Nobody knew where we were, and we turned out fine

Episode 9: You Turned Out Fine

My children believe I grew up in a work of fiction. Not figuratively — they watched Stranger Things and treated it like a documentary that needed fact-checking against my life. Kids out all day, bikes flying across town, parents with no idea where anyone was. They turned to me on the couch like prosecutors: "Wait. This was real?" Yes. Yes, it was. And it was amazing.

For years their closing argument against my knowing their every location was undefeated: "Your parents never knew where you were, and you turned out fine." Before the show, my unsupervised childhood was just a rumor. Then Netflix produced the evidence. So this episode is the case file — my childhood entered into evidence, charge by charge — plus the twist, which is that the feral child in question grew up and put a tracker on her own kids. This one's the fun episode, but there's a real question under it: why did the least supervised generation in modern history invent the most supervised childhood ever attempted?

In this episode:

• The case file: bikes across town lines because the next town had a Papa Gino's and ours didn't

• The supervision system of my childhood: streetlights, and my mother's actual cowbell (a summons, not a search)

• A dead car, a payphone, a memorized number, and my grandmother: first responder

• The story my own mother hears for the first time in this episode. It involves a train, a curfew, and a decision made at very low speed.

• The hairpin turn: from a cowbell to a satellite in exactly one generation

• Why once knowing is possible, not knowing starts to feel like negligence

• The solemn parenting vow I swore about the carpool line, and exactly how fast I folded

"We didn't parent from a book. We parented from memory."

I want your stories on this one. Tell me your "I will never" — the thing you swore before life got its hands on you, and how fast you folded. Or tell me the story your mother still doesn't know, your version of the train. My DMs are open, and I know for a fact I'm not the only one out here with a sealed file.

Follow Honestly Kristin on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so new episodes come to you. And send this one to the friend who was with you on the train, literal or otherwise. She's the only witness.