Location sharing- I think I’m worryingly in the minority

[PomPomHead]

I am seriously worried that I’m in the minority here and the world’s gone mad. Why would you share your location All The Time with every member of your family ( even, as in the case of my friends, with your
married 30 year old daughter!)? Why does nobody feel able to be independent and unwatched ? It baffles me and nobody has been able to persuade me of the so-called safety benefits?
Is checking your location now the new showing me you love me?

Obviously not, as you haven’t liked either mine or another poster’s take on what you meant by it.

So could you explain yourself?

Oh dear me they are not irrelevant.

I believe they are. Calling out his lying ex has nothing to do with my relationship or how it operates.

We have it and I love it! My parents are nearly always running late for meet-ups so it’s useful to check where they are and see how late they’ll actually be. I also check their location before I waste my time calling them if they’re busy. DH and I use it to see when we’ll be home from work. My siblings and best friend, just for fun! I’m never anywhere I wouldn’t want them to see and I don’t feel “watched” or anything.

It's more that you're following your husband's ex around mumsnet in the first place that's the issue....

People have suggested that sharing location shows a lack of trust. I can of course see that could be perceived to be the case.

Putting abusive relationships aside, my point is: two consenting adults who have a normal relationship and decide to share their locations does not mean they are doing so because they don't trust each other. On the contrary, I think it shows a higher level of trust to feel comfortable enough to allow this.

That doesn't mean coercion or blackmail has been involved, as you have suggested along the lines of 'if you trusted me, you'd let me' type thing.

If you really trust each other and there's 0 control issues you wouldn't need to "allow" anything...

She uses it yes, so I inevitably come by her on here from time to time. She also follows me around too. Funnily enough I've had a nasty post aimed at me today under another username on another thread.

That hasn't got anything to do with healthy boundaries in a relationship or whether tracking one another is ok or not.

Well of course you have to 'allow' someone to see your location otherwise it really would be insidious.

If couples feel safer sharing their locations what is the issue? I like to know if my phone gets lost I can find it. If something terrible happened to me I could be found etc. When my DH is at the warehouse late at night to take a delivery I can see he hasn't been bonked on the head... I find it reassuring.

My 21 year old son son and I share locations left over from when he went travelling around the world on his own. .
He does get about and has lots of casual hook ups. I don’t care what he does in his private life and I’m not constantly checking but it is reassuring to know where he is if he is not back when he says he would be.

Have never used it, wouldn’t dream of it, I think it’s really intrusive/ nosy. I’m sure some people find it useful if they are out and about a lot, but it’s not for me.

Thank you. You’ve now explained that the argument about trust can be made in both sides of the debate.

I think that you can’t put coercive control to one side when discussing this, however. I think that’s naive.

You also said that a PP making the point that teens will struggle to implement boundaries was a load of shit. I really can’t agree with you there at all. Smartphones, the internet and social media have already eroded many boundaries for at least a couple of generations if not more. This is part and parcel of the same.

I would hate to think of 15 yo DD sharing her location with a boyfriend on the basis of “well, of course we trust each other and btw, mum and dad do this, it’s what couples do, right?” I think it should be a flat-out “NO” and a reconsider of the relationship, to be honest.

Interestingly, I’m reading Lucy Foley’s latest and hey presto, a character has added tracking into his wife’s phone without her knowledge, which he checks several times a day.

But that's different to two adults consenting to sharing locations. If my husband put a tracking app on my phone without my knowledge I'd be fuming and would question my marriage. However we had an adult conversation where we agreed to both turn Google location on so we had each others location should we need it.

I agree people may be coercively controlled through using these apps, but that is because the people involved are not in a healthy relationship. The app in itself isn't bad or controlling it is how it is used and with what intentions. It's a bit like the knife debate in that regard.

I would hate to think of 15 yo DD sharing her location with a boyfriend on the basis of “well, of course we trust each other and btw, mum and dad do this, it’s what couples do, right?' That is making the assumption that parents who share their location with one another have not had discussions with their children regarding what a controlling or abnormal relationship looks like.

I agree the idea of a 15 year old being tracked by her bf is problematic to say the least. But that is a whole other ball game to married/cohabiting adults deciding to share their whereabouts with one another.

I can track my sister who has a learning disability. She went on the missing list once, so it's great for this purpose.
Absolutely no need for me to track the husband and vice versa.

Agree, and same.

I survived the teenage years of my five DCs without knowing exactly where they were every hour of the day or night (and more to the point, so did they), and why would I need it when my DM gives me a minutely detailed account of her comings and goings weekly when I call her...

I have it with my DH. I run alone, very early in the mornings in the countryside and we added it after I encountered a flasher!!

We don’t use it except for me and my teen daughter on snapchat (she is the only person i have on there and she has her location always on so not specifically for me), I don’t think either of us ever use it.

I don’t care at all what anyone else does, none of my business 🤷‍♀️

I'm also worryingly in the minority, as are my DH, DD (24) DS (21) and every single other person I know.

The only person I have ever heard of who has done this was Mum to an only child who insisted she had it throughout secondary school, and my DD and all their mutual 17/18 year old friends were astonished about it. I doubt the young woman allows it now that she's 24.

There was a black Mirror episode about this, if anyone remembers that.

It's a bit like AI, it's like no one remembers the results of every sci-fi, ever. Brain chips, tracking apps, AI, we'll soon have them all.

Mind boggling to be messaging a poster presumably asking for advice on boundaries in the past, but then…. Displaying the view that poster has on location sharing. Sounds messed up.

were you accused of being the ex in private messages @Digdongdoo ??

Nah. But I've been accused of being the new wife before by the other poster involved. All very convoluted and genuinely nothing to do with me so I'm not sure how I've been sucked into it twice 😂

I wouldn’t do it with my mum and dad but my husband, kids and I all share location and find it really helpful.

None of us have anything to hide whatsoever so no concerns there.

Yesterday I was about to go and collect my kids from somewhere and glanced at my husbands location and he happened to be pretty close to where they were so I asked him to go. Yes if he didn’t share his location I could have called and asked where are you, can you collect the kids? But I probably wouldn’t have. Just little things like that.