Secret, Privacy and Respect - How Hard Can It Be?

Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Some people just value privacy like me, but others would probably say that we are too snobbish. Excuse me?!

Yes, a matter of privacy is quite sensitive for me. Since I was a growing teen, I would be very angry when my parents just try to come into my room without knocking. They were angry because I locked the door almost all the time. Why can I have some privacy, some secrets to keep to myself?

But in the past decade where the internet communication world is developing faster, as the social networking tool users such as Friendster and now Facebook,  I felt that privacy is being undervalued. Using the tools, they ask you 'nicely' to share everything with the world. I know it's nice to let people know SOME of my activities but not all of it. It's also nice to know what's up with my friends in other parts of the world.

However, everything has its boundaries. I, have my own boundaries. And they are not to be breached. First, my family. I don't mind putting myself out here in the virtual word, but not my family. That's why I don't put my hubby and kids' face in either Facebook or blogs. The trouble comes when people tagged my kids who were with me. I will just say politely 'thank you' and sneakily remove the tags ;)

Some people just don't understand this. I always said, don't take picture of my kids or don't publish my kids picture. The people who understand will simply said okay and send the pictures of my kids to my private email. But they who don't (or don't want to) understand, will make a big fuss of it. Some say, what's wrong with putting your kids picture in Facebook? I can say the opposite, why do you want to put your kid's face in public?

One of the reason is that my husband doesn't allow it. He doesn't want his children's face go out in public. You don't know, who will see your picture anyway. That's why before I went live with blogspot, I took off all picture with the  visible face of  my children. And yes, I stop writing the milestone about my kids, a long time ago in blogspot. I would not know who come here (saw those spam and some disgusted me). And the one that my hubby was really afraid of that the picture will be seen by 'sick people who like kids' (you know who I meant, the name is like Voldermort so I dare not say the term of this kind of people...euugh, naudzubillah min dzalik.)



Some people would say, "The mother is narcissistic why don't let your children to be narcissistic too?  (Ibunya narsis, anaknya kok ga boleh narsis")
For that kind of joke, I just answer, "Let them have their own narcissism when they can decide for themselves."

Yes, secondly, I value my own privacy. That's why I am setting the privacy in Facebook to high and taking an effort to make a list of people who can not see many of my pictures and some of information. Do you know, that hackers can hack you easily if they have your birth date in Facebook? When you typed password incorrectly 3 times, the first thing Facebook asks is your birth date. So, I kept my birth date just for the people I really know in real life, cause I use Facebook as online game as well ;p.

For pictures, my in laws were stricter than me. When I visited them, of course I took some pictures. And then I want to share it WITHIN the family only. Well, you know as a proof that we were visiting. So I just put in an online photo album and share it in an email link.

O my! He called me and asked me to put down his family picture from the album. I already told him that it's only circulated within my circle and of course some of them are his circle too. But he insisted. Of course, I took it off and apologized to him. See, there are some people who have higher privacy boundaries than me. I still like to have my pictures somewhere in public.

Why can't some people respect that?

Chaiwat / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Second, other people's secret. My closest friends know very well that I'm a very good 'gatekeeper'. I would never let my friends' secret out of my mouth. Even to my husband. I will ask permission to them  first, whether I can tell this to my hubby. It's a big difference for me. I always share everything with my husband about ME, not everything about my FRIENDS. It's their secret, not mine. And I was very, very angry and annoyed, when a friend of mine was telling to her husband about a secret of mine, after I told her that I didn't want people to know about it. Then her husband suddenly make an ANNOUNCEMENT to a communication group about the thing that I said should be kept secret from public. I just CAN'T understand it. And she just CAN'T understand why I was angry about it and made a big fuss out of it. Sister, I didn't ask for your help to announce it but to keep. How hard can it be?


If you read this post honey, yes, you know it's YOU. I never felt betrayed like this. It's okay that you tell YOUR secret to your hubby. I DO TOO. But not someone else's, AND when I already said don't let people know, still your hubby put the word out???!!! I believe he's not the the one who I put my trust on. It was an Amanah to you. Literally, I shed tears out of anger and disappointment.

Gee, I just answered my own question about how hard can it be to keep a secret. Yes, amanah is very heavy burden, even the mountains refuse to carry it. But we human are too snobbish thinking that we can carry that burden (Al Ahzab: 72-73)

Now everyone knows a fact about me that actually I have been trying hard to cover except around my closest friends here. I have been trying to divert the question about that one fact about me every time some people asks. I sometimes like to be vague and mysterious you know (:p)

So people please respect other people's privacy. If you don't understand why s/he doesn't want you to do this or that about him/her, ASK. Not everyone want to have some parts of his/her life being made in public. They already have their own principles, why can you respect it? I respect your choice, why can you?