Kifle wrote:Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many of people in this thread actually have kids who also care enough about our kids to not let them be complete retards when they're young -- i.e. give them a high amount of privacy.
I have kids. I know rags, kiryan, and ashiwi have kids. We are all pretty close on this issue.
As for those who object, I know Sarvis doesn't have kids, I'm not sure about oteb.
I see a pattern.
I think you need to work on your pattern recognition skills. One occurrence does not create a pattern. In fact, the one occurrence you cite (me) hasn't even really argued against it... I've just questioned it and pointed out that a lot of the arguments Kiryan had cited had equivalents within government that came to exactly the opposite conclusion.
Anyway, what scared me the most as a kid was that my mom always found out. It didn't matter, she was magic, and she knew what I was doing. Now I realize she didn't, and she was just guessing most of the time due to behavior patterns. I have that same hold over my children -- dad knows everything. My oldest is now to the point where he realizes I don't know everything. Now I have to show him that, while I don't know everything, I can usually find out, so his probability of getting caught is still unfavorably high. He still fucks up, but he doesn't do it often, and he rarely does it twice -- because I catch him the first time.
Or he got better at hiding it...
I am able to catch him because I snoop at times, I listen when he doesn't think I'm listening, and I know how an 11yr old boy thinks. If I didn't snoop, he would be looking at porn on the internet (he's been caught and warned),
So now he does it at his friend's house.
he's attempted to run up an extremely high phone bill due to texting when he's not supposed to be (caught him before he costed me upwards of $600)... I could go on.
Anyway, I still think it's funny; and while the non-parents think they have all the answers to parenting just like us parents thought we did before we had kids, when the non-parents finally do have kids, they will understand why we do what we do and how quickly what you thought you were going to do changes.
Look, no one is saying you shouldn't try to watch over your kids. What I question is if there's a point where you take it too far, and cripple their development rather than protect them.
Just remember, you've got him for 7 more years. After that he's making decisions on his own, and if his only reason to make the right one is that he's afraid of you catching him... that's no longer a factor. Why do you think so many kids party so hard, have so much promiscuous sex and get into drugs in college? It's the first time they get away from their parents and can do things "without consequence."
Consider that your kids might be better served by teaching them how to make the right decisions, rather than teaching them to do so out of simple fear of getting caught.