I have full access to my mom's phone

17 Oct, 2026

When my mom bought her phone, I did everything. Passed the contacts, added her email account, downloaded her social media, set up a password, and did the biometry.

So obviously I put my digital too. She didn’t know, and got really surprised when I had full access to her bank app.

The other day I had to go mark an appointment for her to make a new ID, everything involved her CPF (Social Security Number), which I memorized years ago, and her email. But for some reason I didn’t have it on my phone, so I had to call her because a code was going to be sent to her number.

I did that because I know mom never even entered her email, but what was my surprise when she didn’t know how to enter in her messages app either? (For reference, we are brazilians, we use WhatsApp. The only time we use our messages is to code verifications and things like that.)

I had to keep telling her to >not< open the Messenger. It was mostly quiet at the place, with the exception of me telling mom “Please, don’t open Facebook”.

She got it in, and we made her an appointment. 

My original idea for this post title was something around the lines of “Toddles install games, and our parents uninstall cameras,” but it is a fucking lie. For some reason she keeps clicking to download the apps in the ads, from time to time my sister and I have to delete games, casinos, and Threads from her phone.

Once she came to us talking about Kwai (basically a lower budget TikTok very common in China and a little in Brasil) and we told her no. She had the entire “But my friend has it!” speech, and like parents we denied it.

I think it is a natural progression of humanity. One day we get to an age we have to parent our parents.

I’m complaining, but she is actually getting better at using her phone. She used to only use it at home and had no internet plan on it. Now she uses PIX for everything!

She was super proud of herself the first time she scanned a QR code and paid without help.

Now I just need to teach her how to use Uber. For some reason doing it for her stresses me so much. Probably because she always wants to give the address verbally and tends to be very vague and uncertain where she is. 

#en