My parents are on Facebook and it freaks me out. I don’t have any links between this website and Facebook so I still have a place where I can speak openly, but I still feel WEIRD.
It’s been a while since my mother entered the world of Facebook. I knew she was using (HA, HA) because she kept mentioning it in when I was around without specifically asking me why we weren’t friends because that’s how my family rolls: dysfunctional!
After months of ignoring passive aggressive Facebook chatter, this morning I received a friend request from my dad. He and I have always had a different relationship than my mother and I and it took me about two seconds before deciding to accept his request. I feel a little bad. This isn’t exactly news since I make feeling bad a hobby. HELL, I’m a damned professional! I don’t know if it is from my religious upbringing or my middle-child-ness, but if I were a super hero my power would likely be GUILT.
So now I feel like I should go through my Facebook crap and clean things out so as not to offend my parents, which is how I rationalized not being connected to them on there before, but I don’t want to have to watch who I am or pretend I’m something I’m not. I’m the foul-mouthed middle child who posts suggestive pictures of myself with Brigham Young statues or makes vomit hand signals while holding a Holy Temple book in the middle of the LDS section of the local bookstore. I also rant and rave about weirdness and living in Utah gives me PLENTY to rant about.
How many of you are connected to your parents on social networking websites? Am I the only one experiencing parental anxiety? HELP!
Don’t erase anything. They know you are foul mouthed and they choose to invade your world. It’s like going to an R-Rated movie… they know what they are in for so they can’t complain about how vulgar it is afterward.
My parents stuck around actively using fb for like a week and now they don’t seem to really get on anymore. Just hope for that.
I’m on with my Mom, and I behave myself pretty much on Facebook anyway, just because people I used to work with that aren’t totally my “friends” are on there and I accepted them as friends before I realized what I was doing. So I’m somewhat circumspect. But you don’t have to be!
Agh! This is my current nightmare as well. My mother joined Facebook a few weeks ago. I was worried she might do that, but somehow never REALLY thought she would. My solution was to accept the request but block her from seeing my status updates. I thought she would not even be savvy enough to figure out she was seeing anything different, but alas, she has already asked about it. Damn. We’ll see how long before she presses me for an explanation again.
Long story short: no, you’re not the only one. I totally feel your pain.
My parents just joined Facebook too. Did you know that if you go into “Settings” you can totally limit what one person or group of people sees? You can make it so your mom doesn’t see you status updates or pictures or whatever. I had to do this when coworkers started friending me – it made me feel much better about being myself!
My parents aren’t on Facebook, but I do have a whole slew of Mormon cousins and aunts. If my parents did join, I would not accept their friend requests. My mom read my original blog, and stalked it daily……all day. Not cool.
Btw, what is it with passive aggressive, Mormon, Utah relatives? They bring this bizarre form of behavior, to an entire new level. It would be impressive, if it wasn’t so disturbing.
I’m connected with my parents. And my boss. And my company’s CEO. Needless to say, I don’t talk about threesomes with heroin-addicted midgets. At least, not online.
I don’t use Facebook, but I’ve heard you can have different settings for different users…?
I’M the parent on facebook. I’ve deliberately not friended my daughter, and she has reciprocated and not asked to friend me. She needs her own space and I guess she figures I need mine. (or maybe she already knows how boring her dad is and doesn’t need further proof.)
My mother doesn’t even have a computer yet, so I’m not to concern about her being of FB anytime soon! I think it would bother me more if she’d find out about my blog than FB, but then again maybe not. I don’t do much of the “guilt” thing… even if I’m the only child!
I felt the exact same way when faced with adding my parents on Facebook. The weirdest part so far has been my Mum getting annoyed about hearing things through my status updates before i’ve told her about them.
I guess you just have to take weigh up whether or not they will have anything else to do on Facebook except for stalk your profile to see what you’re up to!
My mom mentioned she might get FB and I talked her out of it. Though she reads my blog so… she already knows everything!
Holy crap, my dad is my friend on Facebook and I totally feel like I can’t say certain things on it. I end up being super G rated, but I’m excited to learn I can limit what stuff he can see about me.
I just posted a comment on your old blog before realizing that you have a newer, more current one. So excited to have found this. Are your parents still Mormon? I recently had an old high school friend “unfriend” me on Facebook, and I later realized it was because he’s still Mormon and I occasionally make comments about enjoying my wine, etc. I was so offended by the fact that he was offended by my wine comments. I was then tempted to send him a nasty message saying, “so you’re offended by the fact that I drink wine??? Well, I am offended by your anti-gay comments!!!” Even though he’s not someone I’d ever be “real” friends with now, I was still so irritated by the idea that he couldn’t even remain virtual friends with me….