This article is taken from the February 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Get five issues for just £25.
Big parenting hoo-ha of 2026 seems to be whether or not to stalk the kids. Someone did some research on the disastrous effects of tracking, and now “to track or not to track?” seems to be the go-to chat on the class WhatsApp group.
By “tracking” I mean either checking your child’s location via phone GPS, or — if you insist on the kids being phoneless — via an Apple Air Tag. Skechers have produced a shoe for this purpose, with a nifty tag pocket, causing Millennial parent uproar. Er, hello! No tween would agree to wear Skechers anyway. Total non-issue.
Anyway, apparently the fear with tracking is that if tweens and teens know their parents are keeping tabs on them this way, they will never reach full independence and will remain stunted and hopelessly anxious.
In my eyes, this argument massively misses the point. It assumes tweens take any interest in our habits. They don’t! Minnie, Hector and Lyra literally couldn’t care less whether I tracked them or not.
No, the people damaged by tracking aren’t the kids, it’s us! MOTHERS! This became clear to me recently, at a parents’ reunion for Minnie’s prep school (shoot me now, why do I agree to attend these things?). Within minutes one mother had explained how she still monitors her eighteen-year-old son’s progress down mountains in Canada, on his gap year.
Another said she “loves” knowing which lectures her oldest has attended up in Newcastle (why?). Worse, one of them said her favourite thing is to see all her “little dots” huddled together on the screen — i.e. everyone at home.
In other words, the tracking tech is keeping us all in perpetual state of “Is the baby still breathing?” When I said this everyone nodded sympathetically, and then returned to saying how their Ring doorbell footage just makes them feel “safe”.
Even YouTube has to be better than watching doorstep footage
Then conversation moved on to how we’re all trying to limit our teens’ screen time. Ah, the irony. Even YouTube has to be better than watching doorstep footage?
I mention all this because — da, da, daaaaa — the Savage-Gores are moving! Or, more accurately, we’re selling up and soon to be homeless and therefore spread across various boarding schools/rented homes whilst we find my new modus operandi. Therefore, tracking tech is likely to be paramount. Just going to have to risk all those adolescent (and parental) mental health problems … Not like we don’t have plenty already.
Anyway, it happened like this.
A flyer came through the door from a fancy private-sale-esque estate agent. It suggested we have our home photographed and listed on their special private site, just for fun, no obligation to actually sell. Or move house, or anything. Flattering, no?
Also, the flyer promised a £500 John Lewis voucher just for signing up. And what with Christmas having wiped funds, and me really desperately wanting an LED face-mask, I thought, why not? So they came, they photographed, they gave me the voucher — and we conquered!
Meaning, a ridiculous offer came in within days. I say ridiculous, because I’ve always despised our house for multiple reasons (it’s smaller than I’d like, it looks wrong, it malfunctions all the time, etc., i.e. very similar to my feelings about Will). But it seems someone else sees something I don’t. So … we’re off! Ish.
The tricky thing is that I didn’t tell Will until it was all a fait accompli. Even then I only told him through the LED facemask, so I didn’t have to look at him. It didn’t go down well. To be continued …
