How travel, upbringing, and human connection shaped how I see the world—and how I want to raise my children
I didn’t set out to write about this.
It started as a simple question from a friend – one of those messages you reply to quickly while juggling everything else. But somehow it turned into something much bigger. A long stream of thoughts. A bit of a monologue, if I’m honest.
And afterwards, I realised it had stirred something deeper in me.
Not just about nurseries, or safeguarding, or even parenting – but about how I see the world now, compared to how I used to.
I think part of why this has stayed with me is also where I am mentally at the moment.
I’ve been feeling quite close to burnout – between work, family life, and just the constant noise of everything going on in the world. It’s a lot to hold, and I can feel how it’s been shaping the way I see things. Everything feels heavier, more overwhelming, more uncertain.
There’s so much division, so many strong opinions, so many headlines that seem to highlight the worst in people – conflict, distrust, fear. It can feel like we’re being pulled further apart rather than closer together.
And in a strange way, having this conversation – and really thinking through my own beliefs – felt a bit like coming up for air.
A reminder of how I want to see the world – and the mindset I hope to hold onto and share with my children, even when it feels harder to do that.
A lot of that comes from my upbringing.
My dad believed – really believed – that most people are inherently good. That people are just trying their best. That the world, for all its complexity, was something to engage with – not something to retreat from.
That shaped me more than I probably realised at the time. Reflecting on it now feels like a kind of homecoming – a reminder of what I still believe, even if the world has made that harder to hold onto. And maybe it aches a little more now that he’s no longer here to remind me how to trust.
But it wasn’t just him. I grew up in an environment that encouraged openness. I went to an international school, surrounded by people from different countries, cultures and perspectives from a young age. It made it feel natural to be curious—to listen, to ask questions, and to see the world as something much bigger than my own experience.
My mum was the same in her own way. I remember her at markets in France, chatting easily with people, asking questions, taking an interest. It felt natural to connect – not just to pass through places, but to be part of them, even in small moments.
She had lived that herself too. As a young woman in Germany, she went to France as an au pair, travelled with her French boyfriend, and experienced the world in a way that required openness and trust. My grandparents were the same – they welcomed people into their home and were open to whoever she brought back.
My stepdad has shaped that perspective in a different way. As a neuroscientist, he has spent much of his life studying people -how we think, behave, and make sense of the world. He shares that same appreciation for human connection, but he’s also been aware, for a long time, of some of the directions we’re heading in as a society.
In some ways, he saw certain challenges earlier than I did. He’s perhaps a little less naive than my dad was, and I think having both of those influences – optimism and caution – has shaped how I try to make sense of the world now.
Looking back, I can see how all of that shaped the way I naturally approach people and the world around me. That way of seeing the world stayed with me – and some of my clearest memories of it are from travelling with my dad.
I remember being in Jamaica, as a young teenager, sitting on a beach, and him striking up a conversation with two local guys. Just talking, openly, easily, the way he always did. And then, not long after, we ended up getting into their car and spending the day exploring parts of the island you’d never see as a tourist. Remote places. Local places. The kind of experience you can’t plan.
Looking back, I can see how that might sound.
Yes, of course there was risk.
But what I remember isn’t fear.
What I remember is his instinct. The way he read people. The way he trusted his judgment. And the way that trust opened up a completely different experience of the world.
That stayed with me.
That openness. That willingness to talk to people, to connect, to be curious.
Even now, I find myself doing the same – on a plane, on a train, striking up conversations with the person next to me.
In fact, that’s how I met my husband.
If I hadn’t been open to speaking to a stranger, we would never have met. We wouldn’t have our story. We wouldn’t have our children.
That one small act of openness changed everything.
And that didn’t stop with my childhood.
Travelling with my husband, I’ve found myself doing the same – being open, talking to people, engaging with the world around us. Because of that, we’ve had experiences we never would have had if we’d just stayed in our bubble as tourists.
Not the kind you find in a guidebook, but the kind that come from actually talking to people. From being curious about their lives, their perspectives, their way of seeing the world.The kind of moments that only happen when you allow yourself to connect.
And I think that’s why travel has always been so important to me.
If we can afford it, and if we can make the time, I want my children to experience that with us – and eventually on their own. Not just the places, but the people. The conversations. The unplanned moments.
I want them to feel confident enough to talk to a stranger, to ask questions, to have a debate. To sit with someone who thinks differently and not immediately feel threatened by that, but curious. To open their minds to things they haven’t experienced yet.
Because the more I think about it, the more I feel like that kind of human-to-human connection is exactly what we’re at risk of losing.
We’re living in a time where fear can spread quickly.
Through headlines. Through social media. Through the constant stream of information we’re exposed to.
It shapes how we see the world – and how we see each other.
And increasingly, even the way we interact is changing. More of our communication happens through screens, through systems, through automated responses. With the rise of AI, we’re becoming more efficient, more precise – but also at risk of losing something human along the way.
Human interaction is inherently imperfect. It’s less efficient, more emotional, sometimes biased and flawed.
But it’s also where connection lives.
It’s how we understand each other.
And it’s something we naturally crave, whether we realise it or not.
I feel that tension every day.
The instinct to protect.
The voice that says what if?
And at the same time, the part of me that knows what it meant to grow up with freedom. With trust. With real human connection.
Because that’s the dilemma, isn’t it?
We want to protect our children.
But we also want them to live.
To experience things. To build confidence. To learn how to navigate the world – not just avoid it.
And those two things don’t always sit comfortably together.
In some ways, I find myself more concerned as my children grow older than I do when they are in highly structured environments.
Not because one is “safe” and the other isn’t – but because the world naturally opens up.
School. Friendships. Independence. Online spaces.
You can’t control it all. And in some ways, the modern risks -what they’re exposed to online, the things they can see and access so easily -worry me even more than the physical world ever did.
Sometimes I think about places like Japan, where young children are given a level of independence that would feel unusual to many of us.
Of course, that exists within a society that is generally very safe, where people tend to look out for one another and for each other’s children.
But I don’t think that kind of environment happens by accident.
It comes from trust. From shared responsibility. From a belief in the people around you.
And in a small way, I think we all contribute to that – either by leaning into it, or by withdrawing from it.
Because the alternative feels difficult too.
If we respond to fear by closing ourselves off – by assuming the worst, by limiting interaction, by stepping back from the world – we might reduce certain risks.
But we also lose something.
Connection. Openness. The kind of human interaction that shapes who we are.
The very things that, for me, led to some of the most meaningful moments in my life.
None of this is about ignoring risk.
It exists. It always has
.And no system, no decision, no environment removes it completely.
But parenting, I’m realising, isn’t about eliminating risk.
It’s about deciding how we live alongside it.
For me, that means trying to raise children who:
- understand boundaries
- feel able to speak up
- build confidence through real experiences
- and grow up believing that the world is something to engage with – not something to fear entirely
I don’t have all the answers.
And I don’t think there is one “right” way to approach this.
Every family will land in a different place, shaped by their own experiences, culture, and comfort levels.
But I do know this.
I don’t want fear to be the thing that shapes how my children experience the world.
And I don’t want to lose that belief – however much it gets challenged – that most people are good.
Because that belief gave me a life full of connection, experience, and love.
It gave me my husband.
It gave me my children.
And that’s not something I’m ready to let go of.
