The easiest thing in the world is to be overprotective.
Our world is a dangerous place and it just seems to get scarier every day.
So when you are handed this little, innocent being the first thing you want to do is shield it from the big bad world.
Of course, the instinct can go too far, and when it does how do you distance yourself from it?
That was the issue facing Redditor and Original Poster (OP) suspensionnn when she came to the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for judgment.
She asked:
“AITA for disabling the airtag my father planted on me”
A quick intro.
“I (32F) have an overprotective single father.”
“I know he means no harm, but he’s severely draining my energy. I promised to visit him every weekend after moving out to live on my own.”
Then right to the issue.
“This week, I found that he planted an Airtag, a location tracking device, on my car without telling me.”
“I value my freedom and privacy very much.”
“I often go out of my way to erase my social media presence.”
“I make sure that only a handful of selected friends can contact me, and even fewer knows what I’m up to.”
“When I was alerted that an unknown Airtag (which I immediately knew where it came from) was following me, I was furious.”
“I called my father and confronted him, asking where he hid it.”
“He was surprised I found out and refused to tell me where it was. I eventually found the Airtag purposefully hidden under my car, glued to a magnet.”
“We just had a conversation about this issue of his today (we had it almost every week, tbh) and I was starting to opening up to him.”
“Then I came home to find this airbag, and I honestly just want to disappear and never see him again (which I wouldn’t, but it’s just how I feel).”
OP was left to wonder,
“Am I overreacting? AITA?”
Having explained the situation, OP turned to Reddit for judgment.
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
-
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided: NTA
Darker implications.
“The fact op needs even to ask is they were the a-hole is concerning. This is like some cousin of Stockholm syndrome, and I think they need to distance themselves from their father”
“I wouldn’t think twice if I was in the right or not”
“NTA 1000000%” ~ ruckusrox
“This is something that really stood out to me as well, and makes me think that the control/manipulation probably goes way beyond this one incident.”
“As someone who grew up in an abusive household, sometimes you don’t even realize that what you are experiencing isn’t normal until you get away from it.”
“It’s hard to know the difference between healthy/respectful relationships if all you’ve ever known is toxic ones.” ~ newphone-Geedis
“This is correct!”
“Father is creepy as hell for secretly tracking his 32-year-old daughter!!!”
“I wonder what other tracking devices or cameras has he set up that she doesn´t know about??”
“OP NTA” ~ Crafty_Dog_4674
Adulthood.
“32!!!”
“Even if his intentions are good, that is not okay at all. Complete disrespect and an invasion of privacy. You are an adult! NTA” ~ skittlesnmypussy
“No, you’re 32. that’s far too late to be this obsessive about your child. establish clear boundaries with him and establish consequences for violating those boundaries.” ~ BSye-34
“I saw 32 and hoped with every fiber of my being that something truly traumatic happened to the father involving op when she was a baby or a young toddler or something.”
“It doesn’t excuse it all of course, just explains it.”
“Regardless I get where op is coming from. My mom was way too overprotective until I moved out.” ~ GuntherTime
“32!!! That’s wild.”
“I thought maybe 20 and just living in their own…”
“OP – do you come from a culture where it’s unusual for adult children/daughters to move out in their own before marriage?”
“That is really the only situation I can see where this would not be WILDLY creepy and wrong, though it would Stop be creepy and overbearing.”
“You are 32 and fused to visit every weekend and being tracked. That didn’t sound like anxiety that sounds like high control.”
“Remove the tag, and then cut out your visits for a little while and tell him”
‘”This was hugely inappropriate and a big boundary crossed, and now I don’t feel comfortable visiting you because I can’t trust you not to invade my privacy again.”‘
‘”So I’ll be taking a break from our visits and will talk to you in a month or two about visiting again once I decide how much access to my life I want to give you until I can trust you again.”’
“And then follow through. Don’t fold.”
“And talk to other friends your age, find out how often they actually visit their parents and what they think about the AirTag incident.”
“It sounds to me like your dad has been crossing boundaries and using manipulation and control for so long in your life that it’s so normalized that this isn’t as big a deal to you as it is to the rest of us.”
“Which makes me think you need to hear what a bunch of other people think of your dad and his expectations to start to identify what’s ok and not ok from him.” ~ LimitlessMegan
Security Concerns.
“Yeah this is valid. You need to hire a professional electronic detection service to sweep your home OP.”
“Air tags are easily detected thanks to Apple’s app. But nanny cams, keyboard stroke software, and other things aren’t.”
“I’d check any recent gifts that seem off weight-wise or something he insisted had to go in a certain place. Has he spent any significant time in your home unsupervised in the recent past?” ~ PeanutGallery10
“Also have professionals check your electronic devices, OP.”
“Phone, computer, stuff like that, your local electronics store can likely get you in touch with someone or do it themselves.”
“Hopefully your father isn’t that far gone, but better safe than sorry. This is weird.” ~ DandelionOfDeath
“Any thread where this sort if spying/stalking is mentioned, I always say go on Amazon or ebay and search for spy camera, hidden camera, etc and see just how many devices can have hidden cameras.”
“Alarm clocks, smoke alarms, light bulbs, USB chargers, coat hooks etc etc.”
“Though if in someone’s home they’d need a WiFi connection to work, so check your router for unknown devices.” ~ TheZZ9
The issue of consent.
“Sharing location with consent is good. Being creepy stalker is bad” ~ Backgrounding-Cat
“I don’t have a problem with being able to see a family member’s location, provided it’s done with their knowledge and consent.”
“I use a tracking watch to monitor the location of my eight-year-old. She likes to run ahead in public places and is very frequently lost for long stretches of time.”
“Recently, before I got the watch, we went to the zoo for the day, and she was lost on and off for about half the time.”
“We would eventually find her again, and within ten minutes, she had raced off and was lost again.”
“She knows our phone numbers, so often strangers will call us to say they found her, and she asked them to call us.”
“She knows the watch tracks her.”
“She is okay with that. I’m hoping she won’t need it in a few years.”
“My teenager (13) had location sharing turned on on his phone (again, with his knowledge and consent).”
“He gets public transport home from school and gets a bit of anxiety that he might miss his stop.”
“He likes that I can find him if he gets lost, without him having to text me or phone me and work out where he is.”
“My partner and I both have location sharing turned on because we aren’t going anywhere we don’t want the other person to know about.”
“And because if, for example, I’m wondering if he will be home for dinner soon or if he is still at work, I can check the app without having to phone and interrupt whatever he is doing.”
“I cannot imagine thinking it would be okay to track any members of my family without them knowing or consenting to being tracked.”
“The only exception I can think of would be if I had a child who is still a minor, and I was responsible for their safety, and they were in danger of sneaking off and doing risky or harmful behavior and would deliberately remove or disable a tracker they knew about.” ~ Ill-Assumption-661
“NTA, and what your father did is a gross invasion of your privacy.”
“Even if you’re the type of person who posts check-ins on Facebook every single place you go, planting an airbag on you without your knowledge or consent is waaaaaaaay overstepping on his part.”
“There’s just no excuse for it, and you’re not overreacting in the slightest.” ~ BogBabe
The ability to let go of your children varies from parent to parent, but it is a crucial part of your own happiness and the development of the kid.