Mummy is my Facebook friend (well, mine isn't)
Be sure to wear a vest, darling
I have lost count of the number of women my age who tell me that they’re on Facebook only to keep track of what their children are doing.
I know it’s only an excuse, really.
They think I’m a little bit strange when I say that there’s something ever so slightly unsavoury about a woman spying on sons and daughters who have the vote when there’s no indication that they’re consorting with criminals or living the criminal life themselves.
It seems kind of prurient to me, driven by the need to possess them even when they’re grown up, and to know everything about every area of their lives as one does when they are little.
But what really amazes me is that their sons and daughters allow them in as Facebook friends, giving them access to all their conversations, photographs, and details of daily life.
I mean, what is this?
When I was that age it was standard behaviour to close the bedroom door firmly in our parents’ faces and to reply, when asked what we considered to be a needlessly curious question like ‘Where are you going and with whom?’ with something suitably voluble like ‘Somewhere. With somebody.’
Is it my imagination, or is the relationship between Maltese mothers and their daughters (and more so, their sons) getting just that little bit creepy?
I would have hated to be on Facebook, aged 18, and to log on to find my mother posting kisses and words of soppy encouragement, while discussing with my friends our plans for a night out.
There would have been the screaming match from hell that very same evening. But then I would never have let her in as a Facebook friend (sorry, ma).
My contemporaries always raise an eyebrow when I say that they are wrong to put themselves forward as their children’s Facebook friends (accept/decline) because by doing so, they are putting their children in a difficult, awkward position.
This doesn’t seem to occur to them, perhaps because they think the world has changed and now it’s legitimate for parents to be ‘friends’ with their children instead of what they should be – parents, with just that little bit of distance.
When I explain to them that, for some, declining a parent’s offer of Facebook friendship might be a really big deal – my god, will she be offended? how will she take it? – they look at me like I’m a little skew-whiff. ‘Oh, but my son/daughter really doesn’t mind having me as a Facebook friend,’ they say.
Yeah, right, I think to myself. Just like you would have wanted your mother eavesdropping on your every conversation when you were 18.
But they just don’t get it.
Young Maltese people seem unable to upset their parents by knocking them off their Facebook wall or rejecting their demands to become their Facebook friend.
But it looks like it’s not the same elsewhere. This is a report from the London School of Economics website:
Parents are not welcome as Facebook friends, finds LSE study
Young people don’t want to be friends with their parents on Facebook, preferring to keep their social and family lives separate, research by academics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has found.
The potential embarrassment caused by parents seeing something on the social networking site that their offspring would prefer to keep hidden was among the reasons given by students interviewed for the study.
Interviewees also highlighted a worry that their privacy would be invaded by well-meaning mothers wanting to check on their child’s well-being.
Professor Anne West, Professor Jane Lewis, and PhD student Peter Currie, from LSE’s Department of Social Policy, carried out a study exploring the attitudes of students towards accepting older adults, particularly parents, as Facebook friends.
In their article ‘Students’ Facebook ‘friends’: public and private spheres’, published online in the Journal of Youth Studies this week, they also looked at notions of privacy, examining to what extent users viewed Facebook as a public space.
They write: ‘On the basis of our findings, interviewees did not appear to conceive of there being two distinct realms of the public and the private….the user’s private social world is his or her ‘public’, comprising Facebook friends.’
One of the main reservations about accepting parents as ‘friends’, the report found, was that they would have open access to information about their child’s social life.
‘For a number of reasons, parents were rarely Facebook friends and there was a clear view that in general they would not be welcomed,’ the report said.
A sample of London-based undergraduate students, aged between 21 and 26, were interviewed as part of the study. Only one had their mum as a Facebook friend.
Most had anxieties about the thought of their parents being on Facebook. But while some admitted they would reject a ‘friend request’ from their parents, others said they wouldn’t in case it hurt their feelings.
One interviewee feared accepting his mother would intrude on his social and personal life: ‘I would add her, but I would also be quite scared she would be like posting on my wall, just general things like ‘‘How are you, love, are you all right? _ ah, I got your letters today’’ _ it would be a little embarrassing’.
‘The reasons for not wanting older adults, and particularly parents, as friends appeared to be related to embarrassment, social norms, and worries about mothers being exposed and made vulnerable,’ the article says. ‘Underlying these reasons are various notions of privacy.’
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Parents should not be the friends of their children; parents should be their children’s fathers and mothers.
Same applies for people in authority, from a school teacher to a department head and even higher, who should not accept to be addressed by their first name. It’s very Xarabankesque. I recall when Dr Joseph Muscat was addressed as etiquette dictates, by Dr Gonzi, but Dr Muscat addressed the Prime Minister by his name – Lawrence – as if they knew each other for a long time and were not on television.
I lost all respect for Dr Muscat for addressing the prime minister by his first name in a contemptuous and smug way.
Well, what’s even more awkward is mothers and daughters in Malta who discuss who had the wildest Saturday night…. disgusting.
Or who f***ed the prettiest person.
FACEBOOK UPDATE JUST NOW (7:24pm)
Lou Bondi and Robert Musumeci are now friends.
about an hour ago
Wonder if this will change later this evening!
Normal parent-kid relationships are as you described yours. Having your kids on Facebook is parenting at its worst.
And then there are the children who are “friends” with their friends’ parents. What the hell are we getting at?
Not only are my mom’s friends and sisters not on my Facebook page, but they’re also blocked so that they can’t see anything I post on mutual friend’s pages.
Normal kids need their privacy, and normal parents respect that.
How right that report is. Parents should be parents. It just seems that many a time we have inverted roles, children acting as parents and parents shrugging off the responsibility and trying to be cool.
I heard something yesterday: “If you want your kids to stay grounded, just put some responsibility on their shoulders. And if your kids are grown up, they should have space.
I completely agree. Parents only embarrass their kids when they post comments on their Facebook wall. I stopped using Facebook shortly after my mother-in-law became my ‘friend’. I couldn’t exactly reject her request without consequences, but I didn’t want her prying into my social life either.
This is again misuse of Facebook. So first of all, on Facebook you add “friends”, you do not add “the clients of your firm”, “your colleagues”, “your boss”, “your children”, “your students” “your teachers” and so on.
Facebook is not a substitute to your limited social life. It’s not where people of a certain age should be sending or receiving valentines, kisses, hugs and the rest (only teenagers can get away with that).
The same goes with the messages you send on Facebook. People cast ‘pearls of wisdom’ in their status, but excuse me, would you meet a friend in Republic Street, and say to them “smile and the world smiles with you”?
I’ve had some fun, useful exchanges on Facebook. All the books I read last summer, for instance, were suggestions from Facebook friends. I also enjoy the occasional chat.
Facebook enables me to maintain contact with people that I would have lost touch with years ago. I live far away and it’s great to know what’s going on with my real friends and some of my family, in Malta and elsewhere.
On the other hand none of my colleagues, still less my clients are my Facebook friends. If you see your colleagues, children and the rest every day why would you want to have them on Facebook? I must admit I do have my husband there but I don’t think I’ve ever exchanged any form of communication with him on Facebook.
Most people who use Facebook use it wisely and also post comments which could be both useful and amusing.
Daphne, this “second youth” has nothing to do with Facebook. If Facebook is used properly – an exchange of valentine cards between Manuel Mallia and Ronnie Pelligrini is not only inappropriate, but ridiculous – there is nothing wrong with it whatever your age.
It’s wrong to act as though you are 16 when you’re in your 60s, wherever that may be and not just on Facebook. People who discuss how drunk they both got with their own daughter on Facebook? They should not be discussing their drinking habits with their daughters in the first place.
Manuel Mallia should not be running around clad like Tommy Tomato if he doesn’t want to be ridiculed, and Sharon Ellul Bonici should have been mature enough not to poke fun at the Berlin Wall, which to so many spelled oppression and tragedy. Facebook actually exposes people for who they really are – nothing more, nothing less.
I wondered what he reminded me of: Tommy Tomato! Thanks for the cue.
http://www.conranshop.co.uk/images/default/en/catalogue/large/322690.jpg
What exactly do these parents mean by ‘keep track of what their children are doing’? These are individual adults with private lives of their own, for heaven’s sake.
If these parents don’t trust their children as young adults then something went very wrong with their upbringing.
Responsible parents are and will always be PARENTS not hired shepherds. Parents in the real sense of the word if you have any moral upbringing.
I think it’s good that many people have a good relationship with their parents but I often get a strange feeling it’s often a little too much. I had a Maltese friend who lived abroad. She had to travel for three days and was going to take her laptop with her just to speak to her parents via MSN whilst away. I just don’t understand what they need to talk about every single day. Often two or three times. With Facebook I am very open but would never, ever, think to add my parents.
Daphne, worse than having parents “see what their children get up to on Facebook”, is the children seeing what the parents get up to. Worse still is having the children’s friends seeing that, even several years down the line.
I mean, WHAT do these people – adults – really think that they’re doing, really?
There’s another aspect: what about teachers linking up with their pupils on Facebook? I’m sure that there are many, and somehow, ma jdoqqlix.
I agree with you. These things are unacceptable.
Ah Daphne, all this is true but, believe it or not, Facebook does have its uses. To IT numbskulls like me it’s a damn good way to share photos, which is what I occasionally use it for. With friends and relatives in several different countries, frankly it’s much easier than using the Kodak website which is what I tried before.
I never log on to Facebook unless I get an email giving me a link to something useful or interesting. I have absolutely no shame in admitting this. So what if I occasionally make use of Facebook? I explored the site for a week or so at the outset and found it incredibly mind-numbing. I mean, to be told that ‘X’ has ‘collected 5 Hatchlings today’ or ‘Y’ has done the ‘movie quiz’ or something similar. How people have the time to find eggs, create a virtual farm or collect hatchlings is totally beyond me.
Facebook is not bad per se but it seems to melt the logical-behaviour circuits of most people. Like any tool it can be used or abused.
I’m proud to say that my mum is just my mum, and not my Facebook friend, and she has no interest in becoming my Facebook friend. Ahh, the joys of a proper mother.
What many mums don’t realise is that when they are their children’s Facebook friend, they already know most of what happened in their weekend, so the children have nothing to share with their mother. Rather they’re afraid that she read something they would rather she hadnt, so they try to avoid her more. BAD. We’re favouring an online relationship to a personal one. What’s wrong with this society?
If she wants to tell me to be good on a night out and post kisses, she can do so, and in fact she gladly does so, before I leave the house…in person.
Daphne, you are right and wrong at the same time. Nothing wrong in being on Facebook. Like everything else, it all depends HOW you use things. A knife is the most useful tool in the kitchen….but you can use it to stab.
At last you’ve written some sense. I agree.