The Diary Dilemma

Linda blogged recently about finding her daughter's diary and having to make the decision whether or not to read it. In the end she did and told her daughter so (met, I'm betting, by her daughter's screams of outrage.)

I've been thinking a lot about this, and honestly, I don't see anything wrong with a parent reading a kid's diary. A parent's job is two-fold in my opinion - first, to help your child learn the skills and confidence she needs to be a successful adult and second, to try to keep her alive to reach said adulthood. Which means I reserve the right to read my daughters' diaries if I ever feel either of them is in serious danger.

But I probably wouldn't do that unless I was really worried. If my child knew Mom was in the habit of reading her diary, it would make it pointless for me to read it. She'd start editing herself and the important, controversial, might-make-mom-mad things wouldn't go in there any more. She might even stop keeping the diary entirely, which would be too bad. A diary can be a valuable tool to help a person, especially a teenager, work out confusing situations in her life. (And when you're a teen, isn't everything pretty confusing?)

I feel this way because I had somebody read my diary once when I was about 12. I stopped keeping a diary that day and it was years before I started keeping one on a regular basis again. (Really, not that extreme a response under the circumstances. It was a huge mess - very Harriet the Spy.) I'm still kind of paranoid about having my journal read, which has led me to get creative about finding ways to make my journal not look like a journal. Currently, it's all in the form of letters to myself in a folder in my email program. Since the husband prefers to use another program, it makes this nice and private.

I always emphasize to the teenager that trust is earned. Since he's always been a good kid we have no reason not to trust him, but if he ever violates that trust it'll be snatched away before he can draw another breath. He'll have to earn it back by stages, then. I see diaries as part of that. As long as I trust my child, she doesn't need to worry about her privacy. Prove I can't trust you, though, and you won't have any privacy for a long time to come, kiddo.