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The Undercover Parent- Argument Essay
Parents using spyware on their kids. This is the subject of Harlan Coben’s article
“The Undercover Parent”(2008) tries to convince parents that invading their child's privacy is the right thing to do as a parent. This could be no further from the truth. He claims to have done considerable amount of research, yet his paragraphs are full of half-truths.
An example of this is his faulty understanding of what is capable with the modern smartphone. He states “ But text messages and cell phones don't offer the anonymity and dangers of the internet. They are usually one-on-one with someone you know.” (12) Cell phones have an internet portal, making them have even more danger since they are hard to monitor because to do so you need either access to the SIM card or bypass Apple security, which is impossible.
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Another example is his analogy in his article that argued that computers are not diaries if you're posting it.
“ But posting thoughts on the internet isn't the same thing as hiding it under your mattress” (10). First off, using the internet and posting are two different things; the former not necessarily meaning the latter. Secondly a lot of people use a computer word document program as a diary (which is not online) and spyware would still see it, and now you are spying on your child's diary.
From my own experience, the internet is fine as long as you’re smart about it. When preparing for my interview for a scholarship, I went to a message board called “College Confidential”. There on the board, were people who were applying, and some who had already been interviewed, and were telling about the types of questions that they were asked. All of it was anonymous, no personal info was given out and I was out ahead.
Civil liberties and rights are important in this county, specifically in this case to the right of privacy. A very important case about this is going through the courts right now, the case
of Apple VS FBI, in which the FBI is asking Apple to hack their own security software. Apple states that if they did this, hackers would be able to get into any Iphone in the world. This is the classic case of security vs privacy. Why should these privacy rights only apply to adults? Spyware is not the solution to find out what your kids are doing. People are going to make mistakes in their life no matter what they do, and hopefully they will learn from it. If your prerogative is to stop this, than be my guest, just don't give up our civil liberties in the process.
The expansion of the Internet infrastructure across the world, has brought an increased audience. Which has provided expanded markets for businesses and exploited new opportunities. There are virtually countless social sites and media used by individuals to access and share experiences , content, insights, and perspectives. Parents today tend to believe they should spy on their kids online activity. I argue parents should respect the privacy of a child's social life and his/her internet activity.
Friedman, L. S. (2010). What Is the State of Civil Liberties in the United States?. Civil liberties (pp. 11-49). Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press.
Internet is advancing every day, parents have no idea what their kids are doing in cyberspace and are contemplating the idea of spyware. In the article, “The Undercover Parent” by Harlan Coben, he argues the idea of parents putting spyware on kids’ computer is a good idea to keep the child safe. Many American parents have no idea what happens in cyberspace; sex, bullying, and drugs. Parents are torn between protecting their child with spyware and allowing the child to have privacy. Coben uses his friends’ personal experiences to support his argument without leaving room for counterarguments. By using strong emotional appeals, weak qualifiers, and sugary word choice Coben creates a weak argument that lacks persuasion.
Can you imagine having your parents incarcerated? I can, when I was 10 years old my father was incarcerated and at age 23 my mother was incarcerated. Parental incarceration impacts you as a child or a teen in so many ways due to only one parent or grandparent being able to raise the child without the other. Parental incarceration is a very dramatic event in a child's lifespan. Having a parent incarcerated can have an impact on a child's mental health, social life and educational needs. Studies show parental incarceration can be more traumatic to students than even a parent's death or divorce, and the damage it can cause to students' education, health, and social relationships puts them at higher risk of one day going to prison themselves.(Sparks,
When Amy Chua, a professor at Yale, wrote her personal memoir in 2011 called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, controversy arose regarding the topic of an extreme parenting type called a “Tiger Mom” (Tiger Mom). When The Wall Street Journal posted an excerpt from Chua’s book on their website, it received over 7,000 comments both positive and negative including death threats (Extreme Parenting). In her book, Chua describes is forcing her 7-year old daughter to stay up all night without bathroom or drink breaks until she was able to play a certain piano piece (Extreme Parenting). Her daughter rebels, drops violin, and takes up tennis (Luscombe). Extreme parents exert great pressure on their child to meet expectations, and if they are not met, the child may be punished (Hatter). The MacMillan Dictionary defines a tiger mom as “a very strict mother who makes her children work particularly hard and restricts their free time so they continually achieve the highest grades,” (Tiger Mother).
I do not agree with parents eavesdropping some private conversation between their child and their child’s friend. It invades the child’s privacy and it would make him/her feel absolutely down about it since he/she can’t be free from his/her parents. Even if the parents tell their children that they have set up the spyware on their computer, they will always find a way to talk to their Internet friends privately. In paragraph 9, Coben stated, ¨Second, everything your child types can already be seen by the world-- teachers, potential employers, friends, neighbors, future dates. Shouldn’t he learn now that the Internet is not a haven of privacy?¨ First of all, this has nothing to do with Spyware. It is a good argument, but it doesn’t have to do with the parents actually. It’s the boy’s fault to type scandalous things on the Internet and it is his decision to do that. He shouldn’t have done that in the first place to avoid getting into trouble. In paragraph 12, Coben wrote, ¨Yes. But text messages and cell phones don’t offer the anonymity and danger of the Internet.¨ I agree that it doesn’t offer the anonymity and danger of the Internet. Nevertheless, he must’ve forgotten that people have a power to cyber bully other people through texts. Above all, the people who have a great desire to upload it on the Internet, could receive the inappropriate cyber bully. Hence, it also shows the danger of being cyber bullied. In paragraph 13,
Solove, Daniel J. “5 Myths about Privacy” Washington Post: B3. Jun 16 2013. SIRS. Web. 10
The privacy of the individual is the most important right. Without privacy, the democratic system that we know would not exist. Privacy is one of the fundamental values on which our country was founded. There are exceptions to privacy rights that are created by the need for defense and security.
In Ellen Goodman’s article, “Big Brother meets Big Mother”, (2007) Goodman explains that parents are becoming to overprotective as time moves forward. Goodman supports her claim by showing the readers what parents are doing to know where their child is and what they are doing. Parents are buying electronics in order to stalk their children. Ellen Goodman tries to connect with the reader by stating that they both want the same thing, to end overprotected surveillance.
When we talk about world war 2 the first thing that comes to mind is usually the Holocaust, and little attention is paid to the many children who survived the war by hiding. The children themselves wouldn’t talk about for years to come because they thought that since they weren’t actually in the war or in a camp, their story isn’t important.When you 're little you believe in the good in everyone. Though there are some kids that know early on how bad the world can be. Concentration camps were places where hundreds of thousands of jewish people were forced to labor under terrifying conditions, treated like dirt, then stuffed into gas chambers to die. Jewish families faced difficult choices. Should they risk their children being
Growing up in a single parent home children are forced to grasp the cultivation of their parent. Children gather most of their manners, habits, attitudes, techniques, and beliefs from their parents training. Often children are involuntary placed into circumstances beyond their jurisdiction. Parents set their own religious beliefs, judgment, musical selections, sports, etc. in their household and expect their kids to abide by these conditions. As a child there isn’t much way around the parent because like most kids he or she is too young to make decisions for himself or herself. The teachings single parents bestow upon their children become a way of life and stick with that child for most or his or her life.
Parenting is single handedly the ultimate test of endurance, both emotionally and physically. Although someday I will look back and believe that parenting will have also been rewarding, currently it is like standing in the middle of a hurricane, the goal is to survive and not drown in the flood waters that surround you. Life right now feels like a category 5 Hurricane and I cannot wait for the storm to pass. Per usual, Shakespeare formulated the words perfectly to summarize parenting in a nutshell, “I would that were no age between 10 and 23, or that youth would sleep out the rest, for there is nothing in between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing and fighting” (McCarthy and Hutz 63).
People may argue on whether you step in when you see bad parenting, which is an excellent idea. Others may agree that you should let the parent be parent, regardless of if their doing a good job or not. We always see videos on social media or parent disciplining their children too harshly, abusing them, or more horrifying and disgustingly children being molested. Sometimes things may not be as bad as this, but under the circumstances someone should be able to step in and take action. I have three real life situations in which I feel like someone should step in and take action. I think in my sister’s situation, my mom’s situation, and my aunt situation someone should step in. I’ll explain why on each situation.
These individuals feel that it is an invasion of the teenagers’ right to privacy and the development of their trustworthiness. Kay Mathieson states “only by giving children privacy will they come to see their thoughts as something that belongs to them – to which they have an exclusive right.” In the United States and according to the law, monitoring the internet usage of a minor does not break any laws and is a moral obligation of the parent. Trustworthiness is an important development of a child to learn in order to develop genuine relationships with others in the lifetime. “Not only does monitoring have the great potential to undermine the trust of the child in the parent, and thus to undermine trust in others more generally, it also has the potential to undermine the capacity of the child to be worth of trust” (Mathieson). If the parent has not already had conversations with the teenager about monitoring internet usage and the parent is not telling the child about the monitoring, there is already an issue with the development of trustworthiness in the teenager. There was already a failure of development of this skill before the internet or internet monitoring was introduced.
Parents have a hard decision to make for their children when they are very young. They have to deicide what parenting style is best to raise their kids. The most important part of growing up is having that censorship to guide you in making the right decisions. Censorship is indeed needed for a child to grow and develop a well educated mind. In order for the child to be healthy, act respectfully, and have positive role models, you need censorship.