WWYD: DD drunk seperated from friends in city centre

Did you do the same for the older ones or is it just because she's the "baby"? Because that's how you breed resentment

And also helicopter

Life 360 problems! You won’t sleep until you see her back at her hotel so do what makes you feel better.

A lot of cities have volunteers on the street nowadays. Find out if her city does and what they look like and where their portacabin thing is based. Hopefully she'll never be so drunk that she wouldn't be able to find a brightly dressed person or a caravan that never moves

Then why tell her? It's easy to lay the blame at Ops feet but it's equally probably DD made a drama out of it then went off radar.

I’m not the one who’s made anything up.

OP did not say that her DD had told her she was lost. She’d turned the wrong way out of the loos and exited the bar. She was walking back to her friends. That is not “being lost”. It’s going the wrong way and returning to where you want to be.

She wasn’t lost. There was no problem. This is all in OP’s head and it’s not reasonable to expect her DD to be second guessing what predicament her mum is imagining for her and reassuring her all the time.

She's 21 she needs to live and learn. I would worry but I do think you're over involved.

All of you saying to chill out because OP's dd is 21 do you have 21 yolds yourselves? I do. She's my youngest of 4. She doesn't live at home (during term time as at university nearly 300 miles away) but if I was at all concerned for her welfare and I was close, I'd definitely be there just in case. Starting to drink at 11am sounds like she may need a bit of extra love and care tonight x

MN needs to stop infantalising Twenty+ year olds
They are adults

I can't believe people were encouraging OP to drive nearly 2 hours at night in case her daughter got momentarily split up from her friends.

Or are telling her to "have words about her drinking"

OP - delete the tracking app and let her live her life

You might want to actually read what I said instead of making things up.

I have addressed Ops irrational behaviour.

But having told her she was lost, and bear in mind we didn't hear this conversation, she could have text her mum to say she'd found them.

@GLP1U5er hows things OP, have you heard anymore? 🩷

But why would she send one? She’d told her mum she had it in hand.

Your suggestion is that she spend her nights out trying to second guess what her mum wants to hear from her. Which is not a reasonable expectation. Her mum’s anxiety isn’t even assuaged by it. She knows her DD found her friends but is still contemplating going to the city and renting a hotel room, FFS.

Shes 21 perhaps she should stop drinking and sober herself up or head to the hotel herself in a taxi early and let her friends carry on if they aren't bad. Sounds like a mistake easy done. When I started to feel drunk and uncertain I just took myself back to the place I was staying. I certainly wouldn't travel and stay over too thats excessive if shes that bad she needs to back to the hotel and sleep it off

You are ridiculously over-involved.

Does she know you can see her location, and seem to be tracking her every move.
She is with friends. She is out on the town. She is 21.
Driving in the night to stay in a hotel just incase tells me you need a hobby and some friends, in the nicest possible way.

These are the kinds of things you do when you're 21, OP. You're far too involved.

This is frankly weird and a bit too codependent. She’s 21, not 14. Why are you having these conversations, why do you even know she’s out getting pissed - and staying in a hotel in case you are needed? WTAF, that’s just bonkers. Chill TF out and both of you live your lives!

I've already said I agree on that point and find the checking in timing suspicious.

A text would have done.

Found my pals see you tomorrow.

From OP's lack of responses, I bet she's packing a bag and getting ready to go.

DD told her mum she was walking back to her mates. She didn’t say she was unsafe. She didn’t say she was lost. She didn’t say she didn’t know what she was doing or was concerned it wouldn’t work out. She had it in hand. Why would she call her mum back (in the middle of her night out) to tell her that she’d done a normal thing (meeting up with people she’d got separated from) that thousands of people will have done last night alone?

I don't have kids but my friends' kids are all about this age. Some of them have tracking apps (with their kids' knowledge and consent) and some of them don't as their kids absolutely refuse. It's been interesting to observe, as the friends with the apps are way more anxious about their kids than the ones without them.

I do get it though to an extent - at 21 in the very early 90s I buggered off to Mexico for three months. Couldn't speak one word of Spanish other than cerveza. My mum knew the date of my return flight, but I never once called her while I was away. I sent one postcard that never arrived. When I got back to Heathrow, tanned and carefree, I remember thinking my mum looked a bit weird. She later told me how she'd spent three months not knowing if I was alive or dead, and did I not even think to make one brief phone call? I was such an ignoramus - it had literally never occurred to me to call her. I know this seems unfathomably selfish today, but it hadn't. And we had a really good relationship so it wasn't anything to do with that.

The technology wasn't there back then, but if it had been, and if I'd allowed it (I wouldn't have) I'm sure my mum would have tracked me too. Just because she could, and it would have satisfied her that I was still breathing. But it all feels like a false sense of security, because as soon as something unexpected happens the panic sets in. When it's 99.9% likely to be a simple change of plan.

But I also notice it in myself. If I inadvertently go out and forget my phone (v rare) I feel like I'm missing a limb. I feel a slight sense of unease and dread; what if someone needs to contact me urgently, what if I have an accident alone somewhere. It's crazy to think how much our brains have been almost totally rewired in the last 30 years. Or my brain, at least.

Stop tracking her, OP.

Remove the ability from your phone so you can’t check up on her. Don’t “check in” on her when she’s out with her friends. Delete her friends’ phone numbers from your phone.

You need to find things to focus on that aren’t the minutia of your adult daughter’s day-to-day life. This isn’t healthy for you or her.

It’s all very odd, the tracking and calling and checking of a 21 year old in a night out

how can she ever grow up like this?

you may need to figure out a way of trying to get to grips with your anxiety. You are clearly a lovely and caring mum but this is not normal?

This.

She's 21 !

Why are you "checking in" when she is away with her friends ?

Nope. You know why? She didn't ring me to "check in" on nights out.