“Mom, why r u not at yoga?” texted my 19-year-old Annie.
“What? How did you know I’d been at yoga?” I wrote back, using my right index finger to whip out a speedy, grammatically correct response.
As soon as I pressed “send,” I realized what my daughter had discovered: my location.
Most parents of high schoolers spend hours checking their kids’ every move, but I didn’t want a smartphone when my children were teens. Instead, I insisted they tell me their destination when they went out at night. I’d sometimes follow up with another parent for confirmation, and I’m sure my kids weren’t always where they said they’d be. But they usually came home by curfew and always paid their cell bills on time.
I wanted to parent without a smartphone
A 2023 study found that 50% of parents in the US used a variety of GPS apps, such as Life 360 or Find My iPhone, to track their adolescents, while a 2024 study revealed that half of all parents continue to monitor their kids in college. But with my compulsive tendencies, I feared I’d spend too much time pondering their every step instead of living my life as an outdoor educator at a small college in western North Carolina. Plus, I enjoyed showing I could teach, travel, and parent — without a smartphone.
When our landline became too expensive, however, I broke down and bought the cheapest model on the market, which the salesperson called “an iPhone for old people.” As a 60-year-old with silver hair who taught without much tech, I chuckled at his apt description. A whiz with technology, my older daughter Maya offered to set up my cell coverage at the nearest black-box store.
“Oh my goodness, I’m so grateful!” I told her, handing off my new purchase with my passwords.
My daughters were tracking me
When she returned home, I didn’t think to check my settings. Years later, I learned that when the T-Mobile rep asked Maya for my emergency contact, she realized she could monitor my movements, providing some connection when she left for two years in the Peace Corps. And so she started tracking me on the D-L, as they say.
My eldest revealed how she’d shared my bearings with her younger sister before her departure for adventures abroad.
“Annie would text me when you were late, and she was worried about you,” Maya confided. “So I asked if she wanted your location.” Everyone was in the loop in these reverse-parenting roles — except me.
When my youngest “slipped” and revealed the secret surveillance, we first had a good laugh and later a productive conversation about the pros and cons of digital shadowing with your inner circle. Both my daughters, now 26 and 20, give their locations to a close group of friends or roommates, which seems both practical and prudent to me.
As a teen in the 1980s, my growing independence and privacy thrilled me when I explored my small Alabama hometown in a beat-up Buick sedan with my two friends — and not with my family of six. A report in Scientific American revealed concerns from child psychologists that parental tracking could impede the development of maturity among teens and offer a false sense of security. What young people are doing may be more important than where they’re doing it.
We now track all of our locations
When Annie took a cross-country trip last summer with her boyfriend, I asked for her location for the first time. As a college sophomore, she knew the request stemmed from practicality rather than lack of trust. So at that point, we all decided to share our locations, though Maya moved to Spain and Annie left for college two hours away. Usually, I forget I even have this access until I get a sudden text or call that feels like an emergency but isn’t.
“Why are y’all at the cemetery already?” Maya asked from Spain, seeing that Annie and I had traveled to my Alabama hometown for the holidays. “I thought you’d go when you were leaving town, not arriving!”
At my mother and father’s graves, we Facetimed with Maya as we tended to the burial sites under towering pine trees.
Living by myself, I wonder if I’ll stop sharing if I have a hot date or even a late-night hike or junk-food run. But then I’m actually relieved my daughters care where I am and want to look after me. And I’m noticing this kind of tracking is becoming ubiquitous and intergenerational. During the holidays, I spent time with my 84-year-old aunt Lily, a spry former ballet teacher.
“We’re going to the bookstore,” I told her granddaughter. “I’ll text when we’re done to meet for lunch.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got Lily on Life 360,” she said. “We’ll be there!”
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