p2pnet news | off topic:- “So you think it’s OK to get a 16 year old kid committed for pot, X, and experimenting with cocaine?” - says the first line in a comment post to yesterday’s p2pnet story which describes how a Canadian mother and father planted spyware in the family computer because they were worried about what their son was up to.

The Reader’s Write goes on >>>>>

When I was 14, my dad, just like the parents of this story, was ‘absolutely desperate.’ My grades, once straight As, were now barely passing — ‘tanking,’ even — just like the teen of this story. I was always fatigued, always moody and withdrawn, refusing to speak for days on end, skipping practices, skipping meals, staying up all night. I was changing — perhaps into a person he ‘didn’t even recognize.’

I don’t know whether he suspected drugs, alcohol, communists, or aliens, but whatever it was, he felt justified in spying on all of my activities, my friends, my finances, and my private things.

But I caught him at it. Again, and again, and again. It became a cycle. I’d withdraw further, hiding in the closet (in the literal as well as figurative sense), even sleeping in the park to escape the constant criticism, scrutiny, and bed checks. He’d intrude even more, more and more convinced that I was doing something wrong.

When I was 16, the same age as the teen in this story, the spiralling feelings of isolation and oppression almost killed me; thank God the parks in town were safe, and nobody ever sharpened the knives in the house.

As it turns out, my problems were nothing but normal high school pressures. More difficult subjects at school: chemistry, composition, trig. New teachers whose methods weren’t working for me. Friends whose interests began to diverge from mine– toward girls, especially. Feeling left behind in athletics by older boys (I’d skipped a grade). No drugs. No booze. Just a bad case of being a closeted teen trying to make it through high school, compounded, now, by a parent who had gone too far.

Family is more than being the cop, making good human beings out of children by force of law. Family is about being the closest, most familiar example of trust and respect, an example I never got to experience for myself.

The drug use of the teen in this story is tragic, and I sympathize with the parents to that extent. Still, the drugs do not justify the replacement of one possible evil with another more insidious one: the possible lifelong loss of the ability to form trusting, respectful relationships with others.

I must wonder how much of that court ordered detox addresses the drug problem the teen made for himself, and how much of it has to address the trust problem the parents made for him.

Slashdot it!

Also See:

p2pnet - Parents used spyware to save son, July 10, 2007

---

---

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

---

Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 7:55 am and is filed under Off Topic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

HOME

Viewed 3812 times