I spent a day last week doing grown up things with my now 18-year old daughter. She turned 18 a few months ago, but it seemed like graduation really marked the grown up phase of her life.

It’s amazing what there is for a child to do when she turns 18. Not only can they register to vote, they can access their own checking account online and get online statements instead of paper statements.

I have a drawer full of online statements for both my daughters that they have never opened. As their chief financial advisor, I have been remiss in showing my daughters how to balance a checking account. Because let’s be real, how many of us have balanced our check books the old fashion way since online checking became available?

So now instead of asking me to check her balance before she spends money unwisely, she can check her own balance, thus averting my admonishment that she shouldn’t be wasting her money on virtual games for virtual stuff that is only as real as the money flying out the door.

The other perk to being 18 is that she can now access her doctor, her doctor’s office, and her medical history. There is a frustrating phenomenon that happens when children turn 13 – they have privacy rights, which removes all parental access to their medical records online. Parents can have a conversation with their child’s doctors, but billing, appointments, direct entry to their medical files is all kept under wraps from the parents. Here’s the kicker, though, it’s against the law for children under 18 to have online access to anything – which is why she couldn’t see her own checking account before she turned 18.

Anything online is a mystery not only to the 13-year-old, but also to the parents. Back when I was a teen, my parents had access to everything. Of course, the only way to have access then was to directly talk to the doctors and nurses. Now we are used to having everything at our fingertips and not being able to get immediate answers only frustrates us.

We have to actually pick up the phone, look up the number, leave a message and wait for a response. So having my daughter turn 18 has made my life much easier.

But in order to accomplish these grown up things, I still had to go with her because I know many things she doesn’t know. It’s time she started taking even more responsibility for herself. Like all the numbers I have stuck in my head that belong to her.

There is the easy stuff like her birth date, which I will never forget and our address, but then there is her social security number and her medical number. Not only do I know her numbers, but I know her sister’s numbers, my own numbers, my passwords, her father’s passwords, our checking account number, our old credit card number (new one still to be memorized), her father’s numbers, and my license plate number. If all of those numbers were ever important to anyone else, they would only need to capture me and they’d have all the information they needed. It would be nice if my daughter would take responsibility for her numbers so I can forget some and make room for more.

Yes, she’s 18 now and graduated from high school. It’s time to claim her numbers. It’s the grown up thing to do.

Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. She is still memorizing numbers. You can also read more of her writing and her daily blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com or on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh.”