'I was obsessed.' What happened when I started tracking my teenage daughter.

Listen to this story being read by Jessica Kingston, here.

We were at a Thai restaurant having dinner with friends when Simone’s phone dinged – a notification from the location app connected to her teenager’s mobile. 

'Good, she just got home. I told her she had to be back by eight.'

That was four years ago, and it was the first time I’d really noticed parents tracking their teens. I was absolutely horrified. What about the teen’s privacy? What about developing their independence? What about freedom?

Watch: Parents of teenagers, translated. Post continues below.

Freedom. I’d had plenty of it, growing up on a farm. We’d ride our bikes along the main highway into town, tasting dirt as the semi-trailers roared past on their way to Sydney. When we were older, on hot days we’d drive to rivers in the bush for a swim in the rapids.

Now Simone told me she could see what speed her P-plater was going: 'Eighty on the main road. It’s the speed limit, but that’s too fast for her ability.'

Even though I have nothing to hide, the thought of someone else seeing my every move made me queasy. Of course, I know our phones are tracking us anyway and could be accessed in a police investigation. A different world from when I was backpacking alone, sitting on an overnight bus from Montreal to New York City and worrying about the sleazy man next to me. I stared out of the window into the blackness and wondered how many weeks it would take for Mum to realise I’d gone missing. Thankfully, it wasn’t an equation we ever had to work out.

Mandi and her daughter Zoe agreed on a location app when Zoe flew to Berlin for a student trip. One night, Zoe texted to say she was going out with three guys she’d just met. As it was Zoe’s first trip away, Mandi checked the app every half hour, feeling that she could relax when it showed Zoe safely back at the hotel. But it never did. Her location kept changing between two points. When Mandi pin-pointed one of the spots on Google Maps, she discovered a disused railway yard. Zoe wouldn’t answer her phone and Mandi was panicking. Had the men put Zoe in the boot of a car and were now driving around, looking for a suitable place to dump her body? Should Mandi ring the police? For the next five hours, she watched the app which kept flickering between the two locations. 

And then Zoe rang. 

'Are you okay?' Mandi cried into the phone. 'Where are you?'

'At the hotel.' Zoe yawned. 'Just woke up. I had my phone on silent. Why did you call fifty times?'

Zoe had never been to the old railway yards. Mandi did some research on the accuracy of the location app and suspected that the hotel was between two different mobile towers, which had provided different information. If only Zoe had logged onto the hotel wi-fi, then it would have picked up her correct location. After that, Mandi stopped checking the app so often. 

Despite my resistance to location tracking, I began to realise that teenagers were doing it themselves, through SnapMaps. At the shops, my daughter would be checking who else was there. On the way to school, she’d tap to see if her friend was at the bus stop yet. I heard about the darker side of SnapMaps – a teenager who invited ten friends to his house for a birthday party while his parents were out. The grouping of ten showed up on SnapMaps and more than a hundred teenagers gate-crashed the party and trashed the house.

The turning point was when my young teenager wanted to go to a party at the beach. At night. She countered my hesitation with: 'You can put me on that tracking app.'

As soon as she left the house, I was obsessed. Watching her little face on the map, catching buses and moving around. But she was suddenly at the wrong beach. What was she doing there? Should I ring and demand to know?

'Don’t,' my husband counselled. 'Let her explain later.'

When I picked her up, the question was on the tip of my tongue. But before I could ask, she said: 'Did you see the sunset? So beautiful. Lucy texted before the party and we got fish and chips, and watched the sunset near her place.' 

In my latest novel, The Liars, the mum is tracking her fifteen-year-old twins on a location app. Something happened to her at fifteen and now she’s desperate to keep them safe. But her teenagers have worked out ways around the continuous surveillance.

These days, I only look at our location app occasionally. And the tables have turned. I’ll agree to pick up my daughter from the shops at four o’clock and then become immersed in work. She’ll ring: 'Hurry up, Mum. You’re supposed to be here but I can see that you haven’t even left home yet.'   

Now, she’s tracking me!

Image: Supplied.

Petronella McGovern is the author of the psychological thriller, The Liars, out now with Allen and Unwin, RRP $32.99.

The Liars is a heart-stopping cocktail of family secrets, sinister unsolved disappearances and a community at war with itself. 

Feature Image: Getty.

It can be tricky raising little humans and that’s why we want to hear from all Parents in this short survey. Take our survey now to go in the running to win a $50 gift voucher!