My 11-year-old daughter and her friends need pedometers. I want to know how many steps these girls are clocking on an average day. They’re walking everywhere, to each other’s houses, the local pizza shop, the nail salon — all over the neighborhood.

I give my children this freedom very mindfully: I want them to be confident, resourceful, and independent. Once, another mother wanted to have her daughter join a walk the girls were taking to the pizza shop. She asked us, “Is it OK if I follow behind them in our car?” Thankfully, the other mothers and I were on the same page and simultaneously replied, “No, we’re not OK with that. The point of the outing isn’t the pizza. There’s a greater purpose behind letting them have the freedom to get there on their own.” 

I track them with an AirTag in her fanny pack. Sometimes, I get a call from the pizza shop’s landline:
“Mom, can we go to the drugstore and buy candy with our leftover lunch money?” or “Mom, it’s really cold. Can you pick us up?”

Once, I even called the pizza shop myself to ask if she could grab something for me on the way home.

They’re living a wonderfully retro, ’90s-style childhood —........

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