> my mom required only that I let her know where I was gonna be, call her if those plans changed and let her know the new ones, and apart from that I was basically out the door by 7am and home for dinner, absent like sleepover plans or something.

  > but these were the foundations that IMO made me a responsible human

These are the same foundations that the surveillance of kids today is build on. It is the same reasoning just further down the slope (enabled by technology). You probably also knew friends that did not have to call their parents at the same frequency (or more).

Let's be honest that was the average of that day, and today the average is tracking location at any time. If your mom was taking the average measures in that environment she would probably exercise the average measures in the current day environment.

I'm not saying that it was bad. I am saying we should probably be careful with the balance between autonomy and tracking since the same reasoning is used with your mom having you call in vs the current day tracking.