Should he delete it?

[emlizcor]

Our daughter is 18 and has been driving for about 6 months, she has a black box and and app with her insurance that rates her driving. As we pay for the insurance and obviously want her to be safe and also see the cost come down, my husband, her dad has the app on his phone as well as her. She is not happy at this because alongside rating her speed etc it shows where she has driven. We don’t even look at that as it’s really not that interesting we just check her ratings but she’s kicking off hugely insisting he should delete the app. She says it’s weird and controlling and won’t accept we’re not checking up on her all the time.
Our view is pay your own insurance and we’ll delete it. What do you think?

Delete app and cancel the car insurance.

The SAHM argument is stupid as fuck. SAHM’s contribute to the household by raising the children, saving money on childcare, presumably doing the lions share of the housework blah blah blah. There are other ways people contribute besides cash.

And in all honesty, if someone offered to pay for my car and related car expenses, which are a fucking fortune, they could track me wherever the fuck they like.

You can’t use the “adult” line if you’re not prepared to do anything that actually involves being an adult. For all intents and purposes, and 18yo living at home, completely financially dependent on parents is a child.

To those PP that day their teens can’t afford car insurance. My 17 year old saved up for a year from his Saturday job and now continues to pay his own car insurance from his 8 hrs a week job. It can be done. Obviously I treat him with other things but I do feel they should pay the car insurance otherwise they don’t learn the value of driving carefully.

I also agree that she is a child until she pays (financially or or other) her own way.

Do some of you always put conditions on things you buy your children?

Seems a very controlling way to live to me.

I feel really sorry for kids and young people these days with all these tracker apps, black boxes etc.

My dad has given all his children a gift of money recently. Going by the OP's standards, should this mean I have to account to dad for every penny I spend?

Actually my dad has said to us all we spend it on what we want.

OP, if you want your relationship with your DD to thrive, then get rid of the app. And if you still want to monitor the driving, get your DD to send a screenshot of the rating to you, say, weekly as suggested already.

If you persist in trying to monitor your DD, you are risking damaging the relationship. She is already showing you, by her loud complaints, how much her privacy means.

Which makes me wonder. If she's complaining this much, then I suspect that this isn't the first time you and your DH have behaved in this overbearing way.

Unless you're saying to her 'oh we saw you were at X today, why were you there?' I really don't see the problem. Where is she going that she wouldn't want you to know about?

Where is she going that she wouldn't want you to know about?

That really isn’t the point. It’s about basic right to privacy. It’s why I won’t allow my husband to track my movements on his phone. Not because I go anywhere I want to keep a secret, not because I’m having an affair, but because I’m entitled to privacy. It’s the same principle.

There are always people who say "well I paid for myself from the age of 3 and I never had a penny of assistance from anyone and now I'm a millionaire" etc (I might be being a little bit over the top...) but the reality is that plenty of young people actually can't afford it themselves, which is why parents often offer to pay it, presumably because they want their child to enjoy some of the privileges they have worked for, and they want their child to experience freedom and autonomy. If not, why buy them a car at all?

Giving a "gift" with strings attached is no gift at all in my opinion. My MIL has been known to do this - offer money towards the wedding then expect to choose the guest list, offer money towards baby things and then expect to have a say in the baby's name. These expectations are never stated up front, just spring up afterwards. Now we are clued in and refuse any money, she is surprised. She thinks her money should buy control. It absolutely doesn't.

By doing this I feel like you are teaching your daughter that accepting help means she doesn't get any say in setting boundaries, and that people who provide for her are entitled to monitor/control her.

For everyone saying where is she going / what is she doing that she doesn't want you to know about?, can you not remember being a teenager? I can't be the only one who spent a lot of my teen years avoiding telling my parents stuff, not because I was doing anything dreadful but because I was transitioning into adulthood and didn't want to have to share everything I did with them anymore.

I can see why she might not like it but actually I think it's a good introduction to the world we live in now. Does she not realise her phone apps, a mobile phone from work, working remotely and use of social media etc all come with the contract that your data is theirs and can be interrogated at anytime? Right to privacy is to be cherished in society but increasingly rare.

Seriously? You expect an 18 year old adult to tell their parents where they are going all the time? MN shows me there are so many controlling parents out there!

Not really, I expect everyone in the house, including myself, to give an indication to at least one other person that they are out and how long they expect to be/where they are going. It's common courtesy not control. i'e. I'm off into town be back for dinner or i'm going out with friends, i'll be late, don't wait up or just nipping to shops be back soon.

It's not asking for permission or a detailed inventory.

Anyway, re the insurance, we paid for my boys, they had a black box, there wasn't a tracker but it did update a web page once a month to give a score and if you dug into the detail, you could get what days/times and distances the car traveled. For the first few months I logged in and checked the score but didn't delve any deeper than that. They were both 17 when they started driving though.

I agree with a PP who said that you should agree to remove the app but if her driving causes any issues then she will have to pay the difference in the insurance next year.

I can see your POV, you’re paying, so you feel entitled to know what’s going on. However, she’s an adult and entitled to privacy. I don’t blame her for being angry. BIt creepy to be fair.

I haven't read the whole long thread, but isn't it the case that you're paying fixed amount monthly or annually? Surely if her rating is poor, the insurance will likely go up next year, but you'll know about it anyway before deciding what you want to do. Make it clear that if it goes up because of her rating then you won't pay it and let her learn responsibility. She's 18 and should be treated like an adult and trusted. She has the right to privacy, I get her point.

Have I got this right that your daughter doesn't pay for her insurance at all? As in, not just hasn't got her own policy but doesn't pay for the increase in yours?

If you're only expecting her to pay the difference before deleting the app, fair enough, IMO. I feel it would be different if you expect her to get her own policy.

You need to show her some respect.
Yes you are paying her insurance but that is a separate issue & something you chose to do as loving parents.
You are not entitled to know where she goes. You may really want to know out of concern for her as I did with my 2 sons when they turned 18 but I recognised that it was not my business.
I would ask them & sometimes they would tell me & other times they would just say “out”.
I respected their decisions.
They have grown up to be responsible, trustworthy young men.

What was the agreement at the time of making the arrangement? Did you say that Dad and I will pay for your insurance but we need to know you’re driving safely and to know where you are? Or is it more likely that you discovered by accident that the app had that facility after the event? If it was the former then she needs to suck it up and if it’s the latter then she has every right to be pissed off. Most of us who grew upon the 70s and 80s did not have our parents tracking our every move. Even as kids we had a great deal of freedom when we were out and about. As adults we have the right to privacy - it’s enshrined in law. It isn’t conditional on the basis that you pay your way in life. Even the authorities don’t have carte blanche to access that data without a good reason. So yes your oyster tracks you and you’re on CCTV etc but that information isn’t been streamed into your parents hands just because they fancy checking up on you. I would strongly resist having that kind of surveillance on me now and like others I have no reason to hide. It’s intrusive & unnecessary.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/my-husband-spies-smartphone-app-5011718.amp

Read this horrific news story (which is not about parents) but how the argument of “ if you have nothing to hide” can be twisted as it is here.

Oh for goodness sake she's 18, an adult. Of course you can't monitor the app. Delete it and stop being controlling weirdos.

Paying for her insurance does not grant you the right to check on her, you can't buy the right to her privacy, all sorts of wrong.

What else does money equal in your household?

@Divebar That article made me feel a bit sick. I have never had, and would never dream of having, an affair but I would certainly kick my DH out if he thought he had the right to spy on me like that.

Jeez that story is horrific. Not only is he stalking his own wife, he's stalking his step children (one of whom is an adult) as well.

He's a sick bastard. "He is self employed in IT and knows more than MI5" - bit like posters with their very important key worker DH

"Because he works at home he likes to track where we are" and that's different to him being at work how?

Funny that he is self employed so doesn't have an employer looking over his shoulder. If I were the police, i'd be straight round there looking into what and who he is tracking. Those are not the actions of a loving partner and parent.

That really isn’t the point. It’s about basic right to privacy. It’s why I won’t allow my husband to track my movements on his phone. Not because I go anywhere I want to keep a secret, not because I’m having an affair, but because I’m entitled to privacy. It’s the same principle

Exactly, I'm the same.
Why would anyone be OK with a tracker on themselves that someone else has access to and can check up on them?
I don't get it!
Not because I have anything to hide, my movements are the most boring ever, but just because it's so controlling and intrusive.

My view would be its an app for something I pay for therefore it stays

The woman in that article sounds a bit like a surrendered wife tbh.

I'm buggered if I'd anyone have that sort of control over any aspect of my life and spy on me like that. And he certainly would not have my agreement to spy on my 19 year old daughter.

Although, having said that, the changing of 'at home' to 'horny' by predictive text sounds highly unlikely and I suspect the 'true life story' might be just as unlikely.