OMG! Mom is on Facebook!

Jan 21, 2009
By Gale Hammond

Lest you fear that you will run out of ways to annoy your kids, I have good news. Facebook. Yes, that infamous compound word that isn't really a word at all has trickled outward beyond the world of Generation X and landed like a bombshell smack in the middle of those aging Baby Boomers.

If you think you're beyond getting the concept of Facebook, abolish that thought immediately. Additionally, never let it be said you are without friends in cyberspace. I am telling you from personal experience that one day you're minding your own business pecking away at your computer, and the next thing you know you are looking at an unexpected message saying that Ima U. Bumgardener wants to be your friend.

Well. Never mind that you haven't seen nor heard from Ima in about 47 years because there it is: you have a friend request. So, not wanting to appear stuck up, you select a link, and with that one resounding click of the mouse you are forever bonded to folks populating the rest of the world, or at least approximately 150 million of them, via the electronic wizardry of Facebook.

Talk about six degrees of separation! One minute you're downloading the recipe for Aunt Dottie's Death by Chocolate Chunk Brownies and the next thing you know you've discovered you're related to Al Sharpton.

Yes, I am on Facebook. Now I wish I could tell you what that means exactly. I know I'm not doing nearly enough to justify my taking up space in the Facebook universe. But being on Facebook allows me to see what the world is up to. Snooping, if you will, but in a GOOD way. Because there on my homepage, next to my picture (carefully selected from photos shot this millennium because no fair using your high school yearbook photo if you're drawing social security) is a box made specifically to tell everyone exactly what it is you're doing "right now."

This means I can navigate around and encounter such juicy news as, "Ben is bummed about cleaning out the garage" or "Lois is looking forward to her next latte."

This brings up an important point: Boredom. Practically the number one "don't" about Facebook is don't be boring. Now I could just jump right in there with my own announcement to the world about what I'm doing right now. I mean, I COULD say "I'm sitting here in my bathrobe and it's already 2 p.m.," but seriously, people! You don't really need to know that, do you?

Then there is Facebook etiquette. Really. In fact, I made a short reference to a couple of the rules above. Remember the self portrait? Yep, it's really not fashionable to post a picture of yourself that is so old it was snapped before color processing was even invented.

The same goes with posting remarks and recounting events that might be a little questionable down the road. For instance, "How do you like my hot new thong underwear?" accompanied by a little Facebook fashion show of same might just come back and bite you someday on your exposed little, um…cheek.

And the jargon? Yes, today your knowledge of Internet slang may be limited to "lol" (laughing out loud), but don't worry. You'll soon get the hang of it.

When I decided to give Facebook a whirl, I was delighted by all the "Friends" requests I was getting. Suddenly everybody wanted to be my friend. Now mind you, four of those requests were from my two daughters and their respective spouses so technically a family member is also a friend on Facebook.

So there I was, a newbie on Facebook, happily collecting friends. In fact, you collect as many friends as you can, enjoying your newfound popularity among your friends on Facebook.

Until the day when you venture out and begin noticing how many friends your other friends have. My goodness - I thought my 18 friends were pretty impressive - until I realized that Daughter #2 and Son-in-law #1 both have over 100 friends on Facebook! Now how did that happen? I'm twice their age but have less than one fifth of their friends? Do I even KNOW 100 people? Probably not. Bummer.

But try not to play the numbers game and just let yourself go. Write something on a friend's wall, which is not at all like "graffiti" per se. While I'd not be happy if someone wrote (or spray painted) on an actual wall of my actual house, on Facebook this is where all kinds of communication takes place.

So if your kids are on Facebook, I say go for it! Because one thing is for sure: Facebook or no Facebook, parent-child relationships still get a little snarky. When my Facebook friend Kathy posted pictures of her new granddaughter on Facebook, her daughter wrote accusingly on her wall soon thereafter. "You didn't save the photos right," she sniffed. Yes, those little mother-daughter altercations follow you all the way to the Internet.