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Brooke Shields has a new interview with The Moms which People Magazine covered. People focuses on Brooke’s comments about working out, her diet and body image, which is understandable because she’s 55 and goals. Honestly I’ll probably cover that separately because I love talking about working out. She’s promoting a new workout program she has that’s live on Wednesdays at 11. (She put it on pause to be sensitive at this time but will bring it back soon.) Brooke got my interest with her comments about her teenage daughters: Rowan, 17, and Grier, 14. She said she doesn’t have direct access to their social media, but that she can view what they’re posting if she needs to. Plus she tracks their phones so she can know where they are at all times.
If they’re going to bike somewhere I have full capacity to track them. They have to call or text me the minute they get there and they know that I can track their phone with Find my Friends. If they turn it off I will make their life miserable. I know where they are anyway, or I think I do. My younger daughter just said to me tonight, ‘you know mom, I have to say, on the off chance that something bad does happen. I really want you to know where I am.’
I will be more lenient if you are truthful with certain specific things. Then I’m able to have a rubber band. You jeopardize that and you’re screwed. Granted she’s probably going to try everything just to not get caught, but I think the fear factor has been good. I have access via somebody else because I can’t follow them myself, because it’s not healthy. I have access to their TikToks, their Insta so if there is anything questionable it gets brought up immediately.
I’m so glad my son isn’t posting on social media constantly, that he’s taking the pandemic seriously and isn’t hanging out in groups. He says his friends are though and that’s disheartening. We just got a call from his high school yesterday that they’re thinking of opening in the fall on a staggered day schedule with half capacity. Students would attend just two days a week in person. I don’t know how I feel about that, but I trust him to be safe at school, as much as that’s possible. I also feel for parents who work outside the home and need full time care, especially for younger children.
As for Brooke tracking her daughters, it sounds like she has the right idea. You have to have a dialogue with them and be flexible, but let them know that they’re accountable, that they need to tell the truth and that they can’t be sneaky.
If you want to see Brooke’s interview it’s here at The Moms website. The part about her daughters starts at about 6 minutes in.
Dont most teens have these burner accounts,anyways I would that most would have an accout where parents and family can access and then one for friends.
That’s what I was wondering. Granted, I never had to deal with that stuff as a teenager, but I would most definitely have multiple burner accounts.
I like Brooke very much. Her younger daughter looks so grown up and is the exact same age as Suri Cruise, time goes so fast.
I know I was born in a different era, but my mother did not stalk me and I think it would have ruined our relationship had she tried to. I would have feel that she fundamentally didn’t trust me if she had to check an app to confirm I was where I said I was. I would check in and tell her where I was, and that was enough. This is creepy and controlling. I don’t have kids yet but plan to and when I do I won’t smother them and stalk them like this.
I feel the same,I know It s a different time and the world Is spinning faster and faster,but I’m glad I am childless….I wouldnt be able to track them and live the Life of a modern mom without going crazy
I am not on board with the tracking thing, quite honestly. And not in a ‘in my day we sneaked out all the time and nothing bad ever happened’ kind of way. I do not think tracking loved ones phones is a healthy way to keep tabs on them and it doesn’t teach them healthy boundaries.
I have a problem with tracking. Tracking teens.
My mother was a helicopter parent long before there was a name for it. And because we didn’t have cell phones, her ingenuity was impressive. I’ve raised three boys through trust, trial and error. I feel good about it too.
I’m against tracking other people’s kids, but my own? I think if this would have been available when I raised my son, I would have done it. Southern California is a big place.
They live in NYC too; a friend has daughter’s a few years older than Brooke’s and she had a similar policy. My friend frequently talks about how different it is raising kids in Manhattan vs our childhood in a NYC suburb.
I knew where they were every second of their lives ten and under…maybe even 11 and 12, but when they started to spread their wings, I was there and available, but I’ve always remembered how important trust is, and when you don’t have it, it’s everything. When you do have it, it’s like soul food. Mistakes will be made. But mistakes are important. Because we do have our amazing communication devices with us always, it makes resizing boundaries so much easier!
It doesn’t sound like she actively tracks them 24/7: but has no hesitation about using it if they don’t follow the basic rules about check in. Have seen parents who will check their kids locations every 30 minutes and call/text obsessively if the kids do not respond immediately.
They live in LA. I can only imagine what Brooke went through as a child star. I would have a non removable tracker attached to my kids there, just in case. I trust no one in that business and being Hollywood royalty means nothing to predators there
That’s how it sounds to me – she has the ability to track them if needed, and has told them they need to leave it on, but isn’t sitting there watching everywhere they go.
I totally get it. Waaaaaay back in the day when my 3 daughters were teenagers (now they’re 40, 38 and 35) I was a hard ass on them. (Where? What time? Who? etc…) My girls found out that I had 3 non negotiables:
#1 NEVER lie to me because I will find out and your social life will be done. Forever.
#2 IF you find yourself in a situation you are uncomfortable with CALL. I don’t care what time or where you are, find a phone (no cells back then) call and I will come and get you.
#3 Talk to me. I will do my level best not to freak out. I may not like what I hear but talk to me. (They did, and plenty of times I would go hyperventilate in the bathroom after,, but they talked to me)
This was before social media and the unrelenting peer pressure kids face today, not that there wasn’t back then. Two of my daughter’s have teenage girls (18, 16 and 13) and I have noticed that they’re harder than I was, understandably so. It’s paying off because the communication lines are open and my daughters have great relationships with their girls.
So IMO Brooke Shields is doing what she feels she needs to do, whether it’s right, wrong or in the middle. She seems to have a solid relationship with her girls.
I liken it to when you had to give your parents all your friend’s phone numbers and how they would threaten that they could stop by your friend’s anytime or if they called and you weren’t there how much trouble you would be in. Threats but it was rare that they actually checked up. Her daughter’s probably get that.
Hard to argue with her. I can only imagine the horrors she faced before social media as an exploited child actor. There’s no way, as a parent that will evaporate.
She is parenting. I wish her family all the love.
I don’t have a problem tracking teens. Both my kids share their location with me and I think I’ve checked it maybe 1/2 dozen times at best (mainly as an aide for picking them up from somewhere).
My kids don’t feel like its big brother, in fact, it’s strangely, a way of life for teens now. They openly share their locations with their small friend group. I share my location with them as well. They really don’t see it as a violation of their rights or anything like that.
I don’t actively stalk my kids or religiously watch their movements but I do like knowing I have it in case of an emergency, although I haven’t needed that yet. It gives me peace of mind.
They could also turn it off at anytime.
We have the Find option enabled on our iPhones, which means I can track my teenagers phone and the other way round. It’s sometimes convenient, like the time we found his phone after he lost it in a corn maze on Halloween …
He knows it and is okay with it, but I don’t use it to “keep track” of him.
There has to be some balance. I grew up in the age of AOL instant messenger. My mom didn’t try to listen in on my phone calls or read my IMs, but there was no way in earth I would have been allowed to leave home without telling her where I was going.
I get parents wanting to know where their children are, but I gotta be honest: I teach at a community college, and I get a lot of high school students taking classes, especially during Summer. And honestly, too many parents are just stifling their children. They are helicopter/bulldozers who don’t allow their children to problem solve or communicate with people in charge.
I recently had a parent email me and yell at me for assigning homework during the weekend (which was not true, and I explained that to his daughter, but it wouldn’t matter if it was). He said his daughter is unavailable to do work on the weekends cause the family goes camping, and that he never has weekend homework in college (which is BS). Then, he got upset with me for saying privacy laws prohibit me from discussing his child’s performance.
What I’m trying to say is some young folks today are coddled by their parents and unable to function as responsible adults as a result. That is where tracking your kids can lead.
I guess for normals, I don’t think everyday tracking is appropriate. If you had a kid with special needs or poor direction following or who has already violated your trust, sure.
With famous/wealthy kids who would be a higher target for kidnapping/stalking, I can see it.
I don’t know about tracking a 17yo. When will she stop and trust her child? And the way Brooke goes about this ‘I will make their lives miserable’ that’s really bad parenting, threatening your child like that in public. She might have meant it in a joking way, but still. But then wasn’t it her 17yo who slapped her mother for some TikTok meme?
From all I’ve seen about Brooke and her daughters, especially the older one, this doesn’t sound or look like a healthy mother-daughter relationship to me.
“they know that I can track their phone with Find my Friends” – so she’s not saying she does track them just that they have some accountability to be honest with where they are going. I think this is reasonable and will do this with my kids when they are older too. It gives you a safety net if your kid doesn’t reach his/her destination to be able to find them, or to be able to find their phone if it got lost. And if you don’t check on them constantly or interrogate them every time they go out it still gives them wiggle room to let you know they are safe at a friend’s house and also you don’t have to know exactly what they are doing at that friend’s house or who else might be there. It’s like independence with training wheels.
I have my teens share their location with me on find my iPhone but as others have said i have used it only a few times when they were out with friends. However in my situation their father is unpredictable and to protect them i need it to make sure they are safe.
I can track my spawn and they can track me. My kids are in college. Of course, they are absolutely free to turn off the app at any time. But I don’t think they do. I don’t really know. I don’t think I’ve checked their locations other than last year when my girlspawn got stranded somewhere she wasn’t comfortable and didn’t really know the area and asked me to come get her. I tracked her location, got her, and brought her home. No questions asked. And she pretty much told me everything that happened. I trust my spawn. I think we all just kind of like the extra added layer of protection the location finder gives.
How does a super famous, super rich person in this age not simply have 24/7 security guards for her children? Or maybe she does and just didn’t want to mention it. Also you don’t *have* to let your underage kids post on social media if you’re that concerned about their safety and privacy…
I think her parenting choices make sense, she was exploited by her mother as a child.