First of all, there's right and wrong, and then there's "this is a bad idea". I would feel i'd been wronged if my parents did it to me, but I respect thats a personal feeling, I'm putting this forward in the bad idea category.
Also, in high school the incriminating things were only relevant to my parents. It was never anything that would matter if the phone got stolen, but my parents and I have such different views on the world and in those days they were more prone to lecturing and "well you can't use your computer since you did this thing wrong" tactics. As a result I kept my life private from them and feel i'm better off for it. You can say that parents need to keep their kids safe at school, but my personal experience was that my parents only really ever made school life harder.
As for invading privacy, it really depends on what the situation is. If its privacy for pricacy's sake, I agree with you. People bitching about google taking photo's of their house is stupid, but if i'm sms someone about some serious problem they're having, its embarassing for them and myself if my parents read about it, especially if they handle it poorly. If person x tells person y that they have some kind of STI. And the parents of person Y report it to the school because they are scared of it spreading, the kid could potentially be shamed, so person Y is going to know that his parents shouldn't be trusted with that kind of information.
A rare example, to be sure, but my point is there is a time and a place for privacy.
I think that's it, it depends largely on the kid and the parent. Your situation was almost the exact opposite to mine, so I personally see nothing bad in a parent reading emails/sms. I never sent/received anything that I wouldn't have wanted my mum to see, and even if I did and she saw them, she's not the holier-than-thou lecturing type. And 'no using your computer' would never have worked. :P
I think your example speaks more for the people involved. Maybe it's just me, but I don't consider an email or sms to be the right vehicle for spreading news of STIs. But whatever.
Also, in high school the incriminating things were only relevant to my parents. It was never anything that would matter if the phone got stolen, but my parents and I have such different views on the world and in those days they were more prone to lecturing and "well you can't use your computer since you did this thing wrong" tactics. As a result I kept my life private from them and feel i'm better off for it. You can say that parents need to keep their kids safe at school, but my personal experience was that my parents only really ever made school life harder.
As for invading privacy, it really depends on what the situation is. If its privacy for pricacy's sake, I agree with you. People bitching about google taking photo's of their house is stupid, but if i'm sms someone about some serious problem they're having, its embarassing for them and myself if my parents read about it, especially if they handle it poorly. If person x tells person y that they have some kind of STI. And the parents of person Y report it to the school because they are scared of it spreading, the kid could potentially be shamed, so person Y is going to know that his parents shouldn't be trusted with that kind of information.
A rare example, to be sure, but my point is there is a time and a place for privacy.
Reply
I think your example speaks more for the people involved. Maybe it's just me, but I don't consider an email or sms to be the right vehicle for spreading news of STIs. But whatever.
Reply
Leave a comment