Ever notice how parents have this bizarre need to keep tabs on their adult children like they're tracking packages from Amazon? Except instead of a Roomba or hemorrhoid pillow, it's their fully-grown offspring they've got real-time updates on. What a magnificent testament to the human capacity for delusion—claiming "safety concerns" while weaponizing technology to extend the psychological umbilical cord well past its expiration date. The digital panopticon of family life, where your movements become entertainment for the empty-nested prison wardens who once changed your diapers.
Here's the situation. I (24F) am married and live in a different state than my parents. I've had iPhones "Find My Friends" app since I had a phone at 12 years old that my parents set up. When I got married, my husband found it strange that my parents could see my location once we moved out, but I just figured they would want it on for safety.
Come two years later... my brother (21) who still lives with my parents gives me a heads up that my parents were judging my actions based on my location. I figured it would be a good time to remove that app anyway and thus, deleted their ability to see my location.
This blew up into a whole situation where my parents are now saying that it was providing them comfort and safety to know where I was and it was just a 'mishap' and bad day for them. Additionally, my dad decided to retaliate and remove my access from all streaming services he paid for and threatened to remove my brother from the wifi for tattling as well.
AITA for removing them from seeing my location? My husband has never heard of parents seeing their kids' location once they've moved out, but my parents seem to think it's the end of the world. Just wanted to get other people's thoughts.
Thanks!
EDIT: Thank you all for the advice and thoughts! I originally posted as I've heard of other families sharing location as adults so I felt like the odd one out for not wanting this; however, you guys have helped me realize this is NOT normal. Additionally, I want to make mention that I am completely fine paying for my own streaming services (and already pay for the ones that don't allow sharing on my own). This is the ONLY thing my parents had been providing financially. I brought it up as a point of their reaction to help provide context of the situation.
The Festering Wound of Parental Surveillance
Let's dissect this putrid corpse of family dynamics, shall we? A 24-year-old married woman—legally old enough to vote, drink, kill people in foreign wars, and star in depressing documentaries about poor life choices—is still broadcasting her precise coordinates to mommy and daddy like she's a tagged sea turtle in a middle school science experiment. For two fucking years after marriage, her location has been beaming directly to the suburban command center where her parents sit, probably judging her trips to Taco Bell at 11pm while furiously texting each other "She's at TACO BELL AGAIN?!"
What's truly fascinating in this fecal circus isn't that they were tracking her—it's that she thought this digital stalking was NORMAL. Like a prisoner who decorates their cell with inspirational Live-Laugh-Love bullshit, she'd internalized the surveillance as a comfort. "Oh, how nice that if I'm ever dismembered in a ditch, my parents will know exactly which ditch to check!" Meanwhile, her husband—apparently the only person with a functional fucking brain stem in this scenario—stands bewildered at the side, watching his wife voluntarily wear an electronic ankle monitor for the crime of being someone's daughter.
The brother—our unexpected Snowden in this NSA family drama—delivers the intelligence that shatters the illusion: "They're judging your movements, sis." SHOCKING! Who could have possibly predicted that giving someone 24/7 access to your whereabouts might lead them to form opinions about where you go? It's almost as if surveillance is inherently about control rather than safety—a concept so revolutionary it might make Michel Foucault rise from his grave to slow-clap in sarcastic appreciation.
But the pièce de résistance in this tragic comedy is the parents' reaction. When denied access to their daughter's movements—information they have exactly zero fucking right to—they retaliate by... cutting off streaming services. Because nothing says "we're mature adults concerned about safety" like screaming "NO MORE NETFLIX FOR YOU, YOUNG LADY!" It's the digital equivalent of taking away dessert, revealing that in their minds, their married adult daughter remains eternally five years old. The streaming service nuclear option exposes the truth that this was never about safety—it was about maintaining the illusion of parental authority in a world where they've become as relevant as a Blockbuster membership card.
The Void Stares Back (And It's Judging Your Netflix Queue)
What we're witnessing here is the death rattle of parental relevance, a desperate clawing at the cliff edge of significance as their offspring builds a life beyond their control. These parents have constructed an elaborate fantasy where their adult child still needs their watchful eye—a comforting delusion that shields them from confronting their own essential meaninglessness in the universe. Their daughter's location app was less about her safety and more about their existential security blanket.
The true horror isn't the surveillance itself but how readily we accept these invasions as expressions of love rather than what they are: pathetic attempts to maintain control in a chaotic, indifferent cosmos where parents eventually become irrelevant background characters in their children's stories. The parents' reaction—their tantrum over streaming services and threats to punish the truth-telling brother—reveals the monstrous reality beneath their concerned façade: they're not protecting anyone; they're feeding on information to sustain their illusion of purpose.
For Those Who Need It Spelled Out With Crayons
Parents track 24-year-old married daughter for "safety" 🕵️♀️, daughter finally grows a spine and deletes app 📱❌, parents lose their shit 🤬 and cut off Netflix as punishment 📺❌. Parents aren't worried about safety—they're addicted to control 🎮. Family dysfunction isn't love; it's just dysfunction with a Christmas card. 🎄 Grow the fuck up (that means the parents). 👨👩👧🚫
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