Its 11 O’Clock, Do You Know Where Your Kids Are?

It’s 11 p.m. — do I know where my daughter is?

It was a sultry summer night. The kind when a teenager doesn’t want to go to bed. Let alone stick to a curfew.

But on this particular night, my daughter came home right on time with a handful of friends in tow.

I agreed to let them keep the fun going on our back deck as long as they kept the volume down. I mean, how many summer nights are there to hang with friends while on the cusp of 16? I didn’t care how long they stayed up, I was just soothed by the fact that she was safely home.

"I was just soothed by the fact that she was safely home."

The next morning I zombie-walked to the kitchen in my dressing gown as I do every morning. When the coffee hit my brain, I started noticing several immobilized bodies snoring all around me. Somehow hanging with friends had morphed into an unauthorized coed slumber party.

When the interlopers finally cleared out, I asked my teen why her friends had crashed here. While I’m always happy for my kid to entertain her friends, I hadn’t authorized an all-nighter.

Craig Stephens is a father who is willing to stand up to those determined to take away his daughter’s fundamental rights because, as he writes, "Her body. Her choice. End of story."

It turns out her friends had missed the chance to get the bus, and she decided it was safer for them to stay over than try to make their way home. She didn’t want to wake me to see if I was cool with her plan. I couldn’t help but wonder if her friends' parents were OK with it.

“Don’t your friends have a curfew?” I asked.

“Some do, but not the boys. Especially the only children. They can stay out as long as they want.”

From Skirting A Curfew To Enforcing One

I’m old enough to remember Irv Weinstein coming on the nightly American news with his iconic reminder to parents: “It’s 11 o'clock. Do you know where your children are?” It was a nightly PSA that aired on the late news from the 1960s to 1980s.

"Why was it the newscaster’s business to remind parents that teens like me should be heading home by 11 p.m.?"

Before I became a parent, the phrase seemed Orwellian to me. Why was it the newscaster’s business to remind parents that teens like me should be heading home by 11 p.m.? I didn’t want anyone thinking of where I was or what I was doing at that time. Least of all, parents.

Believe me Irv, I get it now.

During the summers of the pandemic, my kid pushed us to stay out later. She had been isolated from her friends because of COVID-19 and the summer seemed a good time for kids to hang out while the warm weather was conducive to socializing. That said, we weren’t about to lift all restrictions and worked to come up with a solution that everyone could (somewhat begrudgingly) live with.

E.M. Uzoamaka didn't grow up with a father — at least not in the traditional sense. Instead, she credits her uncle for showing her fatherly love throughout her childhood.

What I've Learned About Setting A Curfew

There are a few of the common sense principles that guide the curfew choices in our home.

• Nip objections in the bud — Chances are you’ve heard from your child the same standard protests against a curfew that we’ve heard from ours: I’m old enough to be responsible. Don’t you trust me? None of my friends have to come home this early!
  We calmly counter these objections by reinforcing our concern for her physical and mental well-being. Plus, we dangle the carrot that if a pattern of responsible behaviour is established, it will be rewarded with further freedoms. This actually seems to be working.
• Choose an appropriate time — Obviously, this will be aligned to your child’s age, maturity, and sense of personal responsibility. For our daughter, who's in the 15- to 16-year-old range, 10 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on weekends seem reasonable. It also seems to be the most common choice among my daughter’s friends. And we’ve agreed to move that back an hour when she turns 17.

"Sometimes establishing and enforcing a curfew can seem like a never-ending battle."

• Ask questions — Where are you going? Who will you be with? Who will be driving? What is your backup plan if the driver is impaired or wants to stay out beyond your curfew? We always make a point of asking these and any other questions that may be appropriate to our teen’s plans for the night.
• Be flexible — Like most of our rules, a curfew is not cast in stone. We are willing to negotiate exceptions to events like concerts, birthdays and graduations that are likely to go past curfew. There are also unexpected delays that have to be factored in. Things like the subway shutting down for half an hour. We usually take these factors into account and, so far, most have been reasonable. (Is it my imagination, or are there an inordinate number of transit delays these days on Saturday nights?)
• Stay in touch — We check in once or twice over the course of the evening, just to make sure everyone is safe and on target to meet curfew. We back this up with Mom’s secret weapon: Find My Phone. This app keeps us up to speed with our daughter’s exact location at any given time. (But let’s keep that between us.)

I admit it — sometimes establishing and enforcing a curfew can seem like a never-ending battle. But so did walking the floor, learning to walk, riding a bike or any of the hundred other milestones you hit when raising a child.

And anyone who has been down this road knows all too well how quickly today's child-rearing challenges become tomorrow's memories. In a few years, our daughter will be an adult and make her own rules. And I’d like to think she’ll appreciate the overriding reason we or any other parents take on the thankless task of enforcing curfews: Because we care about our children and want to keep them safe.