One mother told me recently that she read her twelve-year-old daughter’s diary and was shocked: “I thought she was a modest, naive girl, and there were such vulgarities in the diary entries. I could not believe what I read, fell into hysterics, called my husband at work, and in the evening we showed my daughter’s diary. She became furious at our message, screaming that she had no privacy, and then went to her room and locked the door. Since then, the daughter has become withdrawn and secretive, and I cannot recover from the shock. What should I do?»
And really, what? The core of this common dilemma for parents and children is extremely delicate and complex and, in my opinion, goes far beyond the question of obedience to parents. The issue of a person’s right to privacy concerns all of us, regardless of age. Is the feeling of an offended girl different from the feelings of a husband who found that his wife was reading his personal mail and rummaging through his pockets? Whether we are talking about a child or an adult, privacy is important to us and deserves careful consideration.
We can learn a lot about this issue by talking to our children. This issue is particularly dramatic and often perplexing because we are responsible for the well-being of our children, and this often gives us the false feeling that we need to know everything about them: what they think, feel, do. It is quite obvious that the anger of a child who feels that his privacy is being interfered with goes far beyond the fear of being caught when he does something forbidden, and even the fear of being punished. Obviously, this is due to self-esteem, the desire of even a small person to be treated with respect.
I think we’ll find a clue to the special meaning of privacy if we think about when it starts to become a part of a child’s life. Apparently, this happens somewhere around the age of two or three years — at a time when the child develops a heightened sense of independence and he tries to do everything himself. Privacy arises as a need to be individual, which is the most important aspect of development and maturation. This explains the fact that a child deprived of privacy is likely to become more and more secretive, while another who feels trusted and respected as a person will no longer increase his demands for privacy.
When we violate someone’s privacy, we declare a lack of trust and respect for the person, turning the victim of our insult into a «non-person». Our children’s moral standards are most likely to be influenced when they know that we respect their individuality. It is clear that insulting a child separates him and his parents, and does not unite them. The best expression of true parental care, in my opinion, is to give the child the opportunity to find himself in independent actions, and this can only happen in an atmosphere of trust and respect. A child should not grow up under a glass jar; parents should not constantly keep him under supervision, as this interferes with the natural process of personality development.
The personal diaries of many teenagers are so tragic because often they are not based on their personal experience. Fantasizing is normal and necessary for knowing one’s own sexuality; and the more it remains in personal notes, the less likely it threatens to manifest itself in their lives.
Understanding what it means to «trust» is very difficult. When I shared these thoughts with parents, many of them expressed their concern: “What if a child does something that is actually immoral?” One father, for example, said he suspected his XNUMX-year-old son was selling marijuana at a local college. The teenager has a new company in which he spends all his free time, rarely appears at home, spends a lot of money. Speaking of this, the boy’s father said: “If I start searching his room, eavesdrop on what he is talking about on the phone, or follow him, I will despise myself. Such behavior is contrary to my notions of good and bad. And if I pretend not to notice anything and bury my head in the sand like an ostrich, my son could go to jail.”
In the event that your relationship is based on trust in each other, you will receive the most necessary information about the life of a son or daughter without spying on them. None of the parents can be a constant buffer for the child, and the best thing you can do for him while he is still young is to offer him your love, care and trust. If he continues to make mistakes, help him understand what they are and learn from them a serious lesson.
I know one mother who led the lives of her two children, not for a moment letting them out of control. She was constantly going through their belongings under the pretense of cleaning their room, watching their every move. And the result was very sad: the children grew up secretive, insincere, deceitful.
And another example. I knew a family of five: three small children and two adults, they lived in a small two-room apartment. The mother of these children told me: “We went crazy from their quarrels and skirmishes, from rivalry and jealousy. The husband suggested that this was due to the fact that each of them did not have a place or thing that would belong only to him. He bought three metal boxes with locks and gave a key to each of the boys, explaining that since we live in cramped conditions it is difficult to store our personal belongings, but now each of them can have treasures that will belong only to him, and no one else can take them. The result exceeded all expectations. We helped our boys realize that each of them is an individual with their own rights and secrets, and that we respect the individuality of each of them.
The problem of privacy increases as the degree of intimacy of relationships between people increases. Children grow up and eventually begin to live their own isolated lives. Spouses can live together for 50-60 years. Never is the question of finding a balance between the privacy of individuals and their general intimacy more acute and painful than in marriage. The problem here is not to be responsible for the safety and well-being of a partner, but rather to preserve the necessary autonomy of each without deceit and subterfuge, which can so seriously violate such valuable participation and trust in relation to each other.
It seems that there are couples who are sure that the secret of their marital longevity and happiness is that they never had secrets from each other. I am convinced that such people have very similar characters: both have a “low voltage” of activity, interests and aspirations. Among this group, I have never come across «subverters of the foundations.» No, I’m not in any way trying to condemn them, it’s just that for people of high energy and creativity, for people with entrepreneurial spirit and an innate desire for change, this kind of absolute community is unacceptable. Instead of giving rise to intimacy, this leads to a feeling of infringement, and sometimes even inferiority.
The standard of a happy marriage for me was a couple who almost never parted in all fifty-two years of marriage. I thought that if they have loved each other so much for so many years, this is a good role model, and I decided that I would follow him. To my surprise and horror, I discovered that the man I married likes to be alone sometimes, alone with his thoughts, that he does not want to tell me everything he thinks, feels or does. The more I pestered and interrogated, the more he fought for his freedom, and the more he succeeded, the more threatened our closeness and mutual understanding I felt.
When he finally plucked up the courage to announce to me that he was going to take a vacation by himself, that he needed time for personal growth, I behaved terribly. I cried for six weeks and wrote him baby letters full of whining to disturb his peace of mind. One of my friends, seeing how I was going crazy, said: “Eda, when you yourself grow up, you will understand that if you let the butterfly sit in the palm of your hand and let it fly freely, then it will definitely return; but if you squeeze it in your fist, you will crush it and you will have nothing but pain and memories.
It took me years to realize that total dependency and total communion is not the best climate for a marriage to flourish. As I began to have more self-respect, loneliness and solitude became a precious state of mind. And the more I valued my need for privacy, the less I perceived the same need from my husband as a threat.
Lewis Mumford, historian and sociologist, correctly noted that the more dehumanization we feel, the more passionately we try to expose everything and everyone. The less we experience true love, the more we talk about sex; the less active we feel, the more we spill our personal thoughts on everyone who listens to us. The more indifferent and hopeless we are about the opportunity to influence our own destiny, the more we seem to want others to violate our right to privacy. If we delve deeper into this problem, it is easy to find that the less we respect the privacy of others, the more we degrade ourselves and all human relationships.
The personal freedom of the individual, which means respect and trust from others, seems to be so essential to mental health that it should be guarded with at least the same care as everything else that happens in society and affects us. . Privacy and human dignity are invariably linked to each other.
Returning to the girl, offended by the fact that her mother read her diary, we note that in order for close relations to be restored in the family, the mother must first of all apologize to her daughter for interfering in her personal life and promise never to do this again. After that, they need to talk calmly and honestly about the concerns that parents have about some of the dangers of adolescence, and give the girl the opportunity to tell her parents about her need for more autonomy. Deep respect for each other’s feelings makes trust and privacy not only possible but necessary.