Privacy and or Boundary

I really neglected this blog which is sad because it was my first baby...But here I am inspired to fill its pages again after a long hiatus. And today I want to write about privacy or lack there of.

I am a private person. I like to keep to myself and I enjoy alone time reading books, listening to music or just daydreaming. I enjoy socialising as well but I am afraid of people. I spend too much time "acting" around them and I find I am at my best when I am by myself, doing me (or at least close family and friends who have seen the worse of me and decided to still love me). However all this privacy went out of the door as soon as I got kids.

My kids do not know the meaning of privacy. They will barge in my room as soon as they are awake in the morning to ask for food, for me to turn on the TV or the tablet and such. They will open the door to the bathroom while I am taking a dump and ask random questions or just get inside the shower room just because they can. It annoys me to such extreme sometimes I end up screaming at them to get away. I did tell them that sometimes Mommy wants her privacy but I guess they do not understand the meaning of it. After all, I do barge in their room in the morning to wake them up, and I am witness to their showers, going to the potty and brushing their teeth. In that sense, it is normal for them to do the same. Remember that kids follow the examples of their parents. According to them, everything I do is also okay for them to unless I told them not to.

I grew up in a family of 7 or 8 sometimes. I had both my parents, my two younger brothers, and my parents sisters or cousins or parents living in the house at some point or another. Our house was not big, we had three bedrooms: my parents room attached to me and my brothers' room (we had to go through our room to get to my parents) and my aunts room on the other side of the house. Yet my parents could get privacy if they wanted. I think that after the age of two, I never saw them naked. Actually, I am almost sure I never saw them naked. At and early age, we learned that parents were not to be disturbed when they were in their rooms particularly when they close the door. We learned that we had to knock before opening the door to the bathroom (or any other room in the house) whether someone was in it or not. And we also learn to lock the bathroom door behind us when we were using it. A parent who slept inside his room or on the sofa in the living room was not to be disturbed unless there was an emergency. We also knew that trying to talk to my mother when she was in one of her mood was suicide. We knew how to make ourselves disappear in a house that was not big enough for seven people. My parents did not respect our sense of privacy as much as we respected theirs. My mother would always barge in my room even when I was a teenager and check if everything was at its place. If not she would make unpleasant remarks that urged me to clean up. Furthermore, my father has been suspect to reading my diary at least once. I was around 10 and wrote silly things on my diary and fell asleep with it on my bed. The following day, my father told me to store the diary away before I go to bed in a way that meant "or else I will keep on reading it." That is how parents were back home in those days: when it came to your kids nothing was private. But when it came to them, they could have secrets for years and you would never find out unless they wanted you to.

Going back to my kids, I really want them to understand this concept. I want them to know that it is not okay to follow Mommy in the bathroom just because you want to. If they do not get that there are boundaries even if we live in a place where we never close the doors to any bedroom, how are they going to survive in the real world? They need to learn manners because they may repeat this same behavior at someone's house. I guess I have to stop screaming at them to get away and really teach them to have good manners. I have to sit them down and go through what is good to do and what is not. After all I am their mother and it is the least I can do.