This child rearing that turns into young adult parenting is a trip, man. It’s throwing my young adults, too. “What do you mean the answer isn’t yes or no?? It’s time to start making best choices?! WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN???”

We’ve entered the phase of helping them navigate natural consequences of their actions and it’s weird. Which brings me to my latest hmm thing. I’ve been thinking about how different my teen years were from these young folks.

I remember desperately searching for a quarter at the skating rink so I could call home and say I’d be late. DESPERATELY. We’re talking begging strangers for change. Because being late without some sort of warning meant my mom would have a heart attack, the kind that landed me in teenager timeout and the next Friday nobody wanted to tell their friends sorry, can’t catch a movie, I’m under house arrest.

Now? I’ve had conversations about location sharing with these young people. In their earlier teen years it went something like IF YOU TURN OFF YOUR LOCATION SHARING I WILL CONFISCATE YOUR PHONE AND THEN HOW WILL YOU CHIT CHAT WITH EVERY HUMAN UNDER THE SUN, HUH? HUH?!?!

I won’t lie, the one who still lives at home has a modified version of the prison guard approach. But the bigger conversation – especially with my elder – is now look, I get it if you don’t always want me to know where you are. Let’s talk about how important it is that someone has your location. Pick a friend. Please.

Going from my teenage self panicking because I can’t access a metal phone bolted to the wall to hey, don’t disable the GPS chip in your handheld computer is a lot. Parenting Gen Z is wild.