A little privacy please!

This week in my English class, my teacher handed us all a copy of a newspaper article published a few years ago stating that teens don’t have the right to privacy. The reason? Columbine high schools shooting spree. The woman writing the article believed that it could have been prevented had the students involved been more supervised by their parents. Perhaps she is right, but the ideas that she laid down to supervise us went too far in my book. She said that until we get old enough to be responsible, we don’t deserve to have privacy. By no privacy, she meant zero privacy. That meant no phone, computer, TV, and other things like that in your bedroom. It meant no retreating into your bedroom with or without a friend accompanying you, they said that if their kids ever did that then she would pull them back upstairs and involve them in a family activity. She also said that her kids could never have a personal journal that she and her husband were not allowed to read.

I talked to my friends after class and they all agreed that her point of view irritated us. Some of her points were valid, but many of them we saw as a little extreme.

To start off, I agree that perhaps we shouldn’t have our own computer passwords. I can see a few of us getting into trouble with stuff online. As for the rest of her arguments, I think that there are ways we can give and take on each side. For example, having a computer in your room is ok. Many of my friends have one in their bedroom but their parents have put locks on certain websites and the computer is connected to the one upstairs, so that the parents have access to the places they go online.

A part of her article that really bothered me is the part where she stated that there would be no retreating into your bedroom no matter what, if you did so then your parents would be “wise” to bring you back out and involve you with the family. I am the oldest of five children, and at my house it gets REALLY hectic with all the little kids running around and having arguments here and there, not to mention half the time one of them has a friend over which adds to the chaos. My bedroom is my escape from this, and I would go insane if there was no place for me to retreat when everything is crazy. My brothers have a little game they play whenever I have a friend over, it’s called “annoy starchild as much as possible until her friends leave.” Again, in the article it mentioned that if your children had a friend over and went into their bedroom, then parents should drag them out and have them do something with the family. When my friends come over, my bedroom is the only place I am allowed to push my siblings out of, the rest of the house is fair game for them. I don’t believe that my friends would ever want to come to my house again if they had to play a board game with a five year old every time they visited.

Another point I want to address is where the article stated that we should not be allowed to have private journals. Our blogs are different; the whole world can read them, so I put things I would be ok with the whole world knowing in them. But I also have a private journal. The things in my journal are things that I would never repeat to anyone. In my personal journal I vent frustrations on my family and peers, say things about others which would be pretty embarrassing if they were repeated, and organize my thoughts about personal stuff my friends have told me about themselves. Therefore, if anybody were to read my personal journal, it would be catastrophic to me and everybody mentioned in it. I mean I don’t write horrible stuff in it, but if it were to get out then me and my friend’s personal experiences and problems would be exposed to whoever happened to get a hold of the knowledge. How am I to know that whoever reads it will not let something slip? I am sure that my parents are trustworthy people and wouldn’t tell anyone what was in my journal, but it is nice to have one place where they don’t know the innermost details of your life, you know what I mean? And I hardly think that we are going to plan a murder in our journals.

There are other things that me and my friends didn't like about the article, partcularly her know it all voice, but i won't go into those at this time.

Frankly, I bet that the kids that cause the problems like the ones at Columbine High School are the ones who are either REALLY troubled, or cannot find another way to express their frustrations on the world besides shooting some stranger. I mean I wonder what I would do if I couldn’t get the stress from everyday problems out somewhere. I imagine it would build up until you burst and do something irrational, like shoot someone. Being in your kids face every moment of every day would drive them farther below the surface than where they started. If a parent is trying to get you to open up, then I know from my experiences that the absolute worst way to do so is to give them no opportunties to retreat. Please, if we want to talk to you about something, we will come to you. Forcing it out of us will not work!

To all you parents out there: GIVE US SOME PRIVACY PLEASE!