Missing missing reasons, wiretap edition

[ashbet]

Dear Amy: After my two granddaughters’ last visit (ages 13 and 11), my son informed me that they had recorded one of our conversations.

My son was upset by the content of the conversation but not by the fact that these two secretly recorded me.

It makes me wonder how often they’ve done this and who else they have done this to. (The girls have a lot of overnight play dates at their friends’ homes.)

I am really upset about this. Should I be?

Now I don’t allow the phones in my home, and this is creating a real problem.

Is this a violation of my privacy?

Frustrated Grandma: Yes, secretly recording you is a violation of your privacy. Yes, it is wrong of these girls to do this (it is also illegal in some states).

But this sort of behavior is within the normal range for younger adolescents, who are devoted to testing, pushing and experimenting.

Maybe when you were that age you prank-called people? This is an equivalent, and I agree that there are unintended (and intended) consequences of their choice to do this.

I hope you will use this episode as an opportunity to talk to these girls about privacy — not only yours, but theirs. I don’t think you should ban phones from your home, but forgive them for this episode and be open to the possibility that they will have learned from it.

Comments

[ashbet]

“My son was upset by the content of the conversation but not by the fact that these two secretly recorded me.”

This made my spidey-senses perk up — what exactly was Grandma saying, that the girls felt the need to record it and share it with their Dad, and he was upset about its content?

Did they feel the need to prove that Grandma was being racist, bigoted, or speaking badly about her son? Was she being awful to the girls in private?

Without that info, my concern isn’t that these kids are on a secret recording spree, I’m left to wonder why they felt like they needed proof of something their grandmother was saying outside of their parents’ hearing.

[minoanmiss]

RIGHT????

[petrea_mitchell]

Part of me is hoping that the real story is Grandma was trying to give the granddaughters some straight talk about controlling when and how they get pregnant, and they made the recording to score points with a Christian fundamentalist dad by tattling on her.

...but I admit that's not a very likely scenario. Racist/nationalist/etc talk is much more likely.

[conuly]

Amy, wtf.

[mrissa]

Seriously SERIOUSLY

How do you get from "I was saying things that were bad enough that my grandkids wanted proof I'd said them when talking to their parents about it" to "this is like a prank"?

[sushiflop]

"My son was upset by the content of the conversation but not by the fact that these two secretly recorded me."

I often think when letter writers elide details that they often enough have just not thought themselves through very well, are writing in a more stream of consciousness fashion, or are assuming that of course everyone knows they aren't thinking or doing (x unreasonable thing) that is not clear to some readers but

there is a BLACK HOLE SIZED gap in the story here. WHAT WAS THE CONVERSATION ABOUT, LW??

[topaz_eyes]

My son was upset by the content of the conversation but not by the fact that these two secretly recorded me.

I think there is a non-zero possibility LW's son specifically asked his kids to record whatever this conversation was. Maybe for proof of what LW was saying to them.

LW has the right to be upset, yes. But if whatever she was saying was dangerous to the kids, then that kind of supercedes LW's feelings.

Now I don’t allow the phones in my home, and this is creating a real problem.

LW's son won't allow his daughters to visit her anymore?

[pauraque]

LW's son won't allow his daughters to visit her anymore?

I suspect you are right that this is what LW sees as the problem, and I also suspect that for the granddaughters and their dad, it is not a problem but rather a solution.

[lilysea]

While it is possible that the girl's father is divorced, and that what upset the son was LW defending the girl's mother and LW's former daughter in law

I think the most likely scenario is

a) racism
b) fatphobia
c) homophobia

[mrissa]

It's also possible that the girls' father is divorced and that what upset the son was LW tearing into the mother of his children. I have known several people who worked SUPER hard to create a cordial co-parenting relationship in the middle of and after divorce only to have their parents create difficulties for the kids by diving into exactly the adversarial relationship the divorcing couple has avoided.

[ioplokon]

*goose meme* WHAT WAS THE CONTENT OF THE CONVERSATION?