After my oldest child was attacked, I started tracking my kids' phones. It gives me both peace of mi

Publish date: 2024-07-20
2024-02-24T12:29:01Z

I track my children. Let's just get that right out there.

I have three children — all capable adults, all living in the Twin Cities, 26 hours of hard driving away from me — and two of the three show up in Find My People on my iPhone. Full disclosure: they know I can track them. They could disconnect, withdraw their permission, at any time. But they don't. This is a great kindness on their part. I try not to abuse their kindness. I never text them to "Go home! It's late!" or to ask, "Whose house is that?"

Still. It makes me feel better, sometimes, to know where they are.

I have my reasons.

I was on the phone with my son one night when he was attacked

On a warm October evening in 2011, before any of us had an iPhone, and before I had ever heard of Find My Friends, I was chatting on a cute little Nokia phone with our wild-child firstborn, who had recently moved to the Chicago area. He had called to tell me he'd just been to the jeweler to pick up the engagement ring he had ordered for his girlfriend.

After years of careful parental reminders (don't run with scissors! always wear your seatbelt!), long nights in his teen years watching and waiting for his car to pull into the driveway, and months spent wondering how he'd make his way in the world after dropping out of college after one semester, here he was in a new city, with a new career he enjoyed and excelled at, ready to take a big step and propose to the woman he loved. It felt like confirmation that he'd made it safely to adulthood. Like everything was going to be just fine. It felt like joy.

But such joy can be short-lived. Out of the big city background noise came a second voice, a stranger's voice, intruding on the conversation. My son said, "Hold on a minute, Mom." Muffled words, something about cash, then, "No, you can't have that," followed by a loud "Fuck!" and scuffling and grunting and a crack that might have been the phone hitting the pavement or might have been something so much worse. Then, nothing.

Nothing but me, miles and miles away, staring at a tiny gray screen on a tiny gray cellphone, brutally aware that I had no idea where he was.

The silence I heard after that sound of something hitting the pavement was the longest, loudest silence of my life. More numerous than the stars in the sky are the dark tales a mother can conjure when given such an ominous silence. The tale I was telling myself was clear and immediate: something terrible has happened to my son.

When he finally called me back 26 minutes later, he was wandering through a downtown pharmacy, buying first aid supplies to bandage the gash in his forearm. He was fine, he said. Sorry to have worried me. He was fast enough and strong enough to have recovered the little velvet box and its precious diamond ring from the strung-out young man with the knife. No harm — or hardly any harm — done. Not worth calling the police, he said.

The story, revised: He's OK. My desperate staring at the phone had worked.

I now track my kids for peace of mind

To be clear, it's not just the burning memory of long-distance trauma that drives my current-day people-finding. No, no. I tell myself all sorts of stories.

For example: I want to call our uber-responsible daughter, but not, of course, if she's driving, or shopping, or out with friends. I'll just take a peek. See if she's home. The story: The tracking is a courtesy on my part. Really.

For example: Our fearless youngest is going to a wedding three hours away. Was that this weekend or next? I'll just take a peek. The story: I'm just making sure he got there OK. Nothing creepy about that.

There are downsides to tracking, too

Randomly checking on their whereabouts is not without its downsides, of course. You sometimes learn things you'd have been better off not knowing.

For example: During spring break a few years ago, our youngest planned to drive from his then-home in Nebraska to visit us in Arizona. I gave advice on the route ahead of his departure. "Just go almost to Denver and turn left," I told him.

"I know how to read a map, Mother."

On the agreed-upon day, I resisted until 8 a.m. before I took a peek. He hadn't left Lincoln yet. I looked again at 10. Then noon. Finally, he was on the road!

"Can you believe it?"

"Put the phone away, honey," my husband — their father — said.

I provided said husband with regular, if largely unappreciated, updates on our son's progress: Ogallala. Fort Morgan. Nearly to Denver.

"He should stop for the night soon, don't you think? It's getting late. Maybe he'll stop a little further south in Colorado Springs," I asked.

Wait. He didn't turn left. Why is he west of Denver?

"Oh, dear God. He's going to cross the Rocky Mountains. In the middle of March. In the middle of the night."

I couldn't — wouldn't — call or text him, not while he was driving. I'd only be adding to the ludicrously long list of hazards he faced.

"You know what this is?" I fumed. "This is him listening to Siri instead of his mother."

"Seriously. Put the phone away," my husband answered.

But how could I? Surely keeping an eye on him was keeping him safe. Hadn't that always been my job?

From 10 hours of hard driving away, I watched the little circle with his grinning face glide past all those ski towns in the dead of night. I pictured avalanches, black ice, guard rails missing or in disrepair.

And then, close to midnight, Find My People returned these chilling words: No location found.

"He's in the mountains. It's not surprising there's no signal," my husband said, clearly deficient in the skill of Imagining the Worst.

I went to bed with a head full of stories: He's dozed off. He's hit a moose. He's lost in a blizzard. But the true story was this: he had simply pulled over at a rest stop to sleep in his car, turning off his phone to save battery. When he arrived — perfectly safe and sound — the next day, he said he'd been "surprised" to wake in the morning and find himself surrounded by mountains and snow. He had been flying blind and unconcerned. I had been hovering over a screen, sick with worry.

All good stories teach a lesson, and here is mine: I am not protecting them. Seeing is not saving. My job is to teach them to keep themselves as safe as possible and then trust them to go out into a dangerous world and make a difference.

Still. There are some nights when I pick up the phone one last time before sleep, do one last Find My Friends. Our daughter, safe at home. Our youngest, safe at home. And the firstborn? The one who started me on this demented path? He is the only one who never got an iPhone. The only one I cannot track. With him, I'll just have to have faith. And hope he calls.

Watch: What happens to your brain when you check your phone all the time

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