Privilege Blog

Saturday Morning at 6:38am

Luckily for us moms there are now many socially sanctioned ways to spy on our adult and almost-adult children. At least to spy in their vicinity.

If they have a job, the corporate website is a great way to feel like you’re in the next cubicle.

If in school, there’s always the old college paper. Amazing how interesting financial policies of an East Coast institution can become.


For the desperate, I recommend Weather Underground. They show webcams from the areas of coverage. These webcams may not actually be focused on the towns in which your children live. But they are nearby towns. That counts. The skies will be similar to the sky under which your dearly beloved creature is now walking. In the brown sweater.


If none of the above are effective, you can always take out the family photo albums, turn to the pages of your grown children as newborns, all closed eyes and squished little noses. Run your hand across the plastic sleeve in a quick, directed, motion.

As some very valuable advice, I will point out it’s better not tell the grown children about this last bit. It’s just mother love, and we survive. We really do.

11 Responses

  1. You are sweet about your kids. I'm sure they appreciate you caring so much, and if not now then eventually they will.

  2. Such a sweet post! I happen to know that these tricks are not limited to moms: my dad always knows more about the politics of the Bay Area than I do, and has admitted to using Google Earth to view my new house. Oh, and found my ostensibly 'secret' blog via links from my other online presences…

  3. Ah, something to keep in mind for when my children are older.

    My son's preschool now actually has real-time cameras set up so that we could watch from home/office what they're doing in school.

  4. Webcams in preschool? No way. Why don't they have those everywhere? Princeton had one up when they were building the new dorm Meg Whitman funded. You had better believe I watched it:). There are far too few webcams in the world, to my way of thinking. Oh yeah, I used Google maps street view to see my daughter's apartment. But she told me too that time. I'm not very different from most moms, I think, maybe just more willing to confess.

  5. I well remember waving, the taillights of the family car red as my mother drove away from the dorm, weeping. I thought only of Dr. King's words, "Free at last, thank almighty god, we are free at last."

  6. We love weather underground, have it right on our little desktop — so much more fun than the folks at NOAA.

    Have a splendid week Miss LPC!
    tp

  7. Now that I'm living in my mum's summer house so far away from the family I find myself checking the weather in Jackson just to see what it's like where they are. I think I'm just a very mummy-esque daughter

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