Misuse of trust

[Dave1982]

I am slightly peeved with my mother right now. As I mentioned in Hyena's "cigars" thread, I have a lock on my door that requires a key, and I gave a spare key to my mother. The reason I have the lock is because i value my privacy and do not want my siblings coming in to snoop around. I do have some alcohol in here, and while I do not think my kid brother (who is 16) would take it, it's better to not take chances, you know? I also have knives in here (X-acto knives and some fantasy Hibben knives I've mentioned before), which are best kept locked up as well (the last thing I need is my small cousins or the neighbors kids getting in here when I'm not around and getting hurt with a knife).

The spare key I gave my mother serves two purposes. 1) To give her peace of mind. This way, she can have confidence that I'm not locked up in here doing drugs or something (I'm not, of course) or if I become ill or injured, she can get to me without having to smash the door down. And 2) it's a backup in case I manage to lock myself out (which has happened a couple times).

However, I did NOT give her a key so she could come into my room without asking to try and find a screwdriver that wasn't even in here to begin with. What tools I have beyond my hobby stuff are all in my car right now. Moreover, there are a few items in here that are entirely legal, but of a personal nature that I would prefer she not know about. And my room is currently demolished, anyway, so even if the screwdriver she wanted was here, she'd never have found it.

I would have preferred that she call me at work and ask first before going in there.

In any case, she took one look and saw how much of a mess it was and decided to leave without poking around. Still, I really wish she'd asked me first.

[MadMike]

I know the feeling. My parents split up when I was 13, and I lived with my mom during the week, and stayed at my dad's on the weekends. Towards the end of my senior year, when I was in the process of enrolling in a college, a letter from the college came while I was away at my dad's. My mom told me about it when I got home, and I was quite upset to see that it had already been opened.

I asked her why she would do something like that, and she said she "thought it might have been important." I told her that even if it was, there was nothing that could have been done until I got home anyway. I also to her, in no uncertain terms, never, ever to do that again. I know it's illegal to open someone else's mail, but I don't know if that holds true if it's a parent with a child's mail, but as I had already turned 18 I don't think it matters.

We argued for several minutes about it, but eventually she promised not to do that again. I got a few letters at home when I was away at college after that, and she'd just leave them for me. If she thought it looked important, she'd call me and tell me about it, and if I said OK, she'd open it and read it off to me.