‘Unfair! Excessive! Dystopian!’: my kid reviews Mazda’s babysitting software

Through the MyMazda app, these cars allow you to monitor your teenager’s driving, set them speed limits, curfews and no-go zones — they’ll hate it and resent you forever. I had a different view.

Stephen Corby

Strangely, every piece of parenting I found unfair and excessive as a teenager seems entirely reasonable to me now.

3 min read

2:07PMFebruary 27, 2025

The Weekend Australian Magazine

It will surprise none of my legions of readers to learn that I am an only child (the God Complex, the grandiose self aggrandising, the sharp selfishness, it’s all there), and I have to say my mother was wise not to push on past perfection. Somehow, however, I was talked into having two children, despite my fear that eventually they would gang up on me. Probably because I’d push them too far.

I recently borrowed some Mazdas, including the truly vast CX-70 – which has doors so large that Jack and Rose could have raised a family on them while waiting for rescue if only they’d been fitted to the Titanic – with which to torment my newly licensed son.

Through its MyMazda app, these cars allow you to not only monitor your offspring’s driving but set speed limits, curfews and no-go zones. Somehow, I even talked Mazda into letting me attach his P-plates to one of these house-sized haulers, a CX-80, and my son set off immediately to pick up six of his mates and roll around town eating unfeasible amounts of McDonald’s. I was kind enough to show him how the app worked before he left, and yet this didn’t stop my phone lighting up with notifications pointing out that he’d exceeded my generous 59km/h speed limit repeatedly, and showing me exactly where he’d done so. This led to some heated discussions about dystopian futures, Big Brother and the fact that, yes, I, personally, would have had a cow and several tantrums if anyone had attempted to do that to me when I was 17.

Strangely, every piece of parenting I found unfair and excessive as a teenager seems entirely reasonable to me now. In fact, if I could talk to my younger self in person I’d give him a good clip around the ear.

While we debated the app and helicopter parenting in general, my much younger daughter – who reveres her brother and her father much less so – watched on with an arched eyebrow and the hardened eyes of someone plotting revenge.

This Mazda looks a lot more expensive than its $78,965 price tag.

A few days later she and I set off on a long drive in a gleaming CX-70 painted in a colour known as Melting Copper Metallic (a $995 option, but one that would cost $30k on a Ferrari, so it’s a bargain really), which somehow performs the feat of making even something this big look svelte and desirable, much like coating a potato in delicious chocolate. To me, it makes the Mazda look a lot more expensive than its $78,965 price (you can have the cheapest petrol-powered one for $75,970). Some strangers stopped me in a car park to ask what the colour was while commenting on how much they admired it. One of them even asked if she could rest her cheek on the lush paint, so I drove off rapidly and called the police.

And then, without warning, my daughter suddenly started shouting numbers at me. I soon realised she was using the speed-limit warning signs that pop up on the dash – another piece of modern tech I usually think is quite handy – and screeching at me to obey them. Even if we were driving through a 40km/h zone and the car was unaware the school holidays were still on. She insisted on arguing with me for the next five hours about why I should be allowed to exceed speed limits if her brother was not, while also declaring that she would not be letting me teach her to drive when she’s old enough because I “take it too seriously”.

Sigh, and indeed grimace.

Despite its size the CX-70 was willing to be thrown into bends without behaving like a boat.

Fortunately my pain was eased somewhat by the pleasantness of driving the Mazda and the fact that its safety bings, bongs, vibrations and steering corrections were at least slightly less intrusive than my daughter’s exhortations. Despite its size (it’s as big as the seven-seat CX-80 but has only five seats, and a huge boot), the CX-70 was willing to be thrown into bends without behaving like a boat; its ride quality was of high quality and the steering sharp enough to keep me interested.

I was intrigued by the fact that its engine runs on diesel and yet it also has the little “EV” badge on the number plate, which confused some people, but this merely means it’s a mild hybrid, so it can switch off the engine to save fuel when coasting. And economical it is – we drove just over 840km and still had more than 100km of indicated range left (Mazda claims a fuel economy of 5.4 litres per 100km; I got closer to 6.3).

Using less fuel is one obvious advantage of choosing a big, six-cylinder diesel like this, and bountiful torque for climbing mountains is another, but you should have to pay for that with unpleasant and agricultural groans from under the bonnet – yet Mazda somehow hides these away. This didn’t stop my grumbling about how diesel is evil air poison and should be banned, however.

Such is the cross that an only child like me has to bear, of course, being not only opinionated but right about everything.