19-year-old girl tricks her parents tracking her location, they call the cops within 3 hours: 'Two officers showed up at the door looking for me'

Author image for JR Atkinson
JR Atkinson • Writer and Editor
Oct 2, 2025 10:00 AM EDT

Privacy is important at any age, but especially as an adult. As you get older, you gain the right to more privacy. You get to lock your door, go places by yourself, and have your whereabouts be unknown to everyone around you. Of course, this isn't always how it goes down. Sometimes parents get a taste of power and won't let go of it until they've wielded it to its fullest extent. They have a hard time letting go of the idea of their kid as vulnerable, and go to extreme measures to take care of them. And by taking care of them, I mean using surveillance tactics on them. There is a fine line between parenting and spying, especially when the kid is legally an adult. 

That's why one daughter had had enough. She was tired of being constantly, relentlessly tracked, so she orchestrated a little stunt to try to get herself out of it. She enlisted the help of a friend to mask her location, and her parents summarily freaked out. But what came of it ended up being worth it for her. 

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  • A teenage girl with dark hair looks at her phone in a living room.
    via Unsplash+ (A. C.)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Sometimes a little subterfuge is worth it to get what you want. And sometimes you have to fight crazy with crazy. That's the thought process this 19-year-old was going through when she came up with a plan to shake her parents off her trail. Keep scrolling to see what happened and see what you think. 

  • My parents tracked me 24/7 because I'm a girl, so I faked my location with a friend and they called the cops. Best petty revenge ever.

    I'm 19F and lived with parents who had my location on 24/7. If my battery d d or I didn't reply immediately, it was full-on panic. My brother (21M) could disappear for hours and nobody cared. The double standard was bone-deep.
    via u/Infamous-Awareness34
  • One weekend I was fed up. I didn't want to argue, I just wanted a few hours to myself, so a friend helped me mask my exact location for a little while (no sketchy business, just wanted some privacy). I went out for coffee and a walk, left my phone charging at home, and actually relaxed.
    via u/Infamous-Awareness34
  • A couple hours later my mom freaked, called my brother, and then called the police saying I was "missing." Two officers showed up at the door looking for me. Embarrassing? Totally. Stressful? Absolutely. Worth it? Surprisingly yes.
    via u/Infamous-Awareness34
  • Standing there while my parents explained why they'd been. tracking me felt vindicating. The officer asked a few blunt questions. about boundaries and privacy that my parents could not easily argue with in front of a stranger. After that awkward visit they deleted the tracking app from my phone and actually listened when I said I needed some trust and space. My brother still gets more leeway, but the constant freakouts stopped.
    via u/Infamous-Awareness34
  • Would I recommend involving the police as a tactic? No it was tense and not ideal. But in my case that forced, very public moment finally made my parents see they were crossing a line. Small revenge, big result: I got some real breathing room.
    via u/Infamous-Awareness34
  • A teenage girl walks away form the camera in a living room.
    via Unsplash+ (A. C.)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Commenters came in with opinions and stories of their own.

    starksdawson • 6h ago Your parents are insane. A few hours and they're calling the cops? They need help.
    via u/starksdawson
  • DevD2107.5h ago My parents did something similar a couple years back. They put an app on my laptop and mobile that basically gave live updates on what I was doing, which site I was browsing, any apps that was downloaded was also visible to them.
    via u/DevD2107
  • I was in college at that time and was constantly getting calls about why I downloaded a game or why I was browsing youtube or reddit and not studying. Even though I was studying at that time, using YouTube for lectures and reddit to get answers. Finally I had enough and formatted both my devices, deleting that app (i could not delete it normally).
    via u/DevD2107
  • Then I proceeded to not call them or answer their calls for a few weeks. They forced me to reinstall it and after a few days I formatted it again and ghosted them for a month. Finally i told them that if they won't let me have my privacy then they cannot be a part of my life.
    via u/DevD2107
  • Some shouting, a few tantrums and ghosting for full 2 months in which time they blocked my bank account (I took a part time job accepting cash only). And finally when they realised they could not win they finally agreed to my privacy.
    via u/DevD2107
  • Mediocre_Sprinkles 5h ago I'm 32, grown up with a house of my own and a child. I was busy and hadn't said good morning to my mum yet. By 10am she started messaging me, then calling. me, then calling my partner at work. I was in a no phone baby group I go to every week
    via u/Mediocre_Sprinkles
  • which she knows all about. When I finished at 11am she was in a full blown panic about to call the police for a welfare check... Put these boundaries in now. Unfortunately my mum will never stop.
    via u/Mediocre_Sprinkles
  • It's really stupid because my brothers have literally travelled to different continents for weeks at a time and didn't call home but that was fine...
    via u/Mediocre_Sprinkles
  • i_do... 4h ago Edited 2h ago • • This my wife's secret account?? Her mother would do this when she was in her late 20s before we met. There weren't tracking apps at the time but if my wife missed the 3rd callback in a row MiL would get in the car and drive all over town looking for her.
    via u/i_dont_wanna_sign_in
  • Oh, and she didn't live with her mother at the time either. She lived in her own townhome 20 minutes away. This continued for a few years after we got married. Wife would be out of town for work, MiL would call and get no answer and start calling. me, 100s or 1000s of miles away, and demand to know where Wifey was. She wouldn't stop calling if I ignored her.
    via u/i_dont_wanna_sign_in
  • My answers were always, "I dunno", "if she didn't answer she's busy", "I don't have a tracker on her and I don't need one", etc. It infuriated MiL that I refused to engage or entertain her anxiety/terror.
    via u/i_dont_wanna_sign_in
  • Wanployer 4h ago Oiiii I think I was 22 when I finally snapped over my parents obsessive behavior. I have two older brothers that got away with serious hoodlum behavior, so my parents put their focus on me (especially as their only daughter). I had even moved out of state for a year and then came back, starting dating my now husband.
    via u/Wanployer
  • It literally took me screaming louder than I had in my entire life for them to actually HEAR me and finally back off. I told them (screamed at them?) that this is how you lose your kid completely, especially the one that never got into trouble. You trust your kid so little that there's no point in
    via u/Wanployer
  • maintaining any sort of relationship. That having this same cyclical fight without any resolution makes the most calm person go insane. Even today we could be closer, but I keep an emotional distance from them in part from them tracking me.
    via u/Wanployer
  • I'm sorry you had to take any sort of measure to find the smallest amount of peace from your parents. I really hope this situation helped them and your relationship.
    via u/Wanployer
  • . NameOfNobody ⚫ 4h ago My mother panicked like I was kidnapped any time I didn't answer my phone or text her back within 5 minutes until I turned the tables on her in my early 20s. She and my father left to a friend's house and said they'd be back in 2 hours. Three hours go by and I needed to leave the house
    via u/NameOfNobody
  • so I called to see if they are close but nobody replied. When they got back (5 hours later) I calmly asked her why she did not answer me and she said she left her phone in the car. So I pointed out that she was really late, wasn't answering and yet I did not spam her phone because she is an adult and I figured she
    via u/NameOfNobody
  • would call when she could, and since then she's a lot better about understanding when I don't reply right away. Glad I didn't have to involve the police ahahah
    via u/NameOfNobody
  • WhiskyKitten • 4h ago I am the panicking parent in that situation. Don't answer my text within 30 mins? I am imagining all sorts. Difference is my kids have no idea. I don't call, or spam them with texts. I greet them with a casual "hi, nice night?" When they eventually get home. My panic and fear is MY problem to deal with. Not theirs and never will be.
    via u/WhiskyKitten
  • GrubbleGrumble 5h ago Did anyone video-recorded your parents when being confronted by the police? Whenever you feel low, rewatch it to give you hope. for a "better and happier" outcome for your life.
    via u/GrubbleGrumble
  • Artistic-Plum1733 3h ago . My parents were like this growing up and the transition into college was rough. We are not on speaking terms now that I'm an adult.
    via u/Artistic-Plum1733
  • • ModeratelyAverage6 3h ago At times like this I'm glad my parents never got me a phone. I was 18 with no phone. I moved out, and got one myself. No tracking. No crazy. Just peace. It sucked when I was a kid that I didn't have a way to get ahold of my friends on social media, but am I glad I was never tracked.
    via u/ModeratelyAverage6

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