"Big Brother, meet Big Mother"

Another quick one.

IMs: What's a Mother to Do?
By Ruth Marcus

Tuesday, March 7, 2006; Page A17

I've been wrestling recently with the issue of domestic surveillance. Not the NSA-al-Qaeda variety. I mean an even more controversial kind of domestic surveillance: spying on your kids.

Time was, a parent's major privacy dilemma was whether to peek at a child's diary. More than one mom of my acquaintance -- some sheepish, some unrepentant -- has acknowledged engaging in such old-fashioned snooping. But as more and more communication has migrated from ink-on-paper to cyberspace, the always imprecise calibration of children's privacy vs. parental oversight has taken on new layers of moral complexity and technological feasibility. Big Brother, meet Big Mother.

It's a big issue if you've kids of elementary school age. The way we handle their growth and experimentation at this age really does have a profound effect upon the way kids relate to their parents heading into the even scarier High School years.

The writer will be taking questions today at noon on http://www.washingtonpost.com. Her e-mail address ismarcusr@washpost.com.

If you're in the midst of troubling over this issue in your home, here's hoping that the last bit may be helpful.

Love 'em while we can! Rebellion is not only natural, it's an incredibly necessary part of growin' up.