My mom won’t give me any privacy! I’m on Girlslife.com and she just bursts into my room and looks at my comments! I’m not doing anything wrong, but I do talk about things I don’t even talk to my closet friends about b/c it’s embarrassing. My parents won’t even let me have a lock on my door! They have to listen in on all of my phone conversations! I’ve told her a million times that I’m not doing anything bad but her rationale is, “People only want to keep something private if it’s bad.” How do I get her to give me a little privacy?
-girlwithoutalifeb/cofmom
Your mom just wants to keep you safe and make sure you’re not growing up too fast and doing things that are too mature for your age. Totally understandable. But there are limits and parents have to learn to give a little space at some point, because you’re not going to be a little kid forever. You will have to grow up eventually (unfortunately…lol).
You seem to have a close relationship with your mom, even if it’s a little suffocating sometimes, so sit her down and have a talk with her. Explain to her that when you’re on Girls’ Life, it’s not that you are doing anything bad, but it’s a place where you can go to talk about things you’re too embarrassed to talk about with your friends and parents. So obviously you don’t want your parents looking over your shoulder.
It might be necessary to give her an example, as embarrassing as it may seem, just to give her an idea. Her idea of what may be too embarrassing to talk to her about may be completely different (and a lot worse) than what you actually feel too embarrassed to talk to her about. Show her around the website and let her see for herself, even. Like you said, if it was inappropriate, we surely wouldn’t even post it. Most of the time it’s completely harmless questions that girls are just embarrassed to ask because it’s personal (periods are a major one) or they feel dumb for not knowing.
Let her know that you understand her fears, but she needs to trust that she did a good enough job raising you to make good decisions. Ask her what you can do to start gaining her trust and see if you can work out a compromise of increasing privileges. For example, maybe she’s not ready to let you have a lock on your door just yet but could at least agree to knock on your door before barging in.
<3 Jessie M.
BY JIAE K. ON 4/19/2008 12:00:00 AM 229 COMMENTS