A mother’s recent comments have sparked a debate on the internet because she said that since she pays for her children’s mobile devices, she has the right to look through them.
Laura Muse freely admitted that she takes her 15-year-old son’s and 17-year-old daughter’s cell phones away from them before they go to bed so that they can get a better night’s sleep and don’t become addicted to being online.
But while most people would expect her to put them away until the morning, this North Carolina mother spends some time going through them to make sure that her teenagers are behaving properly.
The 41-year-old woman stressed in an interview with The New York Post that she is allowed to do it because she pays for their phones.
I own their phones, I pay for the phones. I can go through them whenever I want,
she said.
People might think [it] is a sign of disrespect or an invasion of their privacy, but this is how I manage my ship.
What started out as random and weekly checks when her kids were around 11 years old went on well into their teen years, and the mother of two would sometimes still ask to look through their phones.
Muse also told the magazine that, even though she has full faith in her children, she does her best to keep an eye on them to make sure they aren’t doing anything weird and are safe from any online dangers that could happen.
But this doesn’t mean that the 41-year-old mental health worker hasn’t also managed to catch them by surprise. It was said that she found out that her son Cohen had posted pictures of himself without a shirt on the internet at one point. So, when the mother saw the content on the website, she made her son take it down.
If I do find something that’s an issue, we talk about it and turn it into a teachable moment,
she added.
I’m not perfect, I don’t expect my children to be perfect, but it’s important to keep an eye on things.
Muse isn’t the only mother who uses this controversial method to keep an eye on her kids as they go about their daily lives.
Other parents have gone as far as looking through their children’s personal electronic devices to make sure they aren’t seeing anything inappropriate on their phones.
At six in the morning, a mother was looking through her son’s phone when she found out that her 15-year-old son was sending sexually explicit pictures of himself to his girlfriend. Using a TikTok sound effect that said,
I’m going to lose my s*** today
The video showed her actively scrolling through the content on her teen’s phone while rubbing her forehead in a frustrated way.
Even though some people supported her move and said they did the same thing, others said she didn’t trust them.
One thing I will do that my parents did with us was never search my kids phones. They instilled the whole we deserve some amount of privacy,
one user wrote to which the mom replied back saying:
Everyone has their own parenting style. I am lenient to an extent. Child p*** is not okay in my book. Down [sic] not matter that they are both minors.
Another commenter said:
Privacy is good, But the internet is DANGEROUS” and again, the unfazed mom replied back saying: “No privacy when I pay his bills.
