Comments on: The Horror: Your Parents on Facebook, Befriending You

By: Staind

Staind — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:32:45 +0000

Thank god my parents are 2 old for facebook.

By: Dexter

Dexter — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 05:18:21 +0000

I would be fine with my parents friending me on Facebook. Heck, I speak my mind on there more than when I’m around them. I find it more comfortable and convenient. The problem is, my mom deleted her account and my father distrusts it. He’s probably heard so many cases of people making dumb mistakes and getting themselves in hot water or killed that he thinks it happens all the time or something.

By: KrisK

KrisK — Thu, 06 May 2010 05:34:18 +0000

Btw, i am 20 years old, and I am friends with both my parents, several aunts and uncles, and one set of grandparents on facebook.

By: KrisK

KrisK — Thu, 06 May 2010 05:33:02 +0000

I think these kids need to get their heads straight. It is the parents JOB to try to protect them, which sometimes includes what some idiots are calling ‘invasion of privacy’. If you are willing to share it with your friends and whatever strangers you have your profile visible to, but not with your parents, NEWFLASH- you probably should not be doing/posting it!

This is part of the reason that my generation is going down in flames, because the parents are so afraid to ‘offend’ their kids, they want to be their friend, they want to never be the ‘mean parent’.
I have a newsflash for you. My parents were considered very strict and restrictive by a lot of people that know us, but my siblings and I have a great relationship with them. Maybe it is time that parents realized that if you lay consistent ground rules from the day you are old enough to understand (which by the way, does not start at 13, it’s more like, simple stuff at 1) and you stick by them and always communicate clearly, then you will have a much better relationship with your kid in the long run than if you just let the kid do whatever they want.
Because eventually the kid figures out that you could have saved them from some of the mistakes they made, if you would have just made some rules based on your own past experiences, and set consequences for not following those rules. I know the kid will not always follow those rules, But I know my parents saved me from a lot of trouble with their rules. I got to do a lot of learning from other people’s mistakes instead of making them all myself!

By: hohohoacer

hohohoacer — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:58:21 +0000

anne-

you are so damn right. one of the best explanations ever.

By: anne

anne — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:59:43 +0000

*communicate

By: anne

anne — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:59:22 +0000

I’m a university student who lives at home. I have no need to communicated with my parents on facebook. Not only do they interrogate me everyday about what I’m doing/what I will be doing, but I don’t need them questioning every single one of my photos or status updates. If we were living away from each other, yes, facebook might be a good tool. But when you’re living under the same roof? Just a way for them to get into my private life in my opinion.

By: amelia

amelia — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:36:58 +0000

my PASTOR added me on facebook. THAT is scary.

By: Ali S.

Ali S. — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:38:23 +0000

I don’t mind actually. If you do feel like you will post something up naughty that your parents wouldn’t approve well thank goodness that Facebook has the ability to send mail to your friends!

Besides, my Facebook I keep open because I like to have people stop by and just say hello. It’s not very personal nor revealing.

By: samlive

samlive — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:06:05 +0000

I am friends with most of my family on facebook. I thoroughly enjoy it, and my dads pic is thuper cute! I mostly use my facebook profile for contacting people (and reliably getting responses, as most of mah friends use facebook regularly) but I also use it to construct a character. The internet is a vast open environment, anything you post anywhere can be acquired by anyone that has the knowhow, and for some reason people are just now realizing this. My page has never revealed too personal of information, and, again, I use it as more of an ‘art piece’ if you could call it that. All these whiny teens need to suck it up– the internet’s a big place and we’re all invited!!

By: Melissa

Melissa — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:18:22 +0000

If you’re that ashamed about what your folks see about you on your online profile, something needs to change besides your online life. If you’re doing things and saying things that are embarrassing to you, you need to evaluate whether or not those are things that you really need to be saying and doing at all. If they are really things that you’re into and are a part of who you really are and who you want to be, you need to accept that about yourself, own it, and stop worrying who sees it. If they’re things that actually make you a bit uncomfortable and don’t reflect who you genuinely are or want to be, you need to cut it out.

If people are weirded out by their family or coworkers or boss or customers or anyone else looking at their online profile, they need to stop worrying about who’s looking and do some looking at their lives. If you’re uncomfortable, it’s probably because you need to get real with yourself, or with everyone else.

By: capsFan

capsFan — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:02:36 +0000

Befriending your parents on Facebook sounds so horrifying to many because they see their parents as authority figures and not as friends. Just like in a busiiness… you’ll pal around with your coworkers but you probably won’t hit up a bar crawl with your boss.

Just do away with all of this drama and return to the time when communication was done by carving into stone tablets. It’s so time-consuming that the wild teens would rather walk the straight and narrow rather than put the effort needed to post a picture and caption from the weekend’s kegger.

By: unbefriendable

unbefriendable — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:31:28 +0000

I friended my college freshman cousin and talked to him often at first because he was homesick and boot camp was difficult …but when things settled down and he got in the college groove, I let him do his own thing. He’s got the right to have college adventures of his own without a family backseat of drivers. I hope he makes mistakes so that he can learn from them but I trust that the good head on his shoulders will keep him from making life-altering stupid mistakes. I can understand parents checking up on their young kids since they don’t fully comprehend the scope of their actions but by the time they reach their young adult stage, I’m hoping youngins were taught right by mama and papa long ago. Smothering will only increase urge to rebel and take part in (and post up) the wild behaviors they want to hide from their parents but show off to the rest of the world. I know that for a fact because I had a couple of those photos before I graduated.

And another reason why I don’t look at my younger cousin’s profile: Looking at the crazy pictures and odd comments is an unwanted reminder that I am old and that I was probably once as ridiculous way way back when the earth’s crust was just beginning to cool.

By: Noelegy

Noelegy — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:15:03 +0000

Not surprised: my stepson once told me I was too old for MySpace (I was bemoaning its crappy interface as opposed to LiveJournal, which I vastly prefer). Then he made a big deal out of saying that I couldn’t look at his profile because I wasn’t one of his friends. As if I’d want to…

By: Dan Smith

Dan Smith — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:13:33 +0000

god, i have some frends with their rents on fb…just…so awkward

if my rents ever get on i’m saying noo to that frend request

By: rio

rio — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:22:12 +0000

“But Gaines’ comment about how non-students and parents shouldn’t use it? That’s sad. I know my aunts use it to keep in touch with each other and their friends and organize things.”
Those are the people that can’t understand why you wont add the 39′th app they’ve sent to you.

By: Morgan

Morgan — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:44:58 +0000

A little late….but, I think its great! It allows my mom to see all the photos that I post of my daughter.

By: bigyaz

bigyaz — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:29:20 +0000

I’m on Facebook, but I have no interest in friending my college-age kids. They should feel free to interact with the friends without worrying about me seeing what they’re talking about.

I don’t listen in on their phone conversations, either. It’s the same idea.

By: Lulu

Lulu — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:33:44 +0000

I don’t get what the big deal is. I mean are we that afraid of our parents knowing who we are? Sheesh!

Or maybe it’s about realizing they are more popular than us?

As for declining Grandma’s friend request that just mean :’(

By: PK

PK — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:27:27 +0000

Teenagers, especially those who leave home for college, want time away from their families to define their identities, which is very reasonable. I think if their parents want to add them, it is not Facebook’s responsibility to block them, but the teenagers themselves have the guts to tell their parents that they want a private time. That is a question that has to be answered some time in everyone’s lives anyway, so why escape from it by using bureaucracy? That is plain stupid.

Eventually when they are mid-20s or 30 years old, they will add their parents back for sure.

By: psychobuddhist

psychobuddhist — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:26:21 +0000

Hah, I talked my mother into and helped her set up her Facebook account. Both my brother (then 15) and sister (then18) friended her right away. (Btw, I was 20 at the time.) We kids don’t really screen what our mom can see, since she already knows what we’re up to … good and bad.

By: Lyra

Lyra — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:09:41 +0000

My question is simply, “what are all these kids doing that they don’t want their parents to know?”

It’s a rhetorical question, obviously, given that I know I’m probably the one non-virgin under 25 who hasn’t also screwed a good half dozen people, and that I’m one of the rare people who didn’t get serious about alcohol until after she turned 21. If these kids didn’t make stupid decisions, they’d have nothing to be ashamed about in the face of their parents. Well, mostly.

And also, Facebook did USED to be only for students. Obviously it’s not so much anymore… But there was such a time, and more recently than over half its members may realize! At the begining, I boycotted facebook for exactly that reason – I wanted nothing to do with my party-hardy classmates, and most of my friends weren’t able to afford colleges, or at least not colleges with their own Email system. Nowadays, I want to boycott it because it’s nothing more than MySpace with less black backgrounds a little less emo.

By: Emmy

Emmy — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:45:08 +0000

wow. that just sounds like the age old teenager battle cry :”STAY OUT OF MY ROOM!”

it may just be me, but i’m of the opinion that you probably shouldn’t be doing or saying things on the internet you’d be embarrassed if your parent(s) saw it. after all, in this day and age employers and such often check potential employee’s myspace/facebook.

By: sheesh

sheesh — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:10:39 +0000

Sure it’s a nice way to connect after graduation but of your 500+ facebook friends, how many are real-world friends as in you interact outside of the facebook wall sphere? If they are close friends, then they should have more than one way to contact you. I would’ve had no problem giving up my facebook account when my college email deactivated, if that had been the case. Facebook was just another extension of the bubble-environment of a college campus. I didn’t share a dorm room, a graffiti party or an all-nighter with my parents and sure as [fill with word of choice] wouldn’t share my facebook conversations with them either.

By: ethicalBob

ethicalBob — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:16:04 +0000

I find this Hilarious. I’m old enough to be a parent (though I’m not one). When I was growing up, we hung out at the mall. We didn’t want our parents there, but occasionally we would run into them (or god forbid, we had to actually go there with them sometimes). But like anything else in public – we didn’t do anything in the mall our parents would freak out about. The analogy doesn’t completely hold, but you shouldn’t have anything on your Facebook or Myspace page that you wouldn’t want your parents to see….It’s a “public” space. In many cases complete strangers that you have “befriended” get a more intimate glimpse of your life than your parents. That’s fairly messed up.

By: Gaby

Gaby — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 04:31:46 +0000

I don’t see anything wrong with it, really. After all you shouldn’t be posting info to complete strangers that your family shouldn’t know in the first place

By: aging hipster

aging hipster — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:47:06 +0000

but some of us college students have graduated and actually become parents. Are we supposed to stop?

By: JM

JM — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:12:44 +0000

@ Layla: Your 72 year old grandmother tried to befriend me too and I declined.

By: Christophe

Christophe — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 02:22:50 +0000

So true!

By: sheesh

sheesh — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:34:12 +0000

I miss when it was just a networking site strictly for college students. I used my account less and less when a flood of high school students started adding ridiculousness(before they added the privacy settings, I had to see the amount of crazy my two high school cousins and their friends can cram into a day of facebooking) and with so many of my family recently joining and adding their 2 or 2000 cents to every one-sided conversation they read on my wall, I’ve been resorting back to other means of communication. If they find a way to hack into my email, cell phone conversations, text messages, encrypted spy codes, pony express mail…. I’m going to go off the grid and take a vow of silence.

By: Lala

Lala — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:11:10 +0000

My 72 year old grandmother tried to befriend me and i declined.

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:54:51 +0000

I’m 45 and monitor three kids on facebook. My problem — my mom signed up! Her profile picture is from the 1950s!

By: Leah

Leah — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:48:27 +0000

HAHAHA! Former classmates planning our 25th reunion sucked me into Facebook. My 18yo son is all wigged out that I’m on it. However, I have not asked him to “Friend” me because I think that’s creepy.

By: Madi

Madi — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 23:57:26 +0000

I’m a college student, and friends with my dad and several other family members on facebook. Yes, it’s sometimes creepy, but that’s what privacy settings are for. If you don’t want your parents to see something, stick them in your limited profile section, and only let them see certain albums, etc. Solves the problem.

By: mother theresa

mother theresa — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 23:33:33 +0000

I’m a weird old aunt and I have a niece, bro and mom as my “buds” but I don’t check in on the niece except now and again as I don’t want to intrude. I mostly use facebook to post links, photos and videos of interest and to mouth off about my stupid job. My niece is an adult and what she does is her biz.

By: donna

donna — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 23:22:51 +0000

I felt the same way when relatives started reading my blog. ;^)

By: Facebook Mom

Facebook Mom — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 23:01:42 +0000

My son invited ME to add him on Facebook, because he needed me in his mob : ) We live pretty far apart, and have been MySpace friends for a couple of years, we use it to post videos, etc…we find online. I always avoided his Facebook account until he asked, because I did not want him to think I was trying to cramp his lifestyle. I don’t follow ANYONE on Twitter, just use it for Woot alerts – more information than I really want to know about anybody: )

By: Anon

Anon — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:42:46 +0000

This is a direct consequence of what happens when people just go to popular sites and leave perfectly good (if not better) sites to die. They then become “overpopular”. Deal with yer parents nubs, you did this to yourselves. LOL!

By: boo

boo — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:03:02 +0000

I actually was on Facebook long before my kids – they were all using myspace and I really liked that Facebook was a site for grownups!

By: Jacki

Jacki — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:50:54 +0000

Haha. Fun article. I think its perfectly fine for older generations to join facebook so long as they don’t use it intentionally to spy on their sons/daughters. ^^

The invasion of privacy would just create a greater rift between their relationship if the parent is reduced to spying.

By: DOJ

DOJ — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:41:09 +0000

Facebook used to be a niche market. Many people enjoyed this niche so Facebook grew and prospered. Now Facebook is wide open and the niche is not being served. But now, since everyone you know uses Facebook, it’s hard for niche users to leave and still remain connected.

By: lifepundit

lifepundit — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:32:04 +0000

Very funny! I think….

My daughter doesn’t want me to read “Twilight” because “That’s just weird.”

There are some strange lines being drawn between teenagers and parents. As long as all is well, I don’t need to cross them.

But, I’ll cross them if I think I need to.

By the way, I thought “Twilight” was boring so she’s safe.

By: seekshelter

seekshelter — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:16:31 +0000

if you want to lie to your mom..then thats your business. the privacy notifications dont help in this situation. if your mom has her own profile then she knows how the site works… so if you exclude her from viewing your wall and she knows that such a thing does exist then shes gonna ask you why she cant see it…

By: Ali

Ali — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:03:14 +0000

Why not stop the problem before it starts? Get those tech-savvy younguns to create a family network, with something like ning.com, and have a nice, vanilla page for everyone there. Aunt Judy would be thrilled to use her computer contraption to keep in touch with everyone, and the family “kids” can keep their Facebook separately for their social purposes.

By: sadtomato

sadtomato — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:37:59 +0000

Just change the privacy settings so that mom and dad can only see what you want them to see of you on Facebook.

By: ted

ted — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:27:31 +0000

Funny thing is that kids don’t want their relatives to see what personal info and pics they’re posting on the net for perfect strangers to view. Kinda bizarre.

By: The Other Parker

The Other Parker — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:12:22 +0000

I’ve found that Facebook’s built-in privacy settings are more than capable of quieting what unwanted people can see, and you can also filter your news feed to remove the annoying stuff *other* people do from your own eyes.

By: seekshelter

seekshelter — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:55:01 +0000

speaking of which… my very much younger nieces asked me if i had a myspace… i avoided answering so i guess i would rather not have my family checking in on me.

By: seekshelter

seekshelter — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:52:52 +0000

i stared a facebook account not too long ago… i dont log on much… the other day my brother and his wife added me… which is fine, but facebook likes to tell everyone every single thing that you do… the whole “so in so is now friends with so and so and so and so left a comment”… grrrr… so yeah, i get to see my brother and his wife comment back and forth with sexual innuendo..ugghhh… id much rather not know every little thing that everyone on there is doing.

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:36:58 +0000

A buddy of mine is going to college far away, and asked me to join Facebook so we could use their superior chat app. I just don’t know…I’ve done the Myspace thing since it was new, and it all seems rather ad-heavy compared to my windows live webcam sessions. To each his own…