Harlan Coben The Undercover Parent

To Spy or not to Spy…That is the Question!

In his essay from the New York Times, “The Undercover Parent,” Harlan Coben argues that parental use of spyware to monitor a child’s activities on the computer. The essay begins with Coben showing his initial apprehension towards the use of spyware stating, it’s an “invasion of privacy.” Coben mentions that his, as well as many other parents, hesitation may have started from the word: spyware. Nevertheless, as the essay continues on Coben’s views, on the subject, change. He says that some parents overprotect their children and might abuse the spyware programs, but most parents just want to use them to oversee their child’s activities and make sure they are doing the right thing and not getting themselves into trouble. Coben points out that it will be a hard choice to make and your child might be mad at you for “spying” on them, but in the end you’re just trying to do the best thing and you just want to protect them.
Coben explains his
But he also refutes these views to make his point and help his readers to understand how he became to agree with the use of spyware by parents. A good instance of this is when Coben talks about parents abusing the programs to overprotect their children he uses it as a way to show that parents will “fight their kids’ battles,” but when it comes to their privacy they don’t want to intrude even if the child could be getting themselves into a difficult situation. This is a good rebuttal because it’s showing that these parents are being two-sided by wanting to protect their child when in public from such thing as playground bullying or tough coaches, but these parents also wanting to give their child privacy when they could really be getting themselves into trouble on the computer and internet where they could be talking to a sexual predator and not even know