A Mom & Dad Demand To Go Through Their Grown Children’s Phones — ‘I Pay For It Every Month To Avoid This’
“Pay for it and then you can go through it.”
Ground Picture / Shutterstock A lot of parents probably wish they could go through their children’s phones — that is, if they don’t do it already. One pair of parents decided to prank their three grown children by telling them they needed to go through their phones and filmed how they reacted.
Three ‘grown’ sisters were asked to hand their phones over to their mom and dad.
Gaby Ferr posted a video filmed by her parents. In the video, the mom and dad asked Gaby and her two sisters to give them their phones so they could go through them.
First up was Emily, the oldest child.
“Emily, I need your phone,” her dad said.
“For what?” she asked.
“We’re gonna go through it,” her mom put in.
“Through what?” Emily questioned, thoroughly confused.
“Through your phone,” they responded.
Despite her reservations, Emily handed over her phone without further complaint. “What’s going on?” she asked her parents, who calmly told her, “Don’t worry about it.”
Next, the parents continued on to their middle child, Gaby, who appeared to be the owner of the TikTok account. She wasn’t nearly as cooperative as her older sister.
“Gaby, I need your phone,” her dad said.
“Um, why?” she asked, clearly disturbed.
“I need to go through it,” he responded.
“No,” she said decisively.
“Gaby, excuse me, we just want to check your phone,” her mom said, intervening.
She was ready with a quick retort: “Excuse me, I pay for it every month to avoid this.”
“What are you hiding?” her dad asked, to which she responded, “Dad, I am hiding a lot of things. I promise you, this will be a mistake.”
Her mom then cracked up and explained the prank to her, calling it a “social experiment.” “All you had to do was hand us your phone,” she said. “We weren’t even gonna check it.”
Even with the knowledge that it was all a joke, Gaby refused to back down. “And all you had to do was leave,” she said.
Ground Picture | Shutterstock
Finally, they checked in with their youngest child. Her name was not clear from the video, but it sounded like Pamela.
“Where’s your phone?” her dad asked her.
She pulled it out of her pocket and held it up, confused. “Right here,” she said.
“Okay,” he said. “I need it.”
“For what?” she asked in confusion, to which he responded, “I need to go through it.”
When Pamela asked why her dad needed to go through her phone, he told her, “Because I’m your dad.”
Pamela agreed to unlock the phone but insisted on holding it herself.
At this point, the girls’ parents seemed to reveal that they actually still pay for their youngest child’s phone.
“Give it to me,” her dad demanded.
“Is it your phone?” she countered.
“It’s not my phone, but I pay for it,” he said.
While these parents were just playing a prank on their grown kids, many parents do monitor their children’s phone usage.
While this mom and dad were just filming their daughters for a prank, it turns out that many parents actually do check their children’s phones, internet usage, and more.
Pew Research Center reported that “61% of parents say they have checked which websites their teen has visited, while 60% report checking their teen’s social media profile.”
Furthermore, “nearly half (48%) of parents say they have looked through the phone call records or messages on their child’s cell phone.”
These parents were merely joking around with their kids, but many parents take this seriously. Keeping an eye on children’s online habits and cell phone usage is a fairly normal thing to do.
Parents feel the need to protect their children, and for many, that includes monitoring technology use. Those parents might not appreciate this prank, but what this mom and dad did was all in good fun. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news and human interest topics.