“I can’t wait to get rid of my Facebook account,” a friend said to me yesterday. I pontificated this statement as I too, have thought about it. Facebook is an overwhelming non-pertinent information portal on which I spend FAR too much time. I mean with the quizzes and the page suggestions and the one-off conversations? It’s a topic about which I’ve previously lamented. Back to my friend. When I asked him why, his answer was pointed and brief, “My mom’s on there now.”
Are moms causing a Facebook credibility decline? Our other friend jumped in to say, “Yeah, my mom sent me a message the other day after seeing some pics I was tagged in, ‘looks like you had a rough night,’ she says to me.”
With moms on Facebook, gone are the days of white lies and vague answers given to quell the worry that most mother’s carry on a daily basis.
“Yeah mom, everything is going really well.”
“Well what does that mean when you wrote, ‘Might need to be looking 4 a new job after getting tanked in front of the VPs last night.’”
(you begin to sweat)
“Yeah ma, that was just a joke, you know. Oh hold on, my HR Dept is calling me.”
"Mommy, look at my cryptic status update!"
Of course, I believe that Facebook is a dream come true for mothers. Especially mothers of sons. For example, Sir Opti hates talking on the phone (as well as doing the dishes, laundry, and anything that doesn’t require a login). So, like many sons, he does not call his mother as often as he should (and yes I realize that the “should” is completely in the context of my opinion). And it’s not because he does not want to talk to her - he does- it’s because he hates doing things that he hates (again, like talking on the phone, dishes, laundry, letting me figure out something on paper instead of a spreadsheet). So Facebook has become a bridge into his life.
I know that teenagers have a hard time dealing with parents enjoying what they like. But what about adults? And so I asked my adult-male collegues, “What would you stop doing if your mother started doing it?” Most stopped, furrowed their brow, looked to the floor and said, “I’m not sure I understand. You mean.. like Facebook?”
Is the resurfacing of teen mortification which happens when we realize our parents are into a subculture we thought they’d never understand, limited only to Facebook? I can only imagine the following things would no longer be cool if our parents started doing it:
- Dress like a hipster (current day -- not during the true 70s/80s hipster birthplace)
- Wear high-waisted jeans
- Watch foreign films
- Eat moldy foods
- Make YouTube videos
- Blog
- Have Sex
(I’ll give you a moment to recover)
Personally, I don’t think that moms are making Facebook lose their credibility as much is it is making many a son and daughter begin to regulate their Facebook content. People are going to begin to think twice about what they share with the world if they know that moms are reading it. I mean -- it’s like the internet’s own quality control!! After all, we should be more cognizant about what we post online knowing everyone in the world can read it. Our mom’s are our first line of defense. If we know we can get the content past them without the deepest of scrutiny, worry and mom-like-criticism, then it should be ok for the rest of the world.
Thank god Frank and Ada can barely turn a computer on. Otherwise, if they started reading this blog -- it’d be shot.
I’d like to leave you with a little song I found on YouTube that sums up some people’s fears:
