Moms and Facebook

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?