mill pensioner.
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
 
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Think it's pretty clear her dad was/is a massive bell end with zero empathy and her mother a weak "yes man" accomplice to him.

It could have been an amazing opportunity/experience if handled differently, but sounds like her dad was just an incredibly selfish, self centred individual who just did what he wanted, to hell with anyone else.
 
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