The Undercover Parent Summary

Privacy has become a huge issue as people still debate whether they want privacy or protection. And one of the debate is argued by Coben, the author of “The Undercover Parent”. Coben thinks that the concern for the security of children overrides their right to their privacy. But, I disagree because violating the children’s privacy would also involve violating many innocent kids’ privacy rights even when there are alternative ways to protect them from harm. And because of this, parent become the “faceless bureaucracy” as they monitor and dictate over the child’s life.

Coben claims that as long as it is helping the child, it is ok to break his privacy rights. He supports this claim with an example of a, “Young boy unknowingly covering with pedophile or the girl who was cyberbullied to the point when she committed suicide” (1). He argues, “Would a watchful eye have helped?” (1). But I think it is a big mistake to correlate why these incidents happened to parents not monitoring their children. Now, it may hold true that if someone had paid more attention to these kids, they would not have made a huge mistake. But, that does not excuse the fact to start monitoring every child with “watchful eyes” which would violate many

And, I disagree. That is simply an excuse. Parents are the bureaucracy, if they see everything that their child does. One of the example of parent acting like bureaucracy is when Coben says “I have found parental blocks don’t work… I want to know what’s being said in e-mail and instant messages and in chat room” (1). In this case, Coben is no different from the bureaucracy as he is monitoring every part of his child’s daily habit. Furthermore, he will start dictating over the child’s life on what’s right and wrong. In this case the author’s “loving parents” become the “faceless bureaucracy” as they monitor and dictate over the child’s