Sunday, November 16, 2014

to trust or not

Yesterday afternoon I was involved in a conversation that has left me thinking, deeply. I had to drop Lily as school so that she could go to the old folks home and volunteer. There was only a small group and as we all waited for the bus a conversation started about trust.

We were discussing phones and tablets, and social media. One mum said she had a problem with her daughter telling too many family secrets. I said Lily doesn't post much but she flicks through inst*gram liking every single post and that drives me nuts. You can't like everything and now it is recorded in history forever that you like fluffy unicorns. It's weak child and you are not weak. I said I have all of Lily's passwords and I check what is going on. It isn't that I don't trust her but it's my job to check she is safe and also not posting anything offensive.

Well, once I said that I trust her, a particular teacher, whom I'll call Queen, said, I don't trust my kids, at all. She said you cannot trust children.

 Seriously???

In my opinion, trust is earnt. She said when we were their age we could be trusted but now we live in a different world and you just cannot trust them.

WTH?

I do trust Lily, she has earnt it. That doesn't however mean that I don't keep a close eye on her. Trust and total freedom are 2 different things. (And this is just how I feel.) She talks to me about so much, we as a family do not have secrets from each other, at least this side of the family doesn't. Does this mean that as she gets a little older she won't start being sneaky? No of course not but I have to trust her until she proves otherwise. I always tell her and have from day one to trust me. I had to prove myself to her as an adoptive parent that I was worthy of her trust so not to trust in return makes no sense.

She is very aware that trust is sacred and can be broken very easily and once it is broken it may never be rebuilt.

What do you think? Do you or did you trust your kiddies?

1 comment: