The Diary

From the moment your daughter is taught to read and write – you, her family, her teachers, peers and all of society tell her she must keep a diary of everything she thinks, does, believes and ponders.

You tell your daughter this dairy, along with her checkbook and banking ledger, must be kept in your family safe, and only you know the combination.

You promise her that despite the rule that you retain custody, you will never look at her diary or check register, and it will always be private, just hers – only hers.

Every day she writes the details of the day, as do all her friends and everyone else in society. It is normal and no one thinks much about it. Each day you put the diary back into the safe until she needs it again.

Many years of journaling and record keeping later, she finishes college, begins a job and starts to have an expanded social life. She falls in love.

Her boyfriend is considering a marriage proposal and asks you -her record custodian- for her diary so he can ensure to love her correctly, focus on her deepest concerns and desires and establish the trust in their bond.

You let him read the journal.

Your daughter finds out and feels deeply betrayed. The promise was “forever privacy” without compromise.

Now, everything has changed.

The relationship between you and your daughter is damaged. The relationship between your daughter and her boyfriend is damaged; she never wants to see him again.

Everything changed.

In an attempt to heal the damage, you tell your daughter the sincerity of motive behind the broken promise and the reason why – for her forever happiness.

Painfully, with a life of destroyed safety reflecting in her eyes, she looks at you and says, “but trust lost can never be reestablished.”

You propose new rules.

The next fiancé can only look at certain pages. He will have to ask for specific dates for review, and only the information from those dates will be reviewed. There will be restrictions on what the next boyfriend will be permitted to see.

You remind her, she cannot stop using the diary.

This is your life under FISA(702)!