E-mom - Are parents on facebook a no-no?

Well it’s apparently official – I’m an E-mom. This is not a good thing. It makes me feel like someone who’s past their prime, trying to be young, hip and cool (a cougar? - hanging out in nightclubs thinking they pass for 20 something but just not cutting it in their leopard skin tights...).

The thing is that I joined facebook quite a while ago. I have a network or friends and contacts… My children also joined facebook. The opportunities for overlapping were there… Of course they accepted my friend requests, and some of their friends even ‘friended’ me… so I thought it was all ok.

But I was wrong. Apparently if you have children, you must be old and by proxy, have no business using social networking sites – because your children are on there and that is their domain … and you are a stalker!!!

Watch this news piece on the phenomenon below…



Are all mothers so uncool? I just feel lumped into this category now - ashamed and utterly uncool. I feel like the pimply pre-teen outcast in Grade 7… who has tried to join the chat in the cafeteria with the cool girls, and they all turn and look at you in stony silence.

Should I retreat? Give it all up to spare my children the embarrassment?

The real issue is that once parents are on facebook, any photos of their children that are uploaded (and tagged), can be viewed and even saved by their parents… And I admit guilt here. Our college aged son is half a world away, across continents even! We are really easy going, non-pedantic, open minded parents. But it’s nice to ‘see what their up to’ from time to time… there have been a few times it would have been better NOT to see though… The truth is that those years are all about finding your footing. Learning how much partying you can get away with, and still make it through to a degree. I suppose if you come out the other end having had fun and succeeded, then no harm done.

But how would I feel if the shoe were on the other foot? If my parents could have seen into my social world when I was a teenager – with evidence of every out of control party, and tweets professing that I was too hung over to get to class … well. I guess I would be equally horrified.

I am so glad the world has only taken this turn toward complete social invasion – with constant updates and photo proof of everyone’s movements – AFTER I got through the teenage years and college.

Not sure my parents would still be talking to me if they’d seen what I see now!
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