I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
July 28, 2008
>I recently have refined my stance on what’s appropriate and what’s inappropriate when it comes to checking up on my teenage stepdaughters. It was something I honestly hadn’t put a whole lot of cohesive thought into until now. But now that I have, here’s my policy: Reading their diaries is wrong, unless I really think they are in serious danger. The girls have every right to their private thoughts and they shouldn’t feel censored by the possibility that someone may read them.
Text messages, on the other hand, and anything transmitted over the Internet, is fair game for their father or me to read. The cell phones and Internet connection are in my name and my husband’s name, we pay for them, and we are responsible for anything transmitted in our names. I don’t think it’s right to secretly monitor their texts and Internet habits, but they should operate their computers and phone knowing that their Dad and I can access anything they transmit at any time, and that we will probably do so from time to time. It’s no different, basically, from Hubs making phone calls and sending e-mails at work. He knows his employer can monitor any business he conducts, and he operates accordingly.
I told the girls about our new policy the other night and one of them seemed to understand and accept it. The other? Not so much.
“I tell you guys everything and you still want to spy on me!” she complained. “My texts should be private!”
I hadn’t expected so much angst and dismay; I guess I thought that there would be a bit of grumbling, but that would be the extent of it. It was a policy, after all, that made sense, to me, anyway.
“This isn’t spying, because I’m telling you up front,” I said. “I’m not going behind your back. I’m telling you not to send or receive texts or e-mails that you wouldn’t want us to read.”
“Where is my privacy?” she wanted to know.
“If you want privacy, pick up the phone and have an actual conversation with your friends,” Hubs suggested. He was answered by an angry glare.
“Look, I’m not asking for your passwords, and do you know what? I should. Internet experts and the police say I should have your passwords,” I sputtered. The angry glare moved to me.
And I’m again struck by the way that so many articles tell parents to do this thing or that thing to keep their teens safe, but none of those articles tell us how to handle the 24-hour silence that follows between our teens and ourselves after we’ve taken the experts’ advice, or how to keep from feeling guilty and sad over making our kids so angry, or how to convince our teens that we’re not trying to keep them from having fun or, as my stepdaughter seems to believe, to read every single thing they write because our own lives aren’t interesting enough. We just want to keep them safe. We just want them to reach adulthood unscarred and unscathed. We just love them. That’s our sole motivation. But somehow, it continually gets lost in translation. Perhaps I should send them the message in a text.
This post originally appeared on Parents.com.
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