There was no parental control app in 1985. There was a porch light.
Our parents had the wildest parenting setup, and I need us to talk about it.
I'm thinking 70s and 80s parenting. Old school parents, old school rules. Life had a schedule, and that schedule belonged to them. Your activities worked around their plans. If they didn't want to drive you somewhere, you weren't going. No emotional processing. No “let's circle back and validate your disappointment.” No floor given to a 10-point presentation on why they should reconsider.
You got “No.”
And somehow that counted as the full paragraph.
We left the house after breakfast, appeared again when the streetlights came on, and nobody had our location, our snack inventory, or a family text with Saturday logistics.
Nobody knew where we were. All day.
And they were at peace.
Birthday parties? Pizza. Box cake. Maybe a 2-liter of orange soda if things got fancy. The entertainment plan was “Go play.” No pet farms, princesses, or video game trucks to keep everyone entertained. No full production staged for a crowd of other people's kids and their parents, every one of them secretly wishing they were home.
And their social circles were smaller, but they ran deep. Church friends, neighborhood friends, maybe that one couple from bowling league. They knew their people.
Meanwhile, we're out here trying to remember the first name of a woman we met at a retreat ten years ago who now approaches us in the grocery store like we've been following her Facebook journey with deep spiritual commitment. And we're smiling, nodding, praying she doesn't mention a child, surgery, dog, divorce, cruise, or casserole fundraiser we're supposed to know about.
Honestly, she's lucky I remembered her name.
Now look at us. We're parenting in the age of tracking apps, school portals, team chats, calendar alerts, camera notifications, and doorbell cameras for two households.
We know when our kid leaves practice.
We know when our parent opens the garage.
We know when Amazon drops off vitamins, compression socks, and a mystery package nobody remembers ordering.
And the funniest part?
We are now monitoring the very parents who did not monitor us.
The same people who said “Be home by dark” now have us checking whether they took their meds, answered the phone, locked the back door, and bought fourteen cans of soup because there was a sale.
It's absurd. It's exhausting.
It's kind of hilarious.
We didn't grow up with constant visibility. Somehow we're raising kids and caring for parents under a full surveillance production system. We run it anyway. Because that's what love looks like in this season: less lawn chair, more live feed.
This is the first piece in a series I'm calling Go Play: how we were raised versus how we parent now, from a woman who disappeared every Saturday as a kid and now knows where everyone is.
If you're in the squeezed middle, come tell me on Instagram: what's one parenting difference that still makes you laugh?
You found your people. 
