A friend's college-age daughter called her in the middle of the night. The daughter had been out drinking with a couple of girlfriends; one of those friends passed out on the sidewalk and couldn't be roused. The daughter was in tears and wanted her mom to call an ambulance for her friend. The daughter was in Paris; the mother, in Philadelphia.
When I told my son the Parisian drinking story, he asked me, "Did you and dad know stuff like that about me?"
We did not, at least not until those stories had been honed--months or years later--into well-told anecdotes. I remind my son that we were not a cell phone generation. When he was studying abroad, he couldn't have called us at midnight from a street corner in Budapest no matter how drunk or sick he or a friend was. He had to solve problems without our help. Lessons were learned, presumably.
Which raises the question: Is the ease with which our adult children can reach us whenever there's a problem a positive or negative? Do we know too much or is it better to know too little? Between our 24/7 access by cell phone or our ability to track them via a phone app, are we hindering their growth toward independence or keeping them safe in a fraught world?
Studies of college-age and older kids suggest that frequent (several times a day) communication between parent and adult child can blur boundaries and undermine the development of independence. For parents, it could hinder the ability to let go. An article published a few years ago in Psychology Today suggested that the combination of teenagers, cellphones, and a constant connection to parents could produce a “nation of wimps.”
That seems a bit harsh, and yet it's another reason to think through the implications of constant cellphone communication and the use of tracking apps to know what's going on in our adult kids' lives all the time.
As to the Paris to Phillie call for help, it was resolved on the scene in France. Before the mom could launch emergency aid, four American college boys came by and helped the girls get back to their apartment. The mom, in Philly, didn't know this detail--the daughter's cellphone battery had run down so voice-to-voice communication was lost. But the mom used her cellphone app to track her daughter's arrival back at the Paris apartment.
In another year or two, mother and daughter will likely have a well-honed anecdote to tell about the incident. For now, the mom can't wait until her daughter is safely back home and with a fully charged cell phone.
photo credit: Palo Coleman