Luckily, my Mom is on Facebook.

I know kids these days don’t know what Facebook is or they roll their eyes and say it is SO passé. But I still use it as it’s been a part of my life since 2007 – woah, 9 years!- and I’ve stuck with every layout change that they made, specially in the first five years before they kind of decided to stick with the timeline format.

Of course, the usage of my Facebook greatly changed throughout the years. I was much younger and more naive 9 years ago and therefore the posts were age appropriate. I have since, as might be expected, deleted quite a few but all in all my posts were/are alright.

Around 2010 (2011?), my Mom joined Facebook and as many others, I dreaded adding her to MY Facebook. Gosh, these are my private thoughts I share on the internet with my friends, not my MOM! What should I do? Add her or block her? After a week of listening to her whining that we are truly not friends if we are not Facebook friends I decided to add her.

My Facebook posts have changed since. I think twice about what I write or think twice about who am I arguing with about a certain hot issue (btw, never get into arguments on Facebook, they are a complete waste of time and pointless!).

I guess it is safe to say that since my Mom joined Facebook, I think twice about what I say or do because I do not want her to see her daughter act like an idiot or say something stupid. Not that I do that often, but it happens. It happens to all of us and we should all be happy we have our Moms as Facebook friends- internet is not a public diary and we don’t want them to find out every detail of our lives. Or do we?

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Billy, 25, just barely got himself to “like” his Dad’s ZOO photos

Sarasota, FL- It is bad enough our parents know what Facebook is. It is even worse that they have befriended us and have the rare access to our public internet Facebook life. Their presence means only two things- posting embarrassing comments to our photos and postings and/or them posting embarrassing photos of themselves in a public or private space.

Billy, 25, has been friends with his Dad on Facebook for more than four years now and he has unfollowed his Dad’s post feed a long time ago. “He uses humor that is very typical for his generation, you know. The pictures he takes and the ideas he shares are from Ronald Reagan times and well, he loves the Three Stooges type of humor, you know, the one with physical farce and slapstick and I just find that incredibly dumb. All the old people he knows find it hilarious but I just can’t get myself to like any of it.”

Billy does try sometimes to like his Dad’s photos. “Well, I don’t want to be the son that doesn’t like anything on his Dad’s Facebook. Just the other day I liked his ZOO photos. He went there and took selfies with the giraffes and found it hilarious when monkeys were doing it in front of him and posted a bunch of photos of it. Like, it’s not that funny but I love him anyway. So I “liked” the album but I won’t “like” anything for a while.”

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