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Home
and Family
Privacy
by A. Ross
How can one define privacy, and why is it so important to us?
It is as if we were to draw an invisible line around
ourselves or our belongings, and declare that this is our
territory. Each individual is responsible for what occurs
inside his own boundaries. Privacy is synonymous with the
choice of being alone, voluntarily, of one's own free will.
However, privacy also applies to property. Numerous
arguments, quarrels and disagreements would be avoided if the
rules of privacy were kept in the home. For example, my
daughter is welcome to use my pen, but I prefer her to ask
whether she can ransack my handbag for it. She will happily
lend her felt tips to her younger brother, but resents the
fact that he takes them without permission.
In a family with close-born children, one is inclined to
class them as a group, or perhaps as two groups, the 'big
ones' and the 'little ones.' However, each child is a
separate entity, with individual needs. A woman complained
about the constant squabbling in her family of ten children.
Someone suggested that she give them each a drawer of their
own. She bought two five-drawer units, and each child happily
chose his own. She told them very firmly that NOBODY, no one
at all, not even she herself, was allowed to encroach on
another one's territory. Even the baby who was not yet two
understood this very firm 'no'. He had his own drawer at the
bottom of the unit. It would be untrue to say that the
children stopped quarrelling, but there was certainly less
squabbling.
The ideals of communism are built on the premise that
everything belongs to everyone. If we raise children without
a feeling of yours and mine, they will not grow into
responsible human beings. Research has shown that babies who
were raised in institutions, without private belongings, were
immature and could not make their own decisions. They were
dependent on others to tell them what to do. Children should
be taught right from the start, that if they want to use
someone else's property, they have to ask permission. This
rule is frequently ignored in the confines of a family, but
if it is enforced, the children will learn to respect the
property of others, outside the family. The halochoh is quite
clear, "One is not allowed to use even a book which is not
ours, without the owner's permission." Rabbi A. Twersky, in
one of his excellent books, mentions a boy who is a potential
wife abuser. If he takes his fiancee's address book without
permission, and states that she will not need it any more, or
casually looks into her handbag without a by- your-leave, he
is likely to be over-possessive, which might lead to
abuse.
If a letter is addressed to an individual, it is private. It
is immaterial whether the person is a relative or not.
Whether your own children write a letter or receive one, it
is up to them to decide whether they would like you to read
it or not. Small children obviously have no need for this
kind of privacy and gleefully show the birthday card which
they have ripped open, to all and sundry. However, after the
age of about ten or twelve, children treasure their privacy
and might not show their letters, though they are probably
completely innocuous. The same applies to a diary which a
teenager keeps religiously.
Unfortunately, there is another side to this coin: in this
day and age, anyone can communicate with your child and do
irreparable damage. A child who has a good relationship with
his parents might just say casually, on opening a letter,
"Can you understand what they want from me, and who are they
anyway?" Another who is less open, is more of a problem, and
you may have to bend the rules to check whether it is an
innocent letter, or whether it comes from some undesirable
source.
Mothers need privacy as much as their children do. Some
husbands are so imbued with the concept of privacy, that they
would not dream of opening mail which is addressed to their
wife. (In our house, for some strange reason, the bills are
all in my name, and my husband too, does not open my
letters!) In many families, the teenage children feel free to
participate in adult conversations. If their parents feel
comfortable with this state of affairs, that is fine. They
always have the choice of going into the bedroom and locking
the door, or sitting in the car, or just going for a walk.
A teenage girl once commented to me, "When Daddy and Mommy
sit outside in the car, I know they are discussing
shidduchim." The days of "Children should be seen and
not heard," are long gone; however, there are still parents
who do not wish to discuss everything in a family forum.
Likewise, adults have affairs to discuss with people outside
the family, things which are not always for publication.
When teenagers invite their friends, they usually take them
to their own room, yet they think nothing of joining their
mother when a friend drops in to see her. Once again, if a
woman does not feel that this is an encroachment on her
privacy, this is her choice. Otherwise, it is quite in order
for her to tell the children categorically, "I do not
interrupt or participate in the conversations which you have
with your friends: please go somewhere else when I am talking
to my friends." Of course this is best said when the family
is alone. If, in spite of this, the children insist on
sitting with you when you are enjoying a rare chat with a
friend, I personally do not feel that there is anything wrong
with saying gently, "Would you mind leaving us alone for a
while?" No doubt, as in everything else, many people will
disagree with this method.
Privacy depends very much on individual needs. Some very
young children protest vociferously if a stranger touches
them. They are protesting at the invasion of their private
territory. Other toddlers do not mind at all. A respect for
privacy does not mean that we have to encourage selfishness
in any way; it means that we have to give an individual the
chance to make his own decision to share, and with whom to
share.
A yeshiva bochur often dropped in to see his newly
married sister. She did his laundry for him and gave him a
free run of the house, including the contents of the fridge.
The next time he went home, he asked his mother to solve the
enigma. "When she lived at home, she exploded if I so much as
touched a pencil of hers. What happened?" Mother explained
that now the girl was giving it to him of her own free will.
It was all hers and she chose to share with him.
Most children come from school with an urge to share some of
the day's happenings. Five children might attend the same
school, yet they each want to tell their experiences in their
own way. If a mother can possibly listen to one child at a
time, and if possible, not always when others are listening,
this will add to the children's feeling of having a 'private'
conversation. To repeat, children who were raised in homes
where privacy, confidentiality and space to oneself are
respected, turn into more considerate adults.
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