You’ll never forget the day your mother joined Facebook.
You thought, “Aww man! This is awesome! Now Mom and I can share cute messages on each others’ walls and I can see photos from that wine trip she took with the family and got super loaded and she can see photos of me and my new hairdo and criticize it. It will be great!”
Then you started to think differently when your Mom began liking every God forsaken thing you ever do on Facebook and she posts ADD-like messages on your wall that say, “Where is a photo of this new guy you’re seeing?” or “I remember when you were just a little thing. Why did you have to grow up? WHY?”
Sometimes she Facebook messages you demanding to know where you are and why you’re not picking up your phone, and if that doesn’t get your attention, she moves on to 12 Facebook friends of yours/complete strangers of hers and asks where you are.
Sometimes all Moms do is get on Facebook to berate you for swearing on your profile and call you out on your forced ironic persona that you emanate through your photos and profile info. Or tell you to wear a friggin’ jacket ’cause she saw that it’s going to be 35 degrees where you are living and you don’t want to get sick, do you!?
Sometimes Moms play a lot of “What kind of (noun) are you…” quizzes and they begin taking them seriously and bring them up the next phone call conversation, saying, “This test told me that I was Jackson Pollack when I’m clearly a Georgia O’Keefe! Who comes up with these tests? I want to know!” and then she is in a bad mood the rest of the day.
Sometimes Moms like sending chain letter messages to everyone they know on Facebook or have an entire wall filled with status updates about the weather or posts 400 pictures of their dog or get easily riled up when someone disses Obama and suddenly finds themselves entering a flame war or posts messages on their wall that were clearly meant for another person or….
When Facebook was invented, parents had no idea what the hell it was. When it became more popular, they laughed at this newfangled thingymajig that was influencing the youth, all why quietly planning their attack. Then the day came where you received a friend request from your parent and life has never been the same.
Facebook is the equivalent of a little camera hiding in the teddy bear of your baby’s bed. It’s the only resource for Moms to keep tabs on their adult children. They lurk and prey and stalk and quietly document every photo, comment, and update you post on Facebook. What for? I’m not sure, but I have a feeling there will be a day when Moms use this documentation against us.
My Mom is on Facebook, and so is my Dad. Hell, I have a 90 year-old Grandma on there somewhere too but she’s never had a profile picture. And she told my Dad she was offended by my candor on Facebook. I defriended her ass after that (actually, I didn’t, but I just looked at her profile and it’s apparent she hasn’t used the thing since November). My Mom and I have a relatively harmless Facebook relationship. She respects my cyberspace and I respect hers. At least I thought. The example of a Mom contacting 12 Facebook friends when she couldn’t reach her daughter for 5 hours listed above? That one was my Mom. It was after that moment that I realized she was a loose cannon and I couldn’t trust her with social media. After pulling a 12 year-old moment and screaming, “Mom! How could you do that?!?!” for about 15 minutes, she has since become better and I feel like a raging dick. Now she sends me messages, saying, “Who the hell is so-so who posted that ignorant crap on your wall? They seem like a dumbass.” I like this Facebook interaction much better.
I know I sound like I’m being hard on Moms and insinuating that they have a complete and utter lack of Facebook etiquette knowledge. I am. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t awesome and smart and wonderful and kind of like the best people on the planet. They are. It’s just that they do weird Moms things on Facebook and it’s scary. Hey Mom, if you’re reading this- which I hope you aren’t because I specifically asked you not to read my blog so I can write about things like this, but you are a Facebook fan of my blog because you love me like that, so you’re bound to see the title “Moms and Facebook” and read this post- you know that I think you are awesome, right? You know that I love you more than anything? This post really isn’t directed at you. Besides contacting a bunch of my friends on Facebook because you thought I was lying dead in a dumpster somewhere, you actually have pretty excellent Facebook etiquette. It’s other people’s Moms that scare me.
Just please don’t ever ask me to show you Twitter. You wouldn’t like it, I promise.
Have you had any interesting Mom experiences on Facebook?
21 Comments
My mom is big with monitoring where I check in (can you afford that, out again, etc) and also the time I post at (why are you up at 1am on a weeknight). Price to pay I suppose?
@Jeff- Are you kidding me?! Ha! That's hysterical. Sounds like a very Mom thing to do. God love 'em though.
My mum is incredibly Facebook illeterate. If she's not online when it happens, she doesn't notice it.
She still does the thing where she posts status updates on people's walls, etc… someone taught her how to tag photos though. That person was NOT me. I'm not that stupid.
My mom will tag herself in all of my pictures just so she can keep up with the comments. She also likes to sign everything like so: "~Mom :0)" Like I have no idea who she is…it always makes me chuckle. She also likes to add random people she doesn't know and then ask me why they're sending her messages wanting to see pictures of her naked or if she should give them the home address so they can send her some mysterious presents in the mail. I cannot help but shake my head and laugh!
Ever since my mom (and aunts and uncles) joined Facebook I've considered dropping it. I think it's safe to say it's no longer cutting edge, but I'm afraid of becoming cybirrelevant. Maybe the only alternative is to start using MySpace again?
There was a hooker situation last week that got alot of action via comments and wall posting between me and 3 or 4 other friends on facebook.
You can bet I got a VERY early morning phone call demanding to know what this "lady of the night"(yes thats a quote from mom) business was all about.
Your mum sounds really cool.
My Mum was too. She died 5 years ago. She'd have been doing all kinds of annoying but secretly great stuff on Facebook im sure. Glad you appreciate yours.
Oh man! You guys have me cracking up!
@Jade- Yeah, it takes a bit to get over that learning curve of not posting on your own wall. I think I might have done it once or twice in the beginning too!
@KellynD- That is hysterical!!! you have to be kidding me! Do you detag your Mom from the photos?
@Colleen- Just like how there is a push to bring back the written letter, maybe there will be a push to bring back Myspace in a few years!
@Nic- Ha! Love it! Yep! Gotta love Mommas…
@Adgirl- Aww. I'm so sorry! I can't imagine. I'd be lost without my Momma. 🙁
I'm Facebook grandmother! But don't worry. My grandkids are safe from me. I'm too busy with my own life to delve into theirs! Besides, I don't really want to know EVERYTHING they are up to, do I?
Haha! My Mom isn't too bad on facebook, except she is oddly into Farmville… to the point of leaving the dinner table because "she forgot to harvest the pineapples…" We make fun of her cyber-gardening and my Dad's been trying to get her to start a real one to worry about. ("at least then, we'd have something to show for her hard work" yeah, cyber-gardening is hard work…)
ha! i loved this. you nailed it completely. gotta love the constant "bejeweled" updates! and thank our lucky stars the "farmville" craze has died down…
This is exactly why I don't let my kids on Facebook. 😉
This is exactly why I won't let my kids on Facebook. 😉
And this is why I will never "friend" a parent on Facebook. My sister made that mistake and now she has to deal with messages and phone calls about the "true" meanings behind her status updates. I just sit back and laugh.
My mom (lord knows I love her!) has a habit of perusing not only my FB profile for info but those of my friends—people she doesn't know. Simply because she can. She openly admits to being nosy and has stated that if they can't protect their own profiles it's all free game.
She's also a fan of following my check in's which are typically followed up with a "can you afford to be eating out so much?"
My mom isn't the problem. It's my grandma. She doesn't appreciate my ambiguous song lyric quoting statuses. She'll call 5 minutes after I've posted it. "What does that mean? What's wrong? Are you okay? …Well, why do you post stuff if people aren't supposed to understand it?"
Other than that, My family, our facebooks and I get along famously.
When my mom joined Facebook!
I helped her set it up because she was a pure bred digital immigrant. I had rules though. I definitely have the dominant personality in our "mom and daughter" relationship. So, I had a list of No Nos, No Way, Nevers! 1. Never forward me messages. Any messages. 2. No, I don't want to join your gang or plant cyber-lillies with you. 3. No posting embarrassing pictures of me falling asleep …on the toilet when I was potty training. (Luckily she cannot work a scanner) 4. Never contact my friends. No, don't even post comments on their walls. 5. And, Absolutely no way do you let my new boyfriend know you exist!
But… I LOVE YOU MOMMY!!!
My mom and I did fine with Facebook for years. She would go on once a month or so to look at pics of my sister's babies and pretty much ignored my page and it was good.
And then one day here and I were on each other's nerves and I chose to not answer my phone until I was in a better (nicer) mood. At which point my mother fucking facebook stalked my ass and sent me a long, angry message listing out everything I had done on facebook in the time I had not returned her phone call.
I am a mom with a son on Facebook.I will try my best to not be stalker mom.I am out and about quite a bit,so I can relate to having some respect.It is a crazy thing, that thankfully my mom did NOT have access too…..yikes.I thought your blog was super funny!
haha my mom is the exact opposite. all of her coworkers kept pressuring her to get facebook so i helped set one up for her. she never understood how to use it, always thought it was 'the man' out to get her, and then her account got hacked and it freaked her out so bad she called me and had me delete her profile immediately.
so my mom and fbook was shortlived.
I've never had a Facebook. It's mostly because both of my parents do.