Any teen growing up in the 80s or 90s might tell you there was no relationship more sacred than the one you had with your diary.
It was where you revealed all your deepest darkest secrets told to no one else. So you know the feeling all too well if you learned that one of your parents at some point or another picked up your diary to read it.
That brings us to our Dr. Miles Intervention this morning, it's a "reading of the diary" of sorts for 2022.
A man took to Reddit to ask if he was in the wrong for reading his 16-year-old daughter's text messages without her knowing. Apparently, the family's iCloud account has been experiencing some technical difficulties allowing him to read his children's texts.
The father explained in his post:
Now I'm usually a trusting dad and I delete these threads without reading them as soon as I notice they're there, but this time it was different," he started, "my daughter is planning on attending a certain music fest this weekend with some friends. She has a job and bought her ticket on her own. I originally had no issue, she's usually responsible. I saw an interesting message in a thread with her friend that showed up in my phone. The message read 'we should be able to sneak it in if we hide it well' so... I snooped.
I opened the thread and read it. I was shocked at what I saw. She was talking about alcohol. Her and her friends are planning on sneaking in alcohol, marijuana, and something I have personally never heard of called 'molly.' I legitimately don't know what that is so as you can assume by this point I'm freaking out. I scroll up to find the outfits daughter plans on wearing as well. When I say 'outfits' that's me being very generous because to me it looks like just underwear, not an outfit.
The father ended up not even letting his daughter attend the festival, based on the messages he read, and they have not spoken much to each other since.
The Reddit community was mostly on his side though.
The top comment read, "You're protecting your child and enforcing totally reasonable rules. I would also give the other parents a heads up about what's being planned, they should have the opportunity to decide if they want their children in that situation."
So was this guy in the wrong? Is it ever ok to read through your children's private messages? Would it make a difference if you're paying for the phone or not?
Have an Intervention? Email us at DrMilesIntervention@Gmail.com
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