Let's be friends

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1655310]

Context

Comments

[andlosers.livejournal.com]

I'm going to go ahead and say that I don't understand why so many of my friends wouldn't friend their parents. It's not like they're talking about hookers and blow in their status messages, and every single party I've been to since I was about 25 has been perfectly civilized. (But then again, my parents probably went to far wilder parties than I've ever been to.)

[andrewducker]

I'd friend my parents. But then I have about 10 work people now, including a couple that I wouldn't feel happy exposing some things in front of anyway.

I'm old enough that I am kinda-friends with my parents. They'll always be my parents, but the relationship isn't anything like what it was when I was, say, 18.

[andlosers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd agree that the relationship changes over time. Also, I've got a bunch of Elgg-related people in my Facebook - I can't say I filter for them anymore, but I did a few years ago when I thought it mattered. (It doesn't, as far as I can see. Unless I do suddenly actually get into hookers and blow.)

[fearmeforiampink]

I'm in the 'don't have parents any more' camp, but I wouldn't add my parents on Facebook were they still alive.

To me, Facebook is a means of easily getting in touch with people I might otherwise have trouble getting hold of, and to a certain extent, getting to see photos of myself (generally at LARP events). I very rarely update my status, and when I do it's split between signal boosts and silliness.

I wouldn't need Facebook to get in touch with my parents or have a general idea how they are, given that I spoke to them every week, and there might be silliness or signal boosts that I'd be less likely to post if they could see it.

Also dwelling on it some more, there's another aspect to it – I can control what I put on my facebook. I can't control what other people do relating to me which might be visible to my parents – tagging me in a photo either as a joke or when it's something I'd rather them not see, or saying stuff on my wall/whatever.

Children? Again I don't have any, if I did... if they were very young I'd add them so I could keep an eye on them, if they were older I wouldn't add them (due to a combination of not needing it as a communications medium like above, and wanting them to have their own space), but would accept if they added me.

[matgb]

You can set your profile so that certain individuals or groups can't see certain things. It appears to let you set it so that the default is, say, friends of friends can see all pictures tagged of you, but that friend X can't see that.

The controls are very granular, but also the UI isn't as clear as it could be.

My sister is on FB, and I've not excluded her from anything. Within half an hour of Jennie getting home from hospital my mother had rung to check we were OK and ask if we needed anything.

While the specific timing of the call wasn't brilliant, it wasn't bad, and they just knew what was going on without me needing to ring them, which was useful as ringing people is always way down my list of things to do.

FB to me is a general contacts directory, if my parents had accounts, they'd be in that contacts directory.

And my father would be uploading a billion pictures of me and tagging them all, to Jennie's amusement.

[fearmeforiampink]

Indeed. However, given that I don't use facebook much, I don't know the filtering of it (compared to, say, how I know Livejournal filtering), and I've no strong desire to learn it.

If the situation came up where someone added me on Facebook and I didn't want them to see everything, then I'd look at such. But as it currently stands, I don't have to do that, and I'm glad of it.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

I quietly declined a friend request from my mum about a year ago, because although we're certainly still on speaking terms, we don't quite have the sort of relationship where I'd feel comfortable with her posting stuff on my wall, or reading stuff that I or other people have posted there. I appreciate that some people are actually good friends with their parents, and that's splendid for them, but I don't have that kind of relationship with my mum and never have - and it doesn't look like the situation is going to change any time soon. It's certainly not that I don't like her, indeed we do have quite a cordial relationship, and it's not that there's anything going on in my life that I really wouldn't want her knowing about, but in our case I think it's best to keep certain boundaries in place.

(I wouldn't be Facebook friends with my dad either, for much the same reasons, but additionally because he died several years before Facebook existed.)

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

My mother is a lovely person to everyone else but very emotionally abusive to me and my brother. I will never friend her on facebook again because she'd assume everything I posted was a dig at her and wouldn't understand half of what I posted about mental health issues. Also there's weirdness between her and my Dad's side of the family and I'm friends with many of my cousins. I did friend her once but restricted what she could see as I've done with other family members. She gained access to my profile through an ex-mutual friend and gave me hell for hiding stuff from her. It's so much simpler to just not add her. And now I have to block my aunt (mum's sister-in-law) who's giving me grief for grieving for my best friend and not helping my Mum move house. I offered to help but only if my carer (my boyfriend) could come with me as my anxiety issues mean I get frequent panic attacks. They do get on reasonably well and in that situation you'd think an extra pair of hands would be welcome. Nope. I was to go on my own or not at all. Unfortunately for her I chose my sanity over her needs. She's still not happy.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

I don't need my parents knowing every aspect of my life. There are some things I am happy for my sisters to know that my parents I would rather not. Not to mention the fact that I don't want to censor myself and have a "don't swear" or such thrown at me. I usually say what I feel on Facebook as an extention of my thoughts. Around parents, I reel it in.

[draconid.livejournal.com]

I have a Facebook I never use. I only really log in when I'm concerned that I haven't heard from certain friends for a while. My mum's a 'friend' on there, but I've barely had any interaction with her on it, even when I did use it semi-regularly.

I find friending on hard Facebook because I don't like to insult people, and being connected with my real name I can't exactly hide from them. But then, seeing as I don't exactly use it, I don't see any harm having parents, etc, on it.

[laplor.livejournal.com]

I have actually only 'met' my child's girlfriend on Facebook. My teenage/young adult kids are on there, and we have friended each other, but we interact there as friends, not as parent/child.

[andrewducker]

It must be tricky getting the balance right on that kind of relationship.

[laplor.livejournal.com]

It can be very hard to ignore things when the parent radar is activated but the effort is well worth it in the end. I have no problem though griping (rather mildly) about them.

I would have friended my Dad, but not my Mom if they were alive and had Facebook. Whenever I start to react to something on of my children posts, I stop and ask myself if I am reacting like my parent who I loved and could talk to, or like my parent who I feared and kept things from.

One of my measures of my success is that my niece has accepted me as a friend, but not her parents - I take that to mean that I must be fairly successful at maintaining the balance.

[andrewducker]

I stop and ask myself if I am reacting like my parent who I loved and could talk to, or like my parent who I feared and kept things from.

That is an excellent reaction. I'll be striving to do the same thing when I'm a parent. Hopefully my frustration won't bubble over too easily.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

I'd have filters set up in case I wanted to say

"Gah, those kids/parents..."

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

I did friend both my parents on Facebook, but after my father died my step-mother defriended me and deleted his account. It's a shame because he left me some nice messages, including one where he agreed with something my mother wrote.

I don't have children (yet), but I would definitely friend them. In fact, don't most parents these days seem to create accounts for their newborns anyway?

One point though, I rarely post anything that I wouldn't want anyone to see (it's one way of ensuring that nothing sensitive ends up on the Internet where I can't control it). Consequently there's little reason to worry about who I friend (other than for overload reasons).

[laplor.livejournal.com]

That's a very prudent rule. It's a lot easier to just not have to worry about who sees what.

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

I know, as an approach it's possibly not ideal, and it definitely won't suit some people who need to discuss lots of personal things, but it usually is enough for me. To be honest, if I started posting on LJ about stuff like that international diamond heist I masterminded last month, I ... I've said too much :X

[black-agnes.livejournal.com]

I think I write more sensitive stuff than you on FB - and am quite happy for you and your sister to read it. We have however always been close.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Having said I wouldn't friend my parents or my children if they were on Facebook, I would talk about it with them, find out what they wanted, and try to reach a mutually agreeable position, which would be open to review if our feelings changed.

I can imagine wanting to make permission to use Facebook contingent on me being involved closely when my kids are very young (oldest is 4 at the moment, so it may not come up for a while - but you never know). I'd then expect to move back to more hands-off when they start to really want their own space. And then finally reach a position where the idea of requiring parental permission or oversight to use a website seems risible to both parties. Space for kids to explore where they don't feel parents looking over their shoulder the whole time is really important, in general as well as online, and it's easy to underestimate how ready for that kids are. But on the other hand, it is my responsibility to keep them safe until they are able to make their own decisions. It can't be a hands-off thing, or a total-surveillance-until-18 thing: I need to be engaged, and judge how best to support them in becoming independent adults. The key thing for me would be talking about it and reviewing it regularly.

My parents aren't on Facebook, but they are fairly tech-savvy (very much so for their generation), and I know that they Google me irregularly. My Facebook updates are almost all auto-posted from my public Twitter account, so there's unlikely to be a big issue with them uncovering great dark secrets. I'd prefer not, just because of that looking over the shoulder thing, but if they wanted to (say because they felt out of touch with me and thought it would help) I wouldn't have a major problem.

(I do text my Mum regularly. She's the only person I regularly text who uses textspeak heavily (cu l8r), which I find faintly amusing because I otherwise associate it with people considerably younger than me. She got in to it early through exchanges with a text bunny daughter-in-law back in the days before T9/predictive text, and retains elements of that style.)

[pigwotflies.livejournal.com]

I'm on Facebook, as is my mum, though not my dad. My mum likes keeping in touch with me and my two sisters via Facebook. We're all pretty close.
robhu is on Facebook, as is his mum, but they're not friends. My mum wanted to friend him, but he wouldn't let her. I think that reflects the difference in his relationship with his mum. They're not as close as I am to my family.

[lizzie-and-ari.livejournal.com]

I am friends with my parents-in-law, but my Mum thinks Facebook is Evil.

But I do have filters set up to filter in and out all kinds of people - not just family, but the large number of people of my FB who are professional contacts only - the random updates you will see thereby mostly don't get seen by a random comedy photographer I have never met who lives in London, but they are still there for when I want to post professional content (Skinny articles etc)

I don't think I ever have filtered out my in-laws but I know I could. I have a 'sweary filter' for slightly more risque content that is blocked from both my in-laws and Ari's wee cousin who I'm friends with.

Lxxx

[lizzie-and-ari.livejournal.com]

Oh and, like, my Dad is on Facebook but given that I'm not his friend in real life (coming up for ten years since I last saw him) that would just be weird, obv.

Although it is my only means of contact should I need to get in touch, so it's kind of interesting to know that's where he is if someone dies or something.

Hmm.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Pretty much everything I post on the Internet goes through a "would I want my Mum reading this?" filter in my head. My parents have seen my Facebook account, but not (AFAIK) my LiveJournal or Twitter accounts.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

(I think you may know this story already, but...)

As it happens the first contact I'd had with my dad in over twenty years was me poking him on Facebook - it having finally occurred to me that a musician/artist/techy who was silly enough to change his name to Chris with an X instead of a Ch at the front was theoretically someone pretty easy to find on search engines.

I only just noticed that he appears to have deleted his facebook page, which gives you an idea of how much I noticed him while he had it. We were friends but hadn't really spoken in about a year and a half or so and our contact was pretty sporadic before that - he was really never sure what to say, particularly after Mum died, and I never really had a particular inclination to develop any sort of relationship from my end.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I friended my mother on LJ, but I have a not-mum filter for the very occasional things I think my friends will be more comfortable reading than my mother. I would happily do the same on facebook, except that I've never quite got round to setting up any filtering/groups/etc, so although 99.9% of updates are fine, I don't want to always think "is it possible this photo someone took might be awkward for mum"?

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

"restricted profile" - it's what's for relatives.

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

Until a soon to be ex-mutual friend shows them exactly what they're missing. Then the shit hits the fan.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

I would friend my parents, but one is dead and the other is probably not on Facebook. Actually, Facebook would be an ideal way to keep in touch with my dad - I wouldn't expend much effort, and he could see photos of his grandchildren and contact me if he could be bothered.

I have both my stepdaughters as FB friends (and one as an LJ friend), and I hope by the time my kids are old enough, if FB is still around, they'll friend me. My teenage cousins have their mother friended. I don't know whether they filter her out of some of their more gratuitous goings-on or whether she has the sense not to comment, though...

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

I AM friends with my dad, but also:

[TICK] I would not friend my parents, because that's not what Facebook is for

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

My Dad is probably the most regular commenter on my facebook staus, sadly. Which leads to loads of self editing. But I have other places to swear and it is actually a good way to stay in touch with my parents (my mum reads facebook using Dad's account, which pisses me off but is a lost cause.)

But you've reminded me of a facebook related conversation I had last night - I'll post about it later.

[andrewducker]

Did I miss it? Or did you not get around to it?

[dpolicar]

My mom isn't on Facebook, but her boyfriend is. I've friended him. Then again, I don't post any meaningful content to my Facebook. LJ is in principle a more problematic case, but since I don't friends-lock my LJ, it's moot.

[andabusers.livejournal.com]

I have decided that my hypothetical children and I wouldn't be on good terms :)

[neferet.livejournal.com]

for facebook= good/bad, you need 'both'!

[andrewducker]

That would be against the rules of GOOD/BAD! I'm shocked that you would even suggest such a thing!

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

I'm not on FB, but the problem with family would be much the same as with email use I expect. Namely do they know what they're doing, and if so, how come they keep forwarding you emails of little use and much bandwidth that includes the email addresses of everyone else they've forwarded it too? (Which is something none of my online friends do but most of my relations do.)

I might get on FB, but it'll only be for keeping up with family.

[daisyflip.livejournal.com]

I'm friends with my Mum on Facebook and, apart from occasionally telling me off for swearing, it's a perfect way for her to see photos, etc. I think she really likes being part of friend-conversations - it's like she can be at the party without the smell of wine, checking that I'm happy and seeing how my friendships/support networks function.