My name is Nicki and I’m a snooper. It’s not that I think my kids are bad kids. It’s that I think they are KIDS. They are innately curious, they want to please, and they want to avoid upsetting us. And so sometimes they are led to do things that they shouldn’t in order to feed these goals. And because they are illogical kids, sometimes they think “I’d better not give this report card to my parents because they want me to do well and I don’t want to disappoint them” without also thinking “If I withhold info from my parents, they WILL find out and then I will disappoint them for withholding info!”. It doesn’t seem to matter how often we point this out – some kids just don’t “get it”. Hopefully, though, we will keep pointing it out and they will eventually develop the ability to fully consider their actions before adulthood!
But there are ethical and moral dilemmas at play here. Is it ok to invade your child’s privacy?
I have to admit that I don’t really get this. In most homes around the world, kids are considered extremely fortunate to even have a bedroom outside of the main living quarters or the family “sleeping room”. Adults don’t have privacy, kids certainly don’t have privacy. But, of course, we don’t live around the world. I live right here in the most affluent country in the world. But still, is this really an unalienable right for children now? With this idea of privacy for children comes a mentality of entitlement that is something I’m truly not interested in fostering in my household!
Is this a double-standard? I don’t think so. As the adults, my husband and I both expect a certain level of privacy but we have pretty clear guidelines about this. Knock before you enter our room after bed, for instance. Don’t borrow something without asking. But we try to walk what we talk and aside from healthy boundaries, we focus on respectfulness and consideration rather than just arbitrary privacy for the sake of our right to privacy. In fact, when we were searching for houses to buy this last year, we specifically chose a house with tiny bedrooms and large living spaces specifically to bring the family together rather than encouraging separation.
So is it considerate or respectful to dig through a child’s book bag, check their cell phone log or email sent folder? I believe safety is the key here. By snooping, we are saving children from a new world of internet and electronic predators or, at very least, unhealthy environmental exposures. Ask the parents of daughters who are abducted, raped or otherwise harmed through online predators if they wish they had spent more time snooping and less time respecting their budding daughter’s privacy and I bet the answer would be unanimous. And yes, sometimes, we are saving them from themselves.
Isn’t that the job of a parent? To protect and teach and save until they are old enough to do for themselves? Until that point, I’ll keep snooping.