Well the cat’s out of the bag on this one, but it doesn’t matter because now I have justification to reinstate previous, more stringent cell phone rules.

My daughter is 16 and as most 16 year olds, she has her own phone with less parental control. But I still have sensible rules like no turning off iphone tracking, always answer my texts or calls immediately or within a reasonable time frame when not in school or practice, no dead battery excuses. But I know teenagers can be sneaky, so I have a backup tracking plan that I keep secret from her. I have an extra older version iphone on my family plan that I use as an emergency phone. I hide this phone somewhere in the car that I let my daughter drive, kept on silent. It’s always charged so I can track it when my daughter is out.

This past weekend, my daughter told me she was going to her friend Brett’s house to prepare for an academic competition and an oratory event. When I checked on her iphone and the secret iphone, the locations matched up. She was at her friend’s house. After dinner, I checked again. Curiously, her iphone’s location was at her friend’s house, but my secret iphone was clearly in downtown near all the bars and nightlife. I called my daughter and she told me everything was fine, including the car.

I drove to my car’s find iphone location to see if maybe it was wrong, and eventually found my car parked along the street near the LGBT night life area. I called Brett’s father (Brett’s parents are divorced and the dad does not live with Brett, and Brett’s mom had the night shift so I called the dad).

Before Brett’s dad got there, I walked around asking the bouncers at the bars if they had seen my daughter or her friend (I showed them photos). I finally talked to one who remembered turning away my daughter and Brett earlier in the night for trying to use fake IDs. I was livid. I wandered the area and eventually found my daughter and Brett hanging out at a coffee house. I waited for Brett’s dad to park before going in. I asked him what his understanding of the situation was, and he told me as far as his ex told him, the kids were supposed to be at home doing prep work for a oratory competition.

I told Brett’s dad where I was and he and I walked into the cafe together to retrieve our kids. After we returned home, my daughter confessed to trying to sneak into a gay club with Brett, who apparently is closeted to his parents and school. She was most upset that I outed Brett to his parents this way. But she has not given me any reason to trust her or her friend Brett given their behavior this weekend.

Stricter rules are on the way. She continues to think I am the biggest villain in her entire world but really, if I hadn’t installed an emergency phone in the car, I wouldn’t have known the shenanigans these two were up to under the guise of studying. Sure, I violated her and Brett’s privacy, but I feel it’s justified.