Madam, - We are ourselves parents of a 14-year-old, but reading about the privacy dispute between Miriam Donohoe and her son Stephen (Life Features, February 20th) brought to mind two phrases from George Orwell's 1984.
One was "doublethink", where you learn to simultaneously believe an idea and its opposite, as in "we aren't into this business of snooping" and "I picked up his mobile phone. . .and started to casually check his messages."
The other phrase was "Thought Police": why does Ms Donohoe want to become the Thought Police? Children have to grow up and turn into adults. This means that they become separate individuals who have a life of their own and don't automatically confide in anyone. It may be painful, but we have to accept that parents may be the last people teenagers want to confide in about some subjects. They need to feel confident that they can communicate with their friends without fear of intrusion.
Ms Donohoe would like to believe she trusts her son, but she still wants to make a serious invasion of his privacy. She should stop pretending to herself that it is anything else. Remember that the Thought Police were a branch of the Ministry of Love: the possibilities for self-delusion are endless. - Yours, etc.,
CIARAN and KILDA
TAYLOR,
Royal Terrace West,
Dun Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.