I’m 17F and my mom is 46F. Not even a week ago, me and my boyfriend of 2 years broke up. It’s been a really hard time for me because not only did i lose my boyfriend, I also lost my bestfriend. I don’t have many friends and obviously nobody can replace him so i’ve been as always confiding in my diary.
Now this morning i was really upset so i tore down all the pages of my diary and threw them in the trash. Yes i should’ve torn them into pieces first but i was really upset and i had to go somewhere so i was in a hurry. I left soon after and got a call from my mom after less than 5 minutes of me being out. She asked me what were these pages i told her they’re not important don’t do anything just let it be. She said im reading them. Btw im indian so she doesn’t even know i had a boyfriend. As soon as the call ended i ran to our house. When i entered she was sitting on a chair reading all the pages that were dirty from being in the trashcan and smelled so bad. She asked me who i wanted to hug for the last time and who did i invite to our house when she wasn’t here. I was shivering i didn’t know what to do so i took the pages from her tried to explain the other stuff but she kept going on about how she could never trust me again and i always create problems for her. I tore them into pieces and kept them in my cupboard i don’t know what else to do. I tried to explain to her that nobody came behind her back but she doesn’t believe me.
Yes he did come and no we didn’t do anything sexual. I feel so violated because no matter what i tell her now she’s just going to believe what she wants to. I told her it’s personal and she shouldn’t have read and she said “I have the right to read everything because im your mother and what is so personal about this that you felt the need to hide it.”
It’s my diary i always wrote everything with the intention that no one was going to read it and im not comfortable at all w her reading it. She has been calling me names and saying really rude stuff to me since the morning. I haven’t said anything back.
tl;dr mom read my personal diary and thinks it is her right to read it, has been calling me names ever since.
15 comments
Brown parents. What can you expect? I stopped writing diary for the same reason. Teenagers or adult needs a lil bit of personal space. South asian people doesn’t understand that.
Wait what kind of freaky mental gymnastics is your mom doing here? She feels she can’t trust you?! She read your diary, she is 100% in the wrong here.
That being said, if you have a parent like this, i sadly don’t know how to deal with it. So sorry you have to deal with this. Good luck in this tough time <3
>I tried to explain to her that nobody came behind her back but she doesn’t believe me.
Yes he did come and no we didn’t do anything sexual.
I feel so violated because no matter what i tell her now she’s just going to believe what she wants to.
So you lied.
I mean, her emotional reaction is questionable but you tried to bullshit your way through this and everyone here should find it normal?
You both need to act right.
Both of you need to find some common ground about your romantic life, you date whoever you want but she still has a say about what can happen under her roof.
I would advice you to try honesty with her and ask her permission rather than inviting people to her place behind her back.
I can understand her anger.
And yeah, perhaps next time don’t throw “compromising evidences” away in a place your mom can easily access to if you want the information within to stay private.
Hi, I’m a Mom and I can confirm all us Moms always are curious of what’s in our children’s diary. I would not go snooping in their room or dig out their trash unless I genuinely thought my kid was addicted to drugs and hiding it from me.
I sympathize greatly with how you must be feeling. I’m sorry your Mom got a hold of your trash. Just give her time and it will pass. She will trust you again. She loves you and it will get better after a few days.
Way I was raised is that nobody — *nobody* — gets to read your diary, unless the parents think you’re in grave danger, using drugs, or the like. In most cases, the worst that is allowed is your brother steals it and ransoms it back (unread)…
I don’t even know what to say. Indian parents are so against dating and on top of that you’re a girl. My condolences
I mean she didnt really violate your personal space cause you threw it in the trash. It was fair game at that point to read. You should have kept it secret and/or disposed of it elsewhere.
That said…neither one of you should be disrespectful to the other, but its her home so you still definitely have to respect that.
This is hard because there is so much to do with culture here. While I am not Indian, I am Latinx. My grandmother was like that with my mom. You don’t talk about boys or sex. She had a total freak out when she got her first period thinking she had cut herself somehow. Her older cousin had to calm her and explain because her mother never did.
It’s a culture of do what I say without question or you’re a bad child, which isn’t true. It’s hurtful in so many ways, but the reality is that your mother is probably reacting the way she was shown and taught be her parents. It’s a cycle hopefully you break with your kids. It’s a cycle my mother broke and I continue to honor her openness and understanding with my children.
It’s going to start with you. So take this as a lesson of how to make things better for future generations in your line. Know she probably speaks from a place of her own pain. I know that doesn’t help you to experience less hurt from her remarks or treatment, but it may help you disconnect from the words she says. Don’t take them to heart. Imagine that as a young girl someone said those things to her, and she is repeating them because she never healed from them.
Don’t stop writing. Instead, do a digital diary that you can protect with a password. If you want to rip something out in the future, you just delete it. At least for now. Until you are out from under your parents’ roof, and can have more privacy.
Added: (For those saying she shouldn’t have hid her relationship, you obviously lived a life with better and more open parents. When you have parents who talk to you in positive manner and help you feel safe in confiding in them without judgment, then you don’t have to hide. I was blessed to have that with my mom, but many black and brown kids come from cultures that don’t have that open communication between parent and child. It make the child feel unsafe being honest with their parents. )
Password protect your diary on a Google doc from now on. No physical diaries.
I’m not sure what to do in the immediate, but long-term use technology to your advantage.
I’ve had similar experiences – I’m white and I have white parents, so I can’t comment on how this might be affected by your culture. But at the end of the day, she’s the one who violated your privacy by reading the pages. Wouldn’t take a genius to figure out the pages were from a journal or diary. Sure, you left them out in a communal area, but that doesn’t give her the right to get upset over this kind of thing. Maybe there’s another reason she doesn’t trust you? Beyond you being a teenager?
If I were you I’d write her a letter. That way she can’t interrupt or talk over you, and you’ll have a chance to get your thoughts in order. Tell her how you feel, whether you feel like you can’t trust her, what you’ve been going through, why you didn’t trust her with the information about your ex in the first place.
Ultimately, you’re nearly an adult. Once you’re of age or out of the house, you’re not required to have a relationship with her, especially if you are not respected or heard. I’m not sure whether you want to have a relationship with her, but trust is a two way street. When you’re an adult, you’ll have to make your own choices, and she should be there to help you with them – not make them for you.
Maybe it’s time your mom takes a starring role in your diary. You can write all about the invasion of privacy.
Mom is a control freak. Yikes. You should seek revenge. Go through her underwear drawer and bathroom goodies and say “what? I thought we were family and didn’t hide stuff from each other.” Ehehehe
She had no right to invade your privacy and a responsible parent knows how important it is to let kids have some of it to create trust. I’m sorry she did that. It’s wrong.
Print out the comments in here and leave them for her to ‘find’
I understand what you went through, it IS an Indian thing (I’m not saying that most Indians are this way), I’ve been scared of my parents finding out about my relationship. I went to the extent of BURNING my diary pages after I was done writing in them. I’d literally write at like 3 am in the morning and then tear the pages out, go to the washroom and set fire to the pile. I’d clean and dry the washroom to make sure I left no traces. Even put the exhaust on to get rid of the smoke smell.