Welcome to Gaia! ::

I shall rant for awhile.

Having your mother sneak up behind you while you're reading Spanish literature doesn't sound appealing. Having your mother sneak up behind you while having the monitor on doesn't sound appealing. Having your mother sneak up behind you while chatting on IRC doesn't sound sppealing. Having your mother sneak up and read everything on your screen is morbidly frightening.

Being interviewed by your parents is disconcerting. Being asked about your life, question after question, for what seems like forever is discomforting. Your parents, the parasites with an overflowing fountain of compassion, will never stop bothering you.

There is a fine line between familiarity and intrusion. Your friends and family will be familiar to you, pat you on the back, shake your hand, sock your arm; it'd be okay. Of course. It's what friends do. But friends and family do not spy into your private life and absorb your online conversations like a famished sponge thirsting for water. You should be able to discern the border, when enough is enough.

Yet my mom, who has lived with me forever, repeatedly fails to do so.

She consistently interrupts me by standing beside me, staring at my work, looking intently at what is on the monitor, and asking me questions. Who is Ocean? What class do you have with her? Is he gay? Who is Bendeh? Who is Nova? Is Daniel BlackRose? Why does he use such a dismal name? And then, with a sudden flash of insight, she draws her conclusions. Daniel is suicidal! He's just trying to get attention! Ocean is gay!

Why does my mom do this? Why must she clandestinely make mental notes about my friends? Does it amuse her? Does she really want to annoy me that much?

Parents have the right to know everything about their children. They want to know whether their child is smoking pot behind school, joining any gangs, being involved in lucrative drug dealings. Fine, reasonable, go ahead and do that, go monitor those kids. But do you really think that the junior valedictorian is delving into the depths of hedonism?

I can't even lie without getting caught.

Parents, especially Asian parents, will find this job to be placed as a top priority. They obsess over it. They want to know absolutely everything about their child.

My privacy must be maintained. I must have the ability to dress, uninterrupted. I must have the ability to be myself in front of my friends without being embarrassed and defensive against a friendly, yet devastating menace. I must have secrets to hide, I must hold potential relationships intact, I must keep my identity. I want to be myself without worrying about people looking behind my back and reading everything on my monitor. Without privacy, I'm nobody. I wouldn't have a name, I'd be that generic Asian, I'd be a mommy's boy. Things would be monotonous, unvaried, and bland. I wouldn't be random.

This is the epitome of the perfect, obedient child.

You might consider how impossible it is for my parents to suppress my individuality. It's eerily subtle. To start off, my parents grant an Internet connection as a privilege. As you know, the Internet is my life. Whenever my parents want something from me, they will ask. Upon refusal to cooperate, they will take my Internet away. They are not scared to do this. Then they just wait before I suffer from withdrawal. It's a simple and effective system: grant a privilege, and take it away.

This is what ticks me off. I don't have power. I can't escape the omniscient eyes of my mother. I can't will for her to go away. I can't wish for her to stop bugging me. I can't implore for her to stop asking me questions. I'm powerless.

My plan: move out of my house, and never return.

I can relate somewhat. I mean, it doesn't go that far, but my mother is nosey, too. My father couldn't care less (thank goodness). My mom takes the internet away. My mom reads over my shoulder and asks annoying questions all the while judging. She judges everyone and everything I do. She constantly says that she doesn't like this friend or that one and that I shouldn't talk to them anymore. She judges the books I read, too (yes, I have had books taken away because they were "weird"). And, yes, it ticks me off.

My parents are incredibly suspicious of my actions on this here Gaia. Don't trust it. And, what's even worse, is they don't trust me anymore. I don't think it's a fair view towards Gaia itself, but in all actuality they should never have trusted me in the first place biggrin They are pushing it with the intrusion of privacy, though stare