Auntie SparkNotes: My Parents Are Going Full NSA on My Sister

Hi Auntie!

I’m currently living in a house of four: My mother, father, sister and myself. My sister has been chatting on a writing website just about everyday for the last year with a guy, and she’s absolutely smitten with him. And even better, he also likes her back! The only problem is he lives six  hours away by flight, and they’ve never met face-to-face, nor have they made any plans to. He’s been telling her he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with her because he’s still carrying some baggage from a previous girlfriend, but he still tells her he wants to kiss her and touch her, and I’m not sure if it’s gone any deeper than that.

At first, I shared some concerns with her, advising her not to pin too much of her hopes on this guy, when there’s no possibility of seeing him for at least another two years when they’re both out of uni, to keep hanging out with her other friends, to make efforts to get over him. I told her that there were a few things I found suspicious about him, such as the fact that he would only talk to her on the writing website, and he only had two other friends on Facebook, and his Facebook is under his screen name from the writing website. Maybe it’s a throw-away account. Maybe he DOES have a girlfriend in his state. Maybe he’s using my sister for a cheap ego boost. Although they have Skyped with each other, so we’re pretty sure he is who he says he is.

But then I read your advice on another Sparkler who was struggling to support her sister’s relationship. And I realized that the best thing I could do was to butt out of my sister’s affairs. So I did.

It’s just that I’m now looking for a little more advice. This morning, I caught my parents looking through my sister’s iPad. Specifically, the writing website where she’s been chatting with her not-boyfriend every day. They quickly hid it when they heard me. I know they’re concerned, and to be honest, I’m still a little concerned, but I’m not sure if this is something I should bring up with my sister. She’s told them that she’s a legal adult, and her phone and tablet are her property, but they say that since she hasn’t been acting like an adult, she won’t be treated like one.

When I confronted my mother about it, she lied to me and said she was using the iPad to look for a recipe, but I definitely saw her scrolling through a text conversation on Wattpad. I asked my dad why he didn’t trust my sister to make her own decisions, and he told me that he did trust her; he just didn’t trust anyone else on the Internet. And he told me to just let them handle it.

My parents are both computer-software engineers, and I’ve always thought them to be savvy enough to laugh at the other parents who act like the Internet is like the wild, wild west. They’re normally very respectful of our privacy. I don’t understand why they’re acting like this. Should I tell my parents to tell her? Is this something I’m allowed to get involved in? I know I take my privacy very seriously. Should I show them your previous advice?

That’s an awfully flattering suggestion, Sparkler… but alas, no. I think you’d better not—if only because no good and productive conversation has ever begun with the words, “Hey, Mom and Dad! Come see how this total stranger on the internet thinks you’re a pair of snoopy buttheads!”

You know, for some reason.

Meanwhile, this situation is complicated for all the reasons you’ve listed already, but especially because of the question as to whether this is even any of your business. In fact, it isn’t! You’re thoroughly tangled up in a mess that should never have involved you to begin with. And that’s not your fault; it’s not like you asked your parents to play detective with your sister’s messages right in front of you (this was just one of many forehead-slappingly bad moves on their part.) But it does add a sticky moral angle to this entire thing, in that heeding your dad’s order to “let them handle it,” knowing how they’re handling it, makes you an accessory to a pretty egregious violation of your sister’s privacy.

On the upside, that sticky moral angle also makes for a good exit strategy. As in, “Dad, it’s incredibly disturbing that you’re reading Sister’s messages without her knowledge, and I’m not okay with keeping it a secret from her. She doesn’t deserve to have her privacy violated like this. I’m telling you first so that you have a chance to tell her the truth yourself, but if you don’t do it, I’m going to.”

And if your parents haven’t come clean with Sis by the end of the day, then make good on your promise and let her know what’s going on.

Because that’s the one part of this that is actually your problem: You’re being asked to keep a harmful secret at your sister’s expense. It’s how you got caught up in this mess; it’s also your best way back out of it. And as for the rest of it, it’s not only not your business, but it’s irrelevant to the issue at hand. Seriously. It really, truly doesn’t matter if your sister is being catfished, if she’s being naive, or if she’s ultimately going to regret having invested so much time and feeling into her online romance with Mr. Wattpad. She could be the biggest moon-eyed dumbass in the history of internet infatuation, and her boyfriend could turn out to be a cardboard cutout of Ryan Gosling being manipulated by a team of puppeteers, and it would still be completely wrong and awful of your parents to spy on her. Everyone has a right to privacy; it’s not contingent upon “good” decision-making, and it’s not something you forfeit just because someone else has decided that you’re not using said privacy in an “adult” enough way. (Not to mention that being gullible on the internet is hardly a measure of maturity, as evidenced by the vast numbers of intelligent, successful, financially independent grownups who wire money to various “Nigerian princes” every year.)

… Which your folks will hopefully realize on their own, once you’ve gently, indirectly pointed out to them what a nasty thing it is that they’ve asked you to do. You say that your parents aren’t usually like this, and who knows; maybe their Big Brother-style surveillance started out somewhere more reasonable and just spiraled way out of control. But whether or not this situation resolves itself reasonably and quietly, you’ll be exactly where you should be in relation to it from now on: Not involved.

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