<p>She owns the mailbox. She owns the room he lives in, should she go look through the room and that sort of thing, too?</p>
<p>She shouldn’t but she can if given reason to.</p>
<p>If someone runs up a huge cell phone bill that I have to pay for I sure as hell want to find out all about it.</p>
<p>She <em>can</em>, yes. She <em>can</em> read the mail and texts too. </p>
<p>Should she? Emphatically no.</p>
<p>So I guess we’ve come to agreement then? That she shouldn’t look but she can .</p>
<p>
Her mother gave her the cell phone. she gave it to her, with the intention that she’ll use it to call friends, etc. IF she didn’t want those possibilities, she wouldn’t have bought her daughter a cell phone to begin with.</p>
<p>I mean, I technically belong to my mother too, cuz she DID give birth to me, but sorry, I’m gonna do what I want to do for the most part, even if I do “belong to her”, she will not “control me” as she pleases. that logic is plainly wrong.</p>
<p>She can, legally. Doing so is morally rephrensible.</p>
<p>Yeah…if you use the logic that “mommy pays so she has the right to read the messages” then you would also agree that…</p>
<p>Anyone who is financially indebted to another person should give up all of their privacy.</p>
<p>People and inanimate objects are two different things. Surfette your assumption is that I think them the same. I do not. We are talking about a phone and text msgs here, not a full cavity search. </p>
<p>Sarorah I am pretty sure she didn’t allow her to use it with the intention that she’d run up a huge bill. The mother has a legal responsibility to pay the bill and assume all risks for it because it is still in her name. If I’m sticking my neck out for something I sure as heck want to know for what. Your assumption is also erroneous as Surfette’s was because both of you jump to the conclusion that I value a cell phone and humans equally.</p>
<p>Even the implicit right of privacy in the Bill of Rights isn’t absolute. So again I repeat myself saying the mother should not have read the msgs but she could have and did.</p>
<p>You didn’t specify, and sure, anyone “could have” read the messages . . hell, <em>I</em> could have if I wanted to, probably not that hard to lure someone to leave their cell phone out in the open, especially if you had access to friends, etc. And then if the cell didn’t have a password to txt messages, it’s super easy to find and read them. But it’s exactly like reading mail, I mean, she “owns” the address too, right? When the kid moves out, she’s still living at that same address . . so you’re right, she really shouldn’t have, but no need to be so mean towards the kid. I think you’d also be discontented to find someone read about your private matters too, even if they “had a right”. I mean, right in front of her too, reading them, that’s like being chained down and have someone hold your loved one ready to kill them or something . .with you not being able to do anything about it, like torture. She took it too far, I still show some sympathy.</p>
<p>Nosy people in general really bother me, I think I can deal with bossiness, over-confidence, jealousy, or even obnoxiousness to a certain degree, but if there is no need to get involved, why do it. . just to p.iss the other person off?</p>
<p>Meh, my mother read my emails once, I was infuriated.
The worse part is she did it right in front of me.</p>
<p>Then when I was thirteen or fourteen I went to camp, and these girls read my journal, and then *****ed at me because I wrote about them in it. </p>
<p>I hate nosy people too, that’s my biggest pet peeve of all. I’ve had people go in my bedroom and look around just for the hell of it, and then got mad when I didn’t want them going through my stuff.</p>
<p>Hence, why I refuse to have a roommate in college. Ever.</p>
<p>I had sympathy until reading the part about needing to be physically restrained from harming her mother. That to me crosses the line. That to me crossed the line. She should respect your privacy? You obviously did not respect her trust in you by running up a huge bill.</p>
<p>Yeah I hate nosy parents too…WITH A PASSION. My dad’s all up in my business about how I’m going to study for finals and how I should study for finals weeks in advance but deprioritize and blow off everything else…HELLO!!!I have school damn it!!! And they may bug me, but I’m going to do whatever the hell it is that I’ve been doing since that got me an A in English (which is what my dad’s bugging me about). He’ll soon bug the crap out of me about physics…when it comes to math and science asian parents expect you to blow off everything else and ONLY focus on math and science. I HATE THAT!!! :D</p>
<p>End rant.</p>
<p>Does the Bill of Rights have a parent/child issue appendix? A situation like this is less about “rights” or “control” and more about personal responsibility as well as legal accountability.</p>
<p>If you are under 18 and you mess up in any number of ways that involve or could potentially involve damage to yourself, others or their property, aren’t your parents held liable? Both legally and socially/morally? If you blow up a toilet at school (even if you turned 18 last month) doesn’t the principal call your parents? </p>
<p>If you are over 18 but financially dependent upon your parents, it may get murkier (especially if you’re 25 and still financially dependent upon your parents – ewwwww!) but MOST kids in this situation, should they massively mess up (I would use a more descriptive word, but we are dealing with a family audience) aren’t they, in most cases – including ductape and surfette and saorah, going to be relying in some fashion upon their parents (either financially or moral/emotional support-wise) to get them out of the big mess?</p>
<p>Unless you are a completely independent functioning adult supported 100% by your own paycheck, living 100% of the time in an abode owned or rented by you with no financial support from anyone else and you own/pay for EVERYTHING on your own (utilities/phone plan/car insurance/life insurance/computer and all ongoing charges associated with it) etc etc etc (in other words, leading the glamorous adult life to which you all aspire) then pretty much by default your parents have – in their eyes and in the eyes of all around – responsibility for, and enjoy/suffer repercussions for your actions.</p>
<p>In which case, if they think you are derailing in any way, they may feel the uncomfortable responsibility to probe for info about the derailment if you aren’t cheerfully providing those details. Even if you’re getting straight A’s, arrive happy-faced at the breakfast table every morning and have long open talks with your parents (is that the case here, ductape?) they STILL have that “parental intuition” that might alert them to something being “wrong” (like you gave away all your worldly possessions to friends last week and you’re buying those old-fashioned razor blades), and if a loving parent (which is different than a nosy parent, but the latter could sometimes be a subset of the former) decides that probing is the ONLY way to head off a possible disaster, I don’t think a jury of their peers would necessarily convict them.</p>
<p>That said, there ARE nosy parents who are nosy without justification, and perhaps they should do some hard time. Ductape hasn’t presented evidence to suggest that is the case here.</p>
<p>Every stage of life has its unanswerable questions. For you students it may be “What am I going to do with the rest of my life?” Or “Why do I have to take the Math IIC?” Or “How do I smuggle ----- into the concert/movie theatre/math class?”</p>
<p>For parents, it’s "How did eighteen years of my life fly by and all I have to show for it is a mortgage, an empty bank account and a kid for whose education I’m paying but who only speaks to me on alternate Wednesdays? For SOME parents, it’s actually “In the five minutes I have left with this kid at home, how can I better prepare him/her for what comes next?” It’s possible that confiscating your phone and reading your texts could be the partial answer to those questions. Most adults, however nosy, have VERY little desire to co-opt a teenager’s life/secrets/dark side. We have our OWN problems!</p>
<p>Be glad someone loves you enough to be there to catch you when you fall.</p>
<p>That’s all well and good and a nice speech. However, it’s common decency and respect. I would be absolutely livid if my parents opened my mail without my consent or browsed my text messages or hard drive contents. They have the right to, but not the moral justification. If that ever happened, my relationship with that parent would be irrevocably damaged and I would never trust them again.</p>
<p>How about a shorter speech: most parents would never invade the privacy of a child they trust. If they can’t trust you – and fear you are in or headed for big trouble, then I doubt whether your trusting them is at the top of their list at that particular moment.</p>
<p>Running up a large bill is not “headed for big trouble.”</p>
<p>OP’s post #'s 10, 12 and 18 suggest that “running up a large bill” is not the salient issue.</p>
<p>It’s true that no one can appropriately judge the propriety of this situation without more information. Past history, family dynamics, expectations, etc. If Mom has a history of psychotic episodes and aggression toward Ductape, well then, you may have a case against her. </p>
<p>If, however, Mom spent her life deferring her dreams to make ductape’s come true, sacrificing her life opportunities so that ductape might have an education only to discover ductape’s affinity for Adderall and poor judgment, then I continue to defend her decision, and in thirty years you probably will, too.</p>
<p>My mom is nosy too! Don’t think you are the only one. 
</p>
<p>What mom isn’t!</p>