"Paranoid Parenting"

In today's Opinion Journal, Kay Hymowitz discusses the new ways that parents can "snoop" on their children's activities through GPS systems and the like. She points out that, by employing these devices, parents short-circuit moral questions (about when it's right figuratively to peer over their children's shoulder) and avoid having to make periodic judgments about their maturity that are, she says, essential to guiding their development.

But it's also worth looking at from a child's point of view. Knowing your parents are tracking you with GPS essentially deprives you of the opportunity to be your own moral agent -- to go to tutoring instead of your boyfriend's house not because you'll get caught, but because it's the right thing to do. What's more, it turns parents from allies into adversaries. I knew my parents trusted me to do the right thing, and for that reason, I was determined not to disappoint them. Had they tagged a GPS on me, my feelings would have been very different -- and, I fear, if I had felt that my parents had more cofidence in an electronic tattletale than in me, I would have done everything I could to "get around" the GPS, or any other device.