With apologies to my colleague, Eric Chabrow, I have to take issue with his position that parents should have limited access to their teenagers' medical records. His argument that extending privacy rights to teens will teach them responsibility strikes me as wishful thinking, and I speak from a wealth of experience.

I have two grown stepchildren, each of whom, as teens, stretched the right to privacy to ridiculous proportions. In respect for their privacy as adults, I won't share the specifics, but suffice it to say, the level of privacy they seemed to feel entitled to, if honored, would have undermined my ability as a parent to adequately watch out for their best interests.

With respect to Eric's point that extending and respecting privacy privileges can help to build trust between parents and teens, I'm convinced that the best -- and healthiest -- way to create those bonds is to engender openness in the relationship in the first place. We want our teens to come to us with their deepest, darkest problems without fear of being judged. We want them to turn to us for guidance in their most difficult moments. We want to support them during these times, help them make sound decisions, and aid them in navigating through the complicated health-care landscape. But if we, as parents, are in the dark informationally speaking, we may not get those opportunities. In effect, by keeping us from our teens' medical records, the law is preventing us from parenting.

We want -- no, we need -- our teens to know that we're watching them closely. Any parent who suspects their teens are hanging out with the wrong crowd and possibly experimenting with drugs and/or criminal activity surely won't think twice about searching their kids' rooms for any evidence that will provide insight into the youngsters' private lives outside the home. If we have the technical know-how, we'll also be reviewing their E-mail inboxes, sniffing their instant-messaging exchanges, and monitoring their every move on the Web. Why should medical records be any different?

I also happen to have an 8-year-old son, and I can say without hesitation that I want to be clued in to every medical development in his life, no matter how embarrassing it may be to him, especially while he's still my legal responsibility. Once he's an adult running his own life, he can leave me out of the loop. But until then, his well-being is my No. 1 priority, and my strategy is to develop so much trust with him that he'll feel happily duty-bound to share every important detail of his life with me. That, in my opinion, would be the most powerful testimony to effective parenting.

Which brings me to an important point that overshadows the whole debate: This really isn't about the kids -- it's about the parents. It's not about access to information -- it's about what we do with it. For those who treat their kids with respect, who listen instead of judge, who encourage the personal journey, who don't overreact to unexpected crises, access to medical records is unlikely to be an issue in the first place. But for those who've found parenting to be a bumpier ride, without that access, they'll be helpless. Let's just hope they know what to do with that information once they have it.