When our kids were old enough to own devices capable of texting their friends (this seems strange, I still don’t think they’re old enough), we made it clear, we had access to their devices, their passwords, their texts, their healthy organs, so any and all messages would be read by one or both parents.
I’m sure this sounds absurd to some and you have already walked away from your screen.
Others might agree either with the concept or the practice or both.
I am torn.
I compare reading my children’s conversations with their friends to my parents reading my diary.
Do you remember the horror of thinking your Mom might have found your diary (that is if you could find it, I could never remember my secret hiding spot) and figured out who you had a crush on that day? It was a huge deal and a theme addressed on every prime time sitcom my generation gathered around the enormous floor model t.v. to watch.
I don’t remember my Mom saying, “Sure you can talk on the phone with your friends for as long as you like but I will be recording all of the conversations, playing them back and using them as a learning tool for you and your young friends.”
Had that been the case, I would have removed every phone jack from our house and met my friends for a bike ride (after patting them down to check for recording devices).
Some days, I don’t look at the content of the conversations at all. Sometimes weeks pass before I scan quickly to see who is contacting my children while hanging out in cyber space.
Occasionally, I come across a thread that devastates me. Young girls saying hurtful things about a classmate and my stomach turns into knots.
My gut tells me to immediately rat on the kids who are hurling such insults so publicly but I don’t want to be the Mom who runs and tells on everyone. I would rather be the Mom who spies on her own kids?
I am torn.
I think I’ve convinced myself that I’m not invading their basic right to privacy because I’m afraid for their safety.
One of my kids forwarded a message to everyone in her contact list (4 friends and us) because it said if she didn’t, “Everyone in your family will be killed.”
I don’t ever remember any of my friends telling me over the phone if I didn’t call everyone I knew immediately after I hung up my family would die. I do remember calling everyone I knew to tell them to watch The Facts of Life because it was the one where someone read Natalie’s diary.
Do you read your kid’s texts?
