Do your children have a "Right" to privacy?

We all demand a right to our privacy. There is a valid concern for who knows what about you. Everything from financial information to that brown shoe box that you keep stashed on the top shelf in the back of your closet. Lives, relationships, businesses, and even governments have been toppled because some piece of privileged information has fallen into the wrong hands.

What I would like to know is what you think about your child's right to privacy. When he/she is old enough to want to keep her/his bedroom door locked. Cell phones, internet, who their friends are, and where they go when they leave the house. What is your stand? Do you have a right to know? Do you think you should know?

For me, I want to know everything about my children. Where they go, what they do, who they know. I do not allow them to lock doors in the house. I have access to cell phones and internet accounts. I know their friends parents. Do I always exercise my right to "invade" all of these areas of their developing lives? I do occasionally with no rhyme or reason. With no malice of forethought, it is just something I do. It is something they expect. They do not mind either because it has always been that way.

We need to know everything about our children and their lives. This lessens the possibility of ever having to say, "I wish I knew".