Guns, Phones, and the Power of Parenting

Do You Know Where Your Kids Are?

I’m a Radar Parent. This is my kid at work. I love knowing where she is.

I was at a party recently where I was listening in on a conversation with some Very Important People who shall not be named but if I said it, you would know it. They were talking about kids and phones and how terrible they were, how they were ruining their lives, and how kids should never be allowed to have them in school. I couldn’t help myself and had to interject…

“Yes but as the mother of three kids from three generations, I see that they have been such a gift! Kids have the whole universe at their fingertips and can find the answers to any question.”

“But how will they ever learn to use libraries?” one younger mother asked with grave concern. (For background, I’m a huge supporter of libraries, but I’ve rarely found the information I need right at the moment in them.) My opinion was not popular. But I’m used to it. I thought back to the time when I said the same thing to the dean of students at my daughter’s high school.

“You are the first parent I have ever heard say that phones are good,” he laughed. I saw that my youngest daughter could stay connected with friends virtually from the safety of her own room, express her creativity on social media, and learn all sorts of new things from YouTube. Sure, there was some bad shit mixed in, but I (and her school) made sure to talk to her about it and help her navigate the new world at her fingertips, including spotting what was true and what was fake. Plus we all have fun sharing goofy videos.

But I didn’t laugh when I saw the recent news of another school shooting in a Georgia High School. I want my kids to have a phone on them at all times so that they are reachable, so they can call for help if they need it. The videos and texts to and from parents are heartbreaking. But also reassuring. Can you imagine hearing there is a shooting at your child’s school and not knowing if they are dead or alive? Far too many parents in America have experienced just that and it’s horrific, criminal and outrageous. We spend all our breath arguing about gun laws and phone rules and abortion, meanwhile parents are left to figure it all out for themselves and kids are abandoned by all the people and places (including government) that could help them the most. I am hoping that enough people are angry and will vote in a government who will:

1. Enact common sense gun-laws and ban the weapons that cause mass casualties.

2. Stop sending weapons to other governments who are harming innocent children.

3. Let kids have their phones, but continue to uncover and arrest those who are abusing and spreading intentionally false information (we see you Russia) or dangerous scams.

4. Restore a woman’s right to a safe abortion so that only wanted children are brought into the world, and mothers are treated with the best care so they can live to raise their children.

5. But even more importantly, create programs that help people become better parents, and provide safety and support for all children — wanted or unwanted.

6. And rather than eliminate the Department of Education (Project 2025), strengthen it to include a curriculum that helps kids navigate this new world of online information, including learning how to communicate effectively and positively.

The level of discourse I see on social media about these issues ranges from brilliant, to boringly redundant and disgusting. I am appalled by grown adults who claim to want to make America great “again” but have no qualms about sharing sexually inappropriate and untrue content about a female Presidential candidate. What’s so great about that? They are showing us who they are and it’s gross. But at least when I see them in public I know what they are really thinking inside! And that’s valuable! I can avoid them and protect myself and my kids and grandkids. But we as humans and parents have to learn and teach our kids what to pay attention to and what to ignore. We need to help them, and ourselves, see what is truly important and what is just noise. We can’t change their minds or fix them, we can only work on our own reactions and actions. It’s time to grow up, America.

As I sent my daughter to college we discussed all this. I am not a “Helicopter parent” — I don’t micromanage my kid’s lives or do stuff for them that they can do on their own. But I am a Radar parent. As long as I can see them on “find my kids” on my iPhone, I can relax. I can breathe. We are alive — or at least our phones are. I remember the days when my oldest daughter was driving home from school or a party and she was late and I didn’t know why and the anxiety that caused as a parent. I don’t want to go back to those days. Now I can see where they are and if they are headed home.

As the news trickled out about the shooter — another young white male with parents who were abusive to him — so abusive that the father, who bought him an AR15 for Christmas, was also arrested thank the lord. (His mother sounds horrible too, locking the kids out of the house all night with a criminal record of her own.) I couldn’t help but remember that conversation at the party and be grateful that kids have phones to call for help. And parents can find their kids in an emergency. The videos many of those kids shared of hiding in dark corners in their classrooms, and the police kicking down the doors to check for more dangers are horrifying, and that doesn’t include or show (thankfully) the bloody dead bodies that many of those students saw. What the fuck is wrong with us America???

With just a small peek under the curtain of history, it is abundantly clear: There have always been bullies of both genders. There has always been sexual abuse and access to pornographic content, whether it’s from a family member, a magazine shoved under a dad’s bed, an artist, or a priest. There have always been cruel and deadly war games for boys to play and participate in — not virtual, but real. There have always been addictions to things like drugs, alcohol, gambling, and sex. Social media just makes it more visible and harder to hide.

What there hasn’t always been is great parenting. I am of the firm belief that sheltering our kids from reality doesn’t help them, it just makes them more vulnerable to being taken advantage of. In fact, exposing them to the global world of social media actually helps them to learn and connect to our shared humanity. Personally, I have learned so much from social media and internet searches. And the frightening truth is we have become so dependent on our phones — for communication, navigation, banking, and entertainment that I can’t even imagine what would happen if for some reason we couldn’t use them. Utter chaos would ensue, for sure.

My favorite responses online right now are comments like “Don’t buy your kid a gun, buy him a guitar — and then he’ll even get a girlfriend!” This is true, actually. When my first daughter was a teen in the 1990’s before phones came off the wall there was a book called Reviving Ophelia, which explained how to get teen girls through that most awful period of life alive and well. The essence was this: give them journals, musical instruments, and art supplies and let them spend lots of time alone in their room creating and figuring out who they are and who they want to be. I think it might work for teen boys too. Especially if they have parents who love them, encourage them, and help them to become strong, resilient, and independent adults.

Every generation makes its own parenting mistakes and each succeeding generation tries to learn from them and correct them, sometimes over-correcting them. It heartens me to see so much parenting content on social media. I wish I had it when I was a single mom at 20, even if it’s just knowing that other moms felt as overwhelmed and tired as I did.

So, let’s stop arguing about stupid shit and focus on what really matters: being better parents, better humans, and enacting true and lasting change that creates a peaceful world. After all, even Russia has stronger gun laws than we do!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, caring about kids, adults, the environment, and peace is not socialism or communism. It’s humanism. And that’s not even a progressive, radical agenda. It’s just plain common sense.