comments on my parents' potential performance in non-fiction writing

    Privacy---when I think about my parents for any amount of time, usually this concept is at the forefront of my mind. Almost everything I do falls under this 'private' category, at least in the context of my parents. School clubs, activities, the names of my friends, it doesn't matter. Even these essays which I write are under wraps. If they don't have to know, they won't know. So, given how fanatically I value privacy, how would I feel if I got to see what they knew and thought of me? Or even worse, share my precious information with the world? What if (in a completely self-directed thought experiment), they were to do what I'm doing right now, and write a blog on me?

    Most likely, I'd be up in arms. Perhaps it's an unnecessarily hostile reaction, but I have some rationale behind this. 

    What gives them a reason to think that they can just take things I'm already loath to share with them, and then spew it to everyone else, after all? The least they can do is keep this unwillingly taken information to themselves.

    And what makes them think that they have the right to form essays dissecting my life? Depending on the subject matter, they might end up with analyses of me that I simply dislike. Maybe they'll write an essay on when I came out to them as gay, and their years of denial and resistance and discomfort which has frozen into an uneasy stalemate. Not exactly sure I'd like to see their opinions again, but in print form. Or perhaps, more benignly, they'll produce something about stuff like college applications, how I'm doing in school, or my hobbies. Even then, I'd prefer not to hear their take. The problem isn't necessarily what they say, but rather them treating my life as their own to write about, as if they have better things to say about myself than me. Can't I just blog for myself?

    So, we've established that I probably wouldn't want my parents to blog on me. But at the same time, why should I be so invested? Of all the things they could do that I'd remember bitterly eons later, writing some shitty and misinformed essays on me is basically nothing. Stupid, yes. Significant, no. 

    "But Maxwell!" you may interject. "I thought you just said you didn't want your parents talking about your life because all that stuff's super private!"

    Yes, I did cite that reason earlier as cause for me to get angry. But really, it's not that much of an issue. Usually, it's only my parents who I want to keep things hidden from. Privacy's only a matter of contention with them. Everyone else I either trust enough with things I hide from my parents (e.g. you blog readers), or don't know enough to care about them (e.g. unknown netizens). That's why you know I'm non-binary, and my parents don't (is there ever gonna be a blog I don't bring that up?). Yeah, everybody can theoretically see me through the web. But in practice, I'm as blissfully irrelevant as ever. 

    And about their 'flawed' perspectives on my life, which I complained about earlier---it doesn't matter. I have my own view of myself, and I get to choose my own influences, and whose words I really care about. I can just ignore what they say that contradicts my values. And while it sucks that these aphorisms apply to my own parents, they still ring true. 

    I have more pressing issues in my life than to care about stuff which only marginally affects me. Although yeah, I probably still will get mad at my parents for saying things about me I hate, I can still go on nevertheless. Ultimately, it's up to me and only me to paint my self-image, and not my parents.