[nucleardog]

Literally just not having to do that. Or having to have someone request your location case-by-case. Also better resolution.

I’ve shared my location in one form or another with my girlfriend and now wife for a long time.

“Hey can you come pick me up?” “Sure, leaving shortly” — not only do we not need to play some game figuring out exactly where the person needing pickup is (which is a huge boon because she’s awful with directions), but for the person being picked up it’s like Uber—you can see if they’ve left, how far out, etc.

“You just about home?” — if we’re driving, we’re not going to respond to that. Instead it’s easy to answer a question like “when should I start supper”, even in the face of unpredictable traffic, just by checking the other person’s location instead of having to call and have them take a call while driving.

And just from a general safety perspective—wife and baby go for a mid-day walk and a simple “hey you got your phone on you?” gives us both some piece of mind. She knows if she’s not back in some remotely realistic timeframe and doesn’t pick up her phone there’s someone that will come find her, I don’t have to just sit at home and try and decide if it’s been long enough to file a missing person report or if she’s just run into a friend at the park and is too engrossed to notice her phone in the stroller. And none of this requires any planning or communication.

Also had previously shared my location with a good friend and business partner because when we were both travelling separately to meet with clients it made it a lot easier to coordinate, if you arrived early to be able to (accurately) say “oh he’s 5 minutes out” or see they were stuck in traffic and shortcut the awkwardness and just have the person who wasn’t driving be able to call and say you’d both be late instead of walking in and making awkward small talk forever, etc.

I’m not going to share my location generally, but sharing selectively can be extremely convenient.

[wruza]

Some of these paragraphs honestly sound like postapocalyptic anxiety horror rather than a regular care. Not my business ofc, but maybe it is worth to double-check that it's not an "overprotection" at your side.

[watwut]

You people are really honestly timing dinner for exact time partner walks into the door? In situation where partner is going home at irregular times? I cant imagine doing that and cant imaging expecting that.

> And just from a general safety perspective—wife and baby go for a mid-day walk and a simple “hey you got your phone on you?” gives us both some piece of mind. She knows if she’s not back in some remotely realistic timeframe and doesn’t pick up her phone there’s someone that will come find her

I took huge amount of mid-day walks with kids and playground trips with kids and never ever needed someone to go find me. I did not needed husband to check how long I am away or anything like that. What exactly is "realistic timeframe" for walk with kid? For me, it could take anything between 20minutes and 4hours depending on weather, kids mood or my mood. But I did not needed husband to rescue me from dangers of local playground or park, like not once.

I am not outlier, I do not know a single woman with baby in real life who would need that level or control in order to have peaceful mind. All these "realistic examples" make me wonder whether people did not normalized huge amount anxiety for themselves. Or they are made up.

[xnyan]

>I am not outlier, I do not know a single woman with baby in real life who would need that level or control in order to have peaceful mind. All these "realistic examples" make me wonder whether people did not normalized huge amount anxiety for themselves. Or they are made up.

This seems really committed to pigeonholing the motivation for this functionally. All I can say is my partner and I use it all the time. We have irregular schedules and are not always checking our phones to respond to the other's "hey where are you text." We use Apple's version of this which is VERY clear that someone else can see your location, and requires explicit opt-in. The use case is convenience, not anxiety.

[watwut]

I am responding to people who make bonkers examples. Women goes for walk with baby and needs to know husband will retrieve her if she is late, for her peace of mind? Really? Absolutely no one is served by pretention that normal women are scared to take walk with babies unless someone is checking on them.

I would assume that if the location with your partner is not available for a bit, you wont turn into bundle of anxiety. Which is then, whatever.

But examples in this thread are different. People feeling unsafe because someone is late as usually. And that is neither normal nor healthy. And absolutely no one is served by trying to normalize that.

[ajford]

Not everyone lives in ideal situations either. Where I grew up, it wasn't unheard of for individuals by themselves or with a stroller to be attacked and mugged or worse. If you were going to go into old down-town to the plaza or walk the shops, it was a really good idea to let someone know where you were going and when to expect you back.

When I went to college, it was rather common for individuals in my physics program to ask to be escorted to their cars if they were in the lab after dark, due to a few incidents of assaults and attempted kidnappings in the dark parking lots. It wasn't restricted to gender lines either. Luckily better lighting and cameras were installed rather quickly after the rash of incidents, but that fear persisted for a while.

Just because you were lucky enough to live in an area where you were unlikely to be accosted when going out on your own, it doesn't mean that others have unfounded fears.

[watwut]

I checked stats. For women, 2 or of 5 murders are be partners. 15 times as many women were killed by someone they knew then by stranger. These are data from 2013.

So, if you live in place where kidnappings are the biggest danger, that place is outlier place. It is not so much that i an privileged for not worrying about it, it is that the city you are in is really bad.

[watwut]

Attempted kidnappings are basically non existent in most Western areas. I am sorry you lived in such places, but I really don't think that is normal. It is not normal to need someone going with you to car either, in most places.

Compared to that, controlling abusive partners are significantly more likely threat to most of us. That is relatively normal.

[nucleardog]

Traffic can take the commute home anywhere from about 30 minutes to over 2 hours on a regular basis. So yeah, generally we try and time cooking such that we're not eating cold food that's sat on the table for hours.

The _small_ park nearby is over 60 acres of fairly dense woods with signs posted at all the entrances warning of bears and other wildlife. The one a bit further down is over 1500 acres of similarly dense forest and trails. So yeah, we both appreciate knowing if we get mauled by wildlife or, more realistically, twist an ankle or something that there's someone that can come find us when we call or if we can't. A realistic timeframe is "roughly however long you said you planned on being gone", barring no further updates.

I really appreciate the implications that come with calling this "control". This is a bidirectional exchange of information that we both find convenient and reassuring given that neither of us really know anyone in this city and appreciate having a lifeline to someone we can trust.

Not that I should need to defend my relationship in the first place, but it was her idea to set up and, since it'll be your next issue, her idea to move somewhere where we don't know anyone. Especially now that we have a kid I would much rather be back where we had friends and strong family support.