- I loved to obsessively track my two sons on Life 360.
- When my eldest went to college, I lost sleep because I tracked his every movement.
- He asked me to stop, and suddenly, I felt peace.
When my eldest child was born 21 years ago, I realized that the hospital wasn’t going to give me a parenting manual. I turned to the lessons of my own mother.
Being raised by a Middle Eastern immigrant who panicked about my whereabouts until I was well into my 20s made me a perfect candidate for a modern Mama Bear.
Once my two boys became teens, I leaned heavily on the Life 360 app, a modern surveillance tool that became my technological sedative every Saturday night. It was a way to breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that my children were finally in an Uber on their way home.
But as they headed into college and I became an empty nester, I had to learn to let my kids go.
I had grown used to tracking my kids as they grew up
Midway through those early years, I finally caught on that every kid over 12 was light years ahead of me regarding technology. Ninth graders knew all the app hacks, manipulating it through some youthful sorcery to show themselves “here” when they were actually “there.”
Even though I considered myself fairly smart and, as a clinical psychologist, a supposed “expert” in human behavior, I indulged my naïveté, believing my teens were at a sleepover when they were really at an unsupervised party.
Once my eldest left for college, the Life 360 app was all I had to keep my worrying at bay. When it was 12 a.m., I could tell myself to go to bed; he was back safely in his dorm.
But the average college freshman, fresh out of their parents’ purview, is just getting started at 12 a.m.
I distinctly remember one Thursday night when he first entered college. I was in bed, obsessively and maniacally refreshing the app.
I became flooded with questions of concern: Where is he? Why has he been in one spot for so long? Wait, I see him moving. Good news! Only not in the right direction! Now where? Who is he with? Has he been taken under duress?
I decided to text him, but nothing. I texted again, but still nothing. I finally broke down and called, but it went straight to voicemail.
It eventually turned out he was safe and fine, but I never got any sleep that night.
My son asked to no longer be tracked at college
Coincidentally, it was shortly after my anxiety-fueled all-nighter that my son asked if my husband and I could release him from the Big Brother-ness of the tracking app.
He was a good kid, so we agreed — with the condition that if something objectively horrible occurred, we would have to resume our watchful eye.
Was it an easy parental transition? Absolutely not.
But then something very unexpected happened. Instead of worrying more, I was paradoxically worrying less. I had entered into a bygone era reminiscent of my parents’ generation. I could drift into slumberland without a care. I embraced a blissful ignorance, knowing only what he shared with me, which in my case was very, very little.
Of course, I had moments of concern, but I had removed myself from the state of panic and constant fretting. I realized knowing his every movement was more about my anxiety than his safety. If notified of an emergency, I will absolutely spring into action, but beyond that, what can I do?
Helplessness is a terrible state of being for a parent, knowing I won’t be able to grab their hand to shield them from all that lurks out there in the world. But he will make his own choices, whether I know about them in real time or not.
I’m no longer tracking my kids, but worry will always remain
After my eldest, now a college junior, weaned us off tracking him, I didn’t even put up a fight with the youngest, who flew the coop this fall and immediately asked to be freed from our tech oversight.
I started using my new empty nest status to focus on myself instead of tracking my kids. I am reacquainting myself with myself. Who was that woman who got partially shelved that day in the delivery room? It was time to reengage with who I wanted to be when I grew up. For me, this meant dedicating more time to my first love, writing, and to my second love, my husband.
The irony of all ironies is that I now worry more when they come home for the holidays, feeling the familiar panicky tinge as I walk down the hall to see the still empty beds late into the night.
But I try to remind myself I trust my kids, and they no longer need my oversight.
