How young is old enough?

Mums (and dads too, I suppose you must count also) I have a question. At what age do you let your daughter go to the mall with a group of friends?

My daughter is 11 now, and is hinting that she would like to be allowed to wander around the mall with a friend or two, with a month's worth of allowance (a whopping $20), and the free will to spend it on what she wants (New York Fries, a rootbeer and Spongebob stuff, I imagine.) Has she reached the right age?

My friend Janine and I used to go to the mall on our own every Saturday afternoon. We would spend our money (way less than $20) at Marks and Spencers on a 4 pack of sherbert with the black licorice straw and a package of crisps each, we'd each get a different flavour so that we could split it. I was partial to Spring Onion, in case you're interested. Sometimes if we were really flush we would go over to T-shirts and Things and buy some pins. Corey Hart for me, and I think she would get Bryan Adams. To my eternal shame, I was also rather fond of Michael Jackson buttons. Hey, it was 1984.

When I was 11, closer to 12, a group of us all used to meet at the mall on a Friday night, always a busy time, always lots of kids.

The difference between now and then was a good 20 years first off. The mall was smaller, our houses were closer. Were people kinder then? I don't know. I don't think people are much different really, I think we are just more paranoid. But still, I don't know. It seems like such a big step, like admitting that she is no longer a little girl, but is actually growing up.

There are a few girls in her class who are allowed to go to the mall on their own, who are even allowed to attend a monthly Rock'n'Ride at Galaxyland. That is pushing it for me. It is for kids aged 12-17 and there is no way I would allow my 11 year old daughter, a girl who is as tall as many 14 year olds, to be around 17 year olds. Nor would I allow her to be around the drugs that are Rock'n'Ride.

For that is the thing about the mall, it has always been a great place for kids to find drugs, and for pimps to find kids. I was a teenager at that mall once, and though I never came close to "mall rat" status, many of my friends did, including Janine. I can make Taylor as aware as I possibly can or I can ban her from it altogether, unless she is with an adult.

This is probably a moot point, as Taylor's friends all have very protective parents, I am probably the least protective of the bunch. Taylor was the first to be allowed to walk to school on her own, the first to be able to go to the shop up the road on her own. But I don't think I want her to be the first to go to the mall. Perhaps if all the other parents were to allow it. Her friend Connor's mum and I once joked about it, about how we would let them go to a movie, but we would sit in the lobby and wait, or how we would follow them through the mall 10 paces behind. It was a joke 2 or 3 years ago, now it looks like it might become reality.

How protective is to protective? At what point do we let them go and try these things out? That freedom was a part of my childhood, shouldn't it be a part of hers?