Articles, Essays and Poems by Susan
Privacy Alert for Teenage Journal Writers
It’s 10:00 a.m. Do you know where your mother is? While you are in school, she may be scouring your diary – raping your private thoughts for signs of adolescent abnormality. Even if you suffer from adolescent normality, a mother may be snooping. Here are some telltale signs:
Mom looks guilty. When you arrive home, she scurries from your room, singing, “Home so early?”
You find her cigarette ashes on the page where you wrote how she forbids you to smoke.
Only recently did she begin to refer to marijuana as ‘Mary Jane.”
She suddenly remembers the names of all of your friends.
If you recognize any of these signs, try to expose her with some of these strategies.
Write “Hi Mom!” on page forty-eight. Sketch a skull and cross-bones beside the words.
Compose a fictitious account of your involvement in a drug deal with Columbian kingpins. Tell your therapist in advance so he’ll be ready for Mom’s call.
Threaten public humiliation. “If you read my diary, I’ll tell the Human Rights Commission the real reason you fired our African American housekeeper.”
If all else fails, hide your journal inside a parenting book entitled How to Build a Trusting Relationship with Your Child. She will never find it.
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