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If you have teenagers, you probably know what I’m talking about. It’s one of those applications that parents use to know where their kids are. It’s particularly helpful when children start driving. We have one teen driver and another who just got her permit.

It’s nice to be able to see where they are. The app also lets us know if they’ve been driving particularly fast. When we first discussed adding the app to our phones, I was hesitant. As our children have advanced through the various stages of phone use, we’ve mostly let them make their own mistakes as they navigate the social media world.

Early on, we said no to some apps and yes to others. Once or twice, we’ve become aware of envelopes being pushed, of mistakes being made, and we’ve advised our children to avoid certain social media behaviors. But we never took the route some parents take where they keep total track of their children’s phone activity.

I don’t know which method of parenting is best; each family is different. So when my wife and I discussed adding everybody in the family to the Life 360 app, I was initially opposed. Kids deserve their freedom. I remember those days when I was a preteen and a teenager, before smartphones and apps, when sometimes I would spend an entire day playing in the neighborhood with my friends without a care in the world.

But we added the app, and it’s been useful. Back to the anomaly. The app shows how long you have been in a certain location, for a few minutes or a few hours. Except for me. In my case, it says: Dad has been home since Feb. 1.

That was the day before I came down with cold symptoms. First, it was a stuffy nose. Then a scratchy throat. A day later it was worse. We had just received the we ordered through the mail thanks to President Joe Biden’s new program. On Day 3, I tested.

For the first time in this ongoing two-year pandemic, I had COVID-19. I had been vaccinated and boosted. My symptoms were relatively mild. But we began the process of isolating me from the rest of the family to try to limit the damage. My wife wore a mask and gloves if she brought me anything to the area where I was cordoned off. If I touched anything, I disinfected. The kids kept their distance. And for more than a week, I didn’t leave home.

To be cautious, my wife and daughter tested themselves before they went to a volleyball tournament. They were negative. Nobody developed symptoms. As far as we can tell, the virus was isolated to me. It’s a rite of passage I was hoping to avoid, but there’s a certain relief in having gone through it and come out with no signs of difficulty.

And now, my Life 360 app shows movement again. My brief period of isolation made me appreciate the incredible difficulties so many other people have gone through in the past two years, from the parents with young children or elderly parents, constantly going through a difficult dance trying to keep their loved ones safe; to the health care workers putting their lives on the line to save others, and then having the indignity of having to isolate from their loved ones when they get home; and, of course, those who have lost their lives — more than 900,000 Americans and counting.

I dream of the day, hopefully soon, when my Life 360 app shows the sort of movement it used to, not just for me but for my family, for our friends and neighbors, for a country weary of mitigation efforts intended to save lives.

But we’re not there yet. On the day I wrote this, recorded 3,261 deaths nationally. The seven-day average of deaths from the killer virus is still above 2,500 souls a day. Fifteen of those deaths on Feb. 11 were in the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ region, where hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are still too high but are trending in the right direction.

The freedom to move around as we wish still carries certain risks for our most vulnerable neighbors. Life 360 can wait, just a little bit longer, if it must.