Think you should read the FML again buddy. She's nine years old. Last time I checked you're not considered a teen until you're at least 13.

I didn't say she was a teenager. I said she SOUNDS like a bratty teen. I read the FML correctly.

bratty? it isn't bratty if she's constructively expressing her emotions through writing. she'll look back at this moment and laugh. don't be so close minded about it.

OP doesn't even imply her daughter said it herself.

I see where you are coming from, but the girl is only nine. Nine year olds haven't earned the right to total privacy. She obviously does not have a good relationship with her parents, so her mom was probably just trying to figure out what was going on in her life.

If she were a teenager and not totally dependent upon her parents I'd agree with you. But she's a young child, OP has every right to see what's going on with her child.

It's true, in my opinion. If a parent is so nosy as to poke through her daughter's diary-a journal kept to write down //personal thoughts and secrets they want to keep PRIVATE//- then I doubt this mother should be talking. There is a low chance the child will trust their mother if she goes nosing through her diary like that. While I agree, calling the boys gay "because they never hit on her," though I doubt those were the child's actual words- is not appropriate for a nine year old to say it's still pretty impolite to be invading the small amount of true privacy a nine year old has. If you were in her place and your mother read your diary without permission I think you'd be upset too.

I disagree, although I don't like the thought of a child's diary being read by their parents I think sometimes it's necessary to find out what's going on, especially if the child won't communicate with their parents. I also think it is the parents responsibility to raise that child and until the child can take care of themselves the parent has a right to do all they can to try and help their child, and that may include reading their child's diary. I would say its more for extreme cases, but I do think there are cases where it's necessary. How horrible would it be if your child didn't get the help they needed because the parent wasn't aware of all their issues and all those issues were written down?

I knew a girl whose parents gave her a phone at 11 or 12 (old nokia brick phone). They let her have it but they always checked her messages and her contacts without her knowing. She never found out because the parents never came out and said what they were doing, even if she was planning to stay out later or lie to them. They never told her because that would break the trust, but they would angle their decisions and things they did to keep her out of trouble; sometimes they just let her go ahead with her deceptions and misbehaviour as long as they knew the extent of it, and would check up on her through out. In the end she wasn't that radical of a kid; quite docile and bookish with a normal group of friends. If they had interrogated her and pressured her she would most likely have rebelled and become a crazy teen and hated them forever. The point of this story is that if you're going to monitor your kids, you don't have a right to explicitly question them on things (unless its a matter of life or death) because they will never trust you again. You need to keep your distance, even if you really really want to know why she hates you or who she is thinking about giving blow jobs too. This is where parenting comes in and you work around what you already know to address whatever the issue is. You win some, you lose some, but interfering just means you lose it all. TLDR: If you want to read your kid's diary, don't be alarmist and start jumping down her throat because it does more harm than good.

Yeah cause god forbid we don't need anymore Miley Cyrus running around. Plus what does a 9 year old really got hide. Not like you should be finding a " I got drunk today then had sex with a boy.screw my parents".

My grandmother used to go through my mother's diary on a regular basis, with the same kind of reasoning a lot of people here on FML use - to 'see what was going on in her life' because she felt her daughter didn't talk to her enough. My mother has completely cut her out of her life years ago, and has no intention of ever talking to her again because she grew sick and tired of my grandmother's controlling ways. Always remember folks, your children who 'don't know any better' and supposedly don't have a right to privacy yet will grow up to be adults. And those adults have no obligation to stay in contact with you if they feel that you've violated their trust.

#98, look at things from a 9 year old point of view. Around that age, just a mere step away from the cusp of puberty, most kids, especially girls, are suddenly hyperaware of themselves and get embarrassed easily. A 9 year old's secrets may seem silly to you (for example, at 9 if you'd read my diary all you'd discover is that I was waaaay too into Animorphs) but to the kid, that's sensitive information they don't want anyone to know.

I wish my parents knew this a few years ago...

My dad and my brother read my diary when I was 10 and it destroyed my relationship with my brother and almost broke my relationship with my dad. In retrospect, I know that my dad didn't care that I had a crush on a boy in my class and that we spent recess sharing my pokemon comics, but to me at the time it hurt so much that he invaded my privacy and I was really embarrassed that he and my brother knew about it. Just because it doesn't matter to you, doesnt mean its not the be all and end all for them.

Honestly that's a little drastic

I think this too, but I think having kids is a big **** YOU to the badness in the world. It's an act of defiance and though things could and most probably will go wrong at some point, you believe enough in yourself and moreso in your child to survive and enjoy life, in the face of all the things that scare and intimidate you.

You're fifteen. Your mind might change another 20 times before you're at the age that you should have kids. I'm still not sure and I'm eleven years older than you.

Some people just know from a young age they never want to be a parent. When I was a little girl I didn't want kids. Now I'm a grown woman with a fiance and I still don't want them.

If a child won't communicate with their parents and the parents feel there is something wrong then the diary may be an option in my opinion. I think it's only for extreme cases, but there are cases. What if the child had issues that they needed help for and they never talked about those issues with their parents and the diary was the only way of knowing. Personally I think a parent should do absolutely anything to try and help their kid and if reading their diary is a way to help then that's what it takes. Again, only for extreme cases. I don't think any parent would disagree, if one does and has teenagers than please comment, I'd be interested to know their views.

Maybe this is the diary OP's daughter planted for when OP read it. I know if I were 9 and knew my mom would probably read my diary, I'd write ridiculous stuff so I could call her out on it.

I myself am a parent but my son is young yet. I respectfully do disagree with you #39 because of the invasion of privacy. A little backstory: I obviously can't say for all kids but I had a lot of hate (I was a foster child) not only for my real parents (not only because they couldn't take care of me, I didn't understand that they weren't and still are not capable of taking care of us) but I had a lot of anger towards my foster parents because I felt they were too strict and tried to control me in every way possible, when I was used to doing my own thing (I had my bad moments like everyone else but it got really bad around 9th grade and 10th) and they literally couldn't control me. I ended up being switched to another home. Anyways When I was around 10 I created a diary to express my feelings because I didn't trust them (my foster mother was super religious and I wasn't, not a good combo). I wrote things I would never tell anyone, to talking about my childhood crush, to my hatred towards many people (I admit I had a lot of hate) including my foster mother, her religious practices, and some relatives because after we would fight, she would literally ignore me when I needed her (and expect me to apologize for literally everything, even when she started it) and while ignoring me she was usually on the phone talking about how I was being bad and what "I" did (of course she never did anything wrong..) which is one reason I made the diary. She claimed to be Christian and acted totally different then what it said in her bible. And when I called her out for being a hypocrite I would get in trouble. I wrote all my feeling happy or Angry and it was my way of channeling my anger without hurting anyone. When she tricked me into leaving it in the car while we were out (she used to go through my things so I couldn't really hide it. I brought it so I could keep it in my sight.) she took it as a chance to read everything I wrote. I was crushed because no one was ever supposed to see it but once she noticed I had one she literally went out of her way to read it and then yelled and bitched at me (ignoring me when I tried to speak) for the next couple of days. Needless to say I burned the diary and lost all trust (not that I had much to begin with) and never made one or owned one again, and still don't.

Sorry for the long posts everyone. I accidentally pressed validate while trying to make it shorter and ran out of time doing so. Anyways my point is it is not a good idea to look through a child's diary. Not only will they be filled with more hate due to invasion of privacy, they will hold that against you for years to come and the relationship will never be the same if you were trying to make it better. You don't need to read the diary to figure out something is wrong. Look at how they act around others and observe the little things and if something isn't right it will show through. Again really sorry for the long posts. I'll stop talking now.

If your child is upset that you went through their diary, for doing a parent's job, you're obviously already failing as a parent. Kids rebel because they're too ignorant about the world.. Don't be in their face over everything but don't be the parents who'll let their kids do whatever they want. Just keep an eye on them.

Don't apologize #67/8, it's a great post. Thanks for sharing.

@Brandi_Faith You keep commenting the same thing on all these feeds. Why don't you think for a second about how you would've felt about your parents going through your most private things as a kid/teenager? Everyone is entitled to at least a little privacy. Even if you are the type of parent to read texts and track your child, you should at least have the common decency to stay out of your child's journal! For ****'s sake! Give the kid some room to breathe and develop into their own person... no one can harm themselves or anyone else by expressing their feelings on paper. There is NO excuse for reading your child's dairy/journal.

I'd be interested to know the "same things I post on all these feeds" other than that this comment is similar to the one I posted on this fml. These past 2 comments were a reply to other peoples comments. Sorry if you disagree with me, but a lot of people didn't disagree with my other comment. I think my opinion is still valid even if you don't agree.

#62, Great post. I think a lot of people think all kids are just happy little creatures who love unicorns, and that's not the case with many of them. One of my least favorite phrases adults say is that kids are resilient. In some cases, that is true, but many parents use that “axiom" as an excuse to be bad parents. Kids feed off their parents' behavior, and that can sometimes cause depression, anger, and resentment, as it did when I was a child about that age in a household with a verbally abusive father. I do not believe a diary should be read unless absolutely necessary, when the parent feels that something is seriously wrong with their child. Obviously, OP's situation does not fall under that category since she believed she would find “cute things." If I found out my mother read my diary, I would never trust her again.

175, so true. Some parents really need to realize that kids are a sponge and soak up everything. They are very in tune to everything and parents fighting in front of them can have very negative affects. I agree that in some cases it may be necessary to read a kids diary, as I said before, but you're right, in this case it wasn't necessary because the mom wanted to read "cute things" in it.

Thanks guys I realize my post was super long obviously and my story's different because it's more on the negative side but I felt it was a good idea to share my story and why it's not a good idea to look through anyone's diary. #183 you keep saying it is sometimes necessary to read a child's diary, but it's really not. If something is wrong, you should be able to tell by how the react to things or what/how they say things and if you can't then you are not paying enough attention to your child(ren) and then it would be on you. If a child has a diary and they feel they can't come talk to you for any reason, then try actually talking to them and seeing how they react. You can normally tell when kids are mad/upset. They don't try to hide it. I made mine because I COULDN'T go to my foster mother and talk to her about how I felt. If your kid hates you they probably won't go to you and if you are using the "concerned" feeling as an excuse for looking through your kids personal belongings, then confronting them about what they wrote in something you were not meant to read, that will only hate you more and you will NEVER get the trust you want from them. You will only kill what little trust you already have and make them feel 1. Embarrassed they made the diary 2. Make them hate you more, they won't trust you to ever stay out of their things. If they know that you know that they have a diary then that alone says they have alittle trust in you NOT to go and read it even if it has happy things in it. You want them to hate you less not more. And reading your child's private diary is not the way to go. Ever. Read their body language and pay attention to your child(ren). The clues will show when they are troubled and need your help.