WWYD: DD drunk seperated from friends in city centre

[GLP1U5er]

But back with them now. They have been drinking since 11am. I spoke with one of her friends and they said she went to the toilet but went the wrong way and left the bar. I had called her at that time to check in and she told me she was going back to them. She shared her location with me and I saw she got back to the bar her friends were in. I called a but later when I saw she was walking again and a slightly more sober friend came on to tell me she was fine and they had rang her when she went the wrong way then met her and brought her back.

She is 21 but I'm very nervous now that she is that much of a state she went the wrong way in a city she hasn't been drinking in before and is hotelling in. I live 1hr20 mins away and am on the verge of getting a hotel and staying on the city for the night incase it happens again when her friends are too drunk to react.

WWYD?

I’d drive to the city, pick her up and drive her home.

The comments about her being 21, adult and to be left alone are dangerously moronic IMO. Do you people not understand the stats for sexual assault/rape? Do you not know that young adults are often go missing/get killed on nights out? It’s cold as well.

Tracking is normal these days. We don’t live in the 80s/90s anymore - I think some people recounting their own escapades have forgotten that. My mum tracks me everyday. I’m nearly 50 and have a husband, dog and my own grown up children at uni. I track my uni dc to make sure he’s got home at night. He knows that and he interprets that as me caring for him, exactly as it is.

It sounds like such a non event. She lost her friends briefly and then found them again.

im surprised she even told you about it at 21. When I was 21 I was working and travelling in America. I did not phone my mum every time I had a slight mishap. I can’t believe you were going to get a hotel nearby for your 21 year old. And tracked her like that.

No one tracks me because I am a grown-ass adult who has the right to go about my business without someone looking over my shoulder. I don't track my DC. I would go spare if I found out someone was tracking me.

What you have described is not normal and is a huge intrusion. I hope you're ready for the pushback against it once your DS sees more of the world outside your bubble.

And at 21, if one of my parents had rocked up and told me they were there to pick me up, I'd have refused to get in the car.

How is it an intrusion if all the adults involved like it that way? We don't all have to live the way that you do.

Plenty of adults go out and get pissed

Firstly, it's morning now. Why would she need driving home now? Secondly, what if the daughter (quite rightly) says no? You can't just tell an adult you're picking them up?

If a family member came to your house and demanded you got into their car now because they didn't like what you were doing would you?

No wonder young adults are not independent any more when so many seem to be treated like 12 year olds.

Sorry but what youve just explained is not normal behaviour dont suggest it is.

I had called her at that time to check in

Do you normally phone her to 'check in' when she's at the pub?!

She's 21 and went the wrong way coming out of the toilet because she was pissed-then she found her friends.

It's not normal for you. You don't get to decree what is normal for others.

Because it's a violation of privacy, there is no control over the extent or scope of the tracking, and it compromises the agency of adults.

You'll drive yourself mad tracking her on nights out and calling.

The best thing you can do is delete the app, and definitely do not phone her. Put her number on emergency override and if she needs you she can text.

But it really isn't normal. It's a huge invasion of privacy and it causes more anxiety than it relieves. No one has the right to track anyone or to hold the expectation that they will be allowed to do so simply because "they're my child". They're not a child, they're an adult.

Do you not know that young adults are often go missing/get killed on nights out? It’s cold as well.

It is something that happens occasionally yes and when it does it is awful. But it does not happen 'often'. In the year ending March 2023 there were 590 homicides in England & Wales, a third of which were women. That is from all causes and far more likely to be someone they know.

Ah yes
You go and pick up an ADULT and drive her home

Not gonna ruin your relationship with her and make you look batshit.

Tracking is not and should not be considered normal. It's an invasion of privacy and a catalyst for the sort of obsessive behaviour you and OP are showing.

Yes, bad things can happen on a night out. They can happen to perfectly sober young people too. Driving nearly 2 hours to make an adult come home won't stop that.

If all the adults have agreed between them that they track each other how is their agency compromised?

These days many people live their lives like an open book - you know what they're doing moment to moment via Facebook or whatever. It's a different generation.

My generation grew up with nobody knowing where you were or what you were doing at any given time, and now I think about it I don't think it's necessarily a better way to live. Just different. I didn't have more freedom or less. There is nothing that I do on a day to day basis that requires that some people don't know where I am. Absolutely nothing. My life just isn't as interesting as I sometimes think it is. I wouldn't want strangers to know my movements of course, but a few loved ones? No problem.

I can understand that if I was in a toxic relationship with someone wanting to keep tabs on and control my movements, but that's something else.

this is a new city to all of them.
Why does this matter? Clearly they were all fine in the new city, even when she got lost it seems she found her way back pretty easily.

• she didn't get lost inside the pub, she had headed outside of it and wandered away from the pub down a street.
Even in a new city I'm sure you've brought her up to be able to navigate a street without it her friends. This is such a massive non event. She got lost and then she made her way back.

• she could string a sentence together but was clearly intoxicated and I worried if she kept drinking and got lost again would become extremely vulnerable.
Her friends seemed to be decent and they stuck together (apart from when they were briefly separated). How do you expect her to navigate life if she can't even have a night out when she gets drunk without her mum getting involved how can she ever be expected to grow up?

Two things could happen, she'll end up dependent on you for far too long into adulthood or she'll get annoyed about the interference and she just won't tell you when she's out (my parents didn't know anything from age 18).

By normalising tracking it makes it very hard for those who are being abused and don't want their partner tracking them to say "no".

And you might say "oh ye that's a good idea" meaning for emergencies but don't consent to being checked up on every half an hour obsessively like OP was doing. It's a different thing.

It's not healthy and it should not be normal

@sjs42 you say young people 'often' go missing and get killed on nights out? How often? What are the stats?

OP please delete the tracking app. It's not doing you any good.
Checking every half an hour is intensive and obsessive

Did you go to bed when she got back to the hotel? Because she might have gone back out later. And you wouldn't know because afauk she was safe. Which is the way it would be without tracking. Much less stress

Total non event and your reaction was ridiculous
At what point do you cut the apron strings ?

It is toxic to track your adult DC, it suggests a lack of confidence in their ability to be a competent adult and speaks to an anxiety around letting go of the adult and child dynamic in their relationship. It infantilises the adult DC and shows a general lack of respect towards their decisions/choices - basically, implying that they are not a proper adult and require a 'real' adult to supervise them.

Part of typical parenting is preparing your DC to navigate the world without you and there comes a point where a parent has to let them go and trust that they've done a good enough job in this. When parents can't let go and do bat-shit stuff like tracking their adult DC, it tells me that they lack confidence in the job they've done, that they don't view their DC as real adults, and that they have no respect for their DC as they want to keep them - at least partially - in a child role because they are having difficulty with no longer having authority over them.

It's creepy and weird and it will damage the relationship in the long term.

As I said before it's creepy for you, but not for others. People have to have the freedom to live their lives as they wish. If they want to use the technology in this way then it's nobody else's business. Now, if they are doing it without the consent of other parties - then that is a big no-no.

I had left home and was renting my own house three years by this stage. The thought of either of my parents knowing anything about this sort of thing in my life is unthinkable and I used to go out on the lash with my mates all the time.

Scrapes like this are part of life for your average twenty somethings surely.

Words fail me 😳