{"id":211739,"date":"2026-02-09T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/09\/dear-abby-does-concern-for-safety-ever-justify-invading-a-parents-privacy\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T17:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T22:20:08","slug":"dear-abby-does-concern-for-safety-ever-justify-invading-a-parents-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/09\/dear-abby-does-concern-for-safety-ever-justify-invading-a-parents-privacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Abby: Does concern for safety ever justify invading a parent\u2019s privacy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Abby: Does concern for safety ever justify invading a parent\u2019s privacy?<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cleveland.com\/advice\/2026\/02\/dear-abby-does-concern-for-safety-ever-justify-invading-a-parents-privacy.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-09 17:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.cleveland.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Dear Abby: I disagree with your response to \u201cDutiful Daughter in Alabama\u201d (Nov. 10), who put a camera in her 80-year-old mom\u2019s den in case of a fall and overheard Mom make negative comments about her. Installing a camera in someone\u2019s home without their consent is disgusting and wrong, legally and morally. The elderly, in addition to the rest of the population, have a right to privacy in their own homes. <\/p>\n

If \u201cDutiful Daughter\u201d was really concerned about her mother falling, she should have considered a medical alert device, which would have notified family and summoned medical help the moment she fell. This is the safer, legal and common-sense solution. <\/p>\n

It sounds like \u201cDutiful\u201d had other undisclosed reasons for installing a camera. Why did she listen to a conversation that was clearly private? How would she know if her mother fell in another room of the house? If her mother was talking on the phone or visiting with her son, it should have been clear that she was OK and no additional spying was required. <\/p>\n

After reading this letter, if children think it is OK to invade their parents\u2019 privacy without their consent, I\u2019m happier than ever to be child-free. <\/p>\n

— ANNE P. IN MINNESOTA\t<\/p>\n

Dear Anne: To put it mildly, you are not the only reader who disagreed with my answer to that letter. I confess, I didn\u2019t consider the privacy issues that were ignored. Mea culpa.<\/p>\n

See all \u201cDear Abby\u201d columns <\/p>\n

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, California 90069. Copyright 2026, Andrews McMeel Syndication. <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Abby: Does concern for safety ever justify invading a parent\u2019s privacy? https:\/\/www.cleveland.com\/advice\/2026\/02\/dear-abby-does-concern-for-safety-ever-justify-invading-a-parents-privacy.html Publish Date:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":211740,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cleveland.com\/resizer\/v2\/RH4P5EE24RFGVFN3BRKBKEHS5A.jpeg?auth=663321a7477fa242ac503ac76be073677fa754137b9cb28b567c32e8d91b8c68&width=1280&smart=true&quality=90","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211741,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211739\/revisions\/211741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}