My occasional shrink, Nigel Latta, responded to a question I tentatively put to him recently about whether it was right, moral, just, and fair to hack into children’s phone and internet accounts to find out what they are up to. From our involved discussion, one point hit home:
“All’s fair in love and war”.
Yes, I thought, but I much prefer Trust, then a Truce, closely followed by long, forever after Peace (see post of 23 August).
Quickly followed by my next thought: ok, licence to delve.
I’ve alluded in the past to my investigating my son’s activities. What I’ve done I’m not particularly comfortable with, and it is a last resort.
To be fair (this is my story after all), I was flying blind. Teen1 went from the boy who had his mates call in here every day (one Friday evening at the end of summer there were nine boys here all eating spag bol before playing rugby out on the street until 9pm), to the boy who ditched all those friends for new mates, and said that late April evening: ‘I’m going out’ and went. All night.
My detective work identified:
- the kids who had been excluded from school and were hanging around the streets with time on their hands pending another school taking them: “Dnt go 2 skwl 2m. sae ur sick nd kum 2 myn. thn we wil go 2 twn or sum thing”, and, “kum 2 myn fuk rugby practise”
- the drug enablers: “we gona go up to (x) to meet up wit a dealer….I got 25 and rolled one big joint and one small one”
- the petty thieves: “wait until ur mum goz 2 sleep thn tke as mch muni as u kn…tke her card 2 gt muni owt of it…u sure u dnt knw hur pin 2 ani of hur cards nd we will chk hur card…gt as much muni as u kn out of hur wallet… nd we should get a ding… ”
Better not to know? Yes. Sort of.
It made me mad and sad and fearful. The stupidity, the audacity, the nerve, the horrific spelling… it all jangled and mangled my nerve ends and made my head hurt.
I’ve researched other discussion feeds from people who express a range of opinions: those who would never invade their child’s privacy, to those who occasionally hack into their kids’ accounts quietly admitting the need to ensure their kids’ ‘safety’ on the net, to those like me who freely admit to checking texts, emails and facebook conversations.
Actually, I’ve yet to meet anyone like me who’s done all of this. It’s a lonely strategy trying to find the Fockers. As Teen1 said to me, ‘there are places I go that you will never find out about’.
What did I gain? It is how I found the various Fockers. I had first names and asked around for last names. I tried unsuccessfully to get last names from the school. I burned the Yellow Pages online. I rang people who pointed me to others they knew.
This was the only way to find where my son was in the middle of the night or during the school day. This was how I met up with families and parents by knocking on their doors (or crashing into their houses!); how I have ended up having sometimes very difficult conversations with other parents and faced my own challenge to be in their space while having a heart of compassion, empathy and acceptance. These are parents who are struggling, too, in many different ways. I came to realize that we all do what we can with the resources we have and with what we know. I rile my son massively when he disappears and I text first him with a chance to tell me where he is, and then text his friends. He hates that. So do his mates, as one of them so eloquently put it to me:
Mate1: “how did u gt my numba” (this was the petty thief)
Me: “From the police” (that was a lie I told at about 1.30am)
Mate2: “tbh, my mother doesn’t know my friends nd not being a rude cunt but if you showed more respect for him (Teen1) may be he would be home at the moment” (this from the drug enabler).
Me: “tbh, I'm a mum who does want to know my kids' friends and cares where they are. And I hope one day you learn what respect means” (this from the self-righteous me).
That sounds pathetic and is somewhat embarrassing, and it is energy sapping texting 15 year olds at 12.30am. But then I ask myself, what does the alternative look like?
It’s whether we can sleep easy knowing where our children are, or if we can’t sleep until they are home. Safe. Wishing all parents contented sleeps.
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