parents, how would you feel if your kid rejected your friend request?

Parent Cafe
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<p>When my kids were in HS, FB was only for college students. When they got to college was when they were able to join. I didn’t have FB myself until 2 1/2 years ago (their latter college years and post graduation). I joined FB in order to join a private parent group there. I never friended my kids and they never friended me. It has nothing to do with trust. It has nothing to do with anything inappropriate on their walls (I am 100% positive there is nothing inappropriate on their walls). And it has nothing to do with sharing or keeping in touch. I am very in touch with both daughters frequently by phone, plus email (and now by Skype with one who is overseas) and they openly share everything going on in their lives. I don’t NEED FB to know what they are doing and stuff like that. They share it anyway. </p>

<p>The reason I would not ask or expect them to be FB friends is that I see it similar to intruding on their phone conversations. I would never pick up a phone call they were having and why should I be privy to all the conversations with their pals on their walls? Likewise, on my wall, I am talking to my FB friends and we talk about our children and I don’t really need my kids to read my conversations and they likely would be embarrassed that a group of my friends discuss our kids and so on. I don’t agree with collegeshopping who wondered why others may not share everything with their kids. I feel I DO share everything with my kids and vice versa in terms of happenings in their lives and so on. I don’t need to do that on FB as I have phone and email to accomplish that same thing. By not being FB friends doesn’t imply I don’t know what’s happening in their lives. I know where both kids are today and their plans for the day. I don’t need to know every chat they have with all their friends though and they don’t need to know every communication I have with my friends. :smiley: I understand that FB is one way to stay in touch but it is not the only way. I think parents should know what’s going on in their kids lives on a frequent basis. I don’t think they need to be privy to all their kids’ conversations though.</p>

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<p>I originally set up my FB page at my son’s suggestion - he was seeing a lot of my friends on there. Now we do a lot of marketing on FB with fan pages and spend more time than our children do there. In fact, any business would be foolish not to have a social media marketing plan these days.</p>

<p>Our children are all friends with us and many of their friends have sent us friend requests. They comment freely on my stuff and don’t mind me commenting on theirs (I am careful to remember that college acquaintances are reading, too, just as our sons are careful to remember that business acquaintances are reading what they post on ours, too - it’s a two way street).</p>

<p>What gets me is how many of our son’s friends post all sorts of personal, intimate info out there for anybody to see, then if one of their friends notices it or comments, the friend has to say something like, “I’m really not stalking you!” or offend them. Do they not get that they are posting it on the internet?? Hello, it’s like setting up a billboard to make an announcement and then getting offended if folks talk about it. Nitwits.</p>

<p>All that to say, if you are active in social media, get used to folks knowing what you are doing. Privacy on the net is illusory. As authors, we lead more public lives than most, but I meet folks all the time who ask me questions that 10 years ago, you’d have had to be a close friend to know to ask. Hard to get used to, but that’s life in our age.</p>

<p>If your parents are worrywarts, they’ll worry a lot more if they can’t see how happy and busy you are. I think it’d help them let go to see you manage your life well on a daily basis. I’d friend him and just expect to have an adult relationship.</p>

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<p>roanadain-
The statement below is exactly why your dad worries!!! (sorry…old person alert. don’t know how to quote your original post)</p>

<p>i guess i’ll just add him& play around w/ my privacy settings, because while i’d feel terrible for hurting his feelings,(however, i too have serious doubts that his motives are 100% out of affection) and at the same time, knowing him, he’ll get upset that his daughter was in the library until 1 in the morning and, gasp, had to walk to her dorm by herself. </p>

<p>Never, never walk anywhere alone at night!</p>

<p>And…add your dad. He loves you. Play with the privacy settings, whatever you need to do to feel less offended. But add him…</p>

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<p>I would probably have to reject the request to pay his tuition. ;)</p>

<p>I don’t post on my kid’s walls, and I am sure I don’t get access to their whole page. They understand the privacy settings and how to use them. </p>

<p>My oldest S asked me to join FB before he went to college. It’s been great. We use chat and send messages that way and I get to see his picture updates. </p>

<p>I try to remember that I am their parent and not their “friend” IRL, but we definitely have had no issues of cohabitating on FB.</p>

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<p>I see the benefit of FB. It would be easier to keep in touch with kids in college. I am not there yet. When my hs D opened an account, we discussed the safety isuues. I left it up to her to be responsible on line. I decided FB is her domain.</p>

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<p>sooz, your post is spot on. I agree with your analogy of facebook sort of being like picking up the other phone line and listening in on our kid’s phone calls.</p>

<p>With Skype, emails, cell phones, texting, and instant messaging, parents are more connected today than ever. Remember the good old days when we would hear from our parents maybe once a month via long distance phone call and maybe twice a month via letter in the mail. Somehow, we survived and we were forced to deal with the everyday mundane problems. We learned by our mistakes. We didn’t text or instant message our parents to ask them silly things like what kind of toilet bowl cleaner to buy. </p>

<p>It’s good to be connected with our kids and be there to support them emotionally and financially (to a certain degree). However, I don’t feel that it’s healthy for parent or child to have immediate access to every aspect of their lives. It is like eavesdropping in on their conversations or opening up their mail (unless the kid sets limits within the privacy settings). </p>

<p>If the college aged kid sets the privacy controls to limit access to their personal stuff (wall posts, pictures, etc.), then I can understand using FB for messaging back and forth. Using FB to set up the scenario in which the parent is “a fly on the wall” at all times is not healthy.</p>

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<p>

I don’t think that’s true at all. It is not okay for ANYBODY to pick up and extension and listen in on a private call. This is not a private anything. This would be more like your child putting up a billboard on the highway, and you not looking while you’re driving by. Okay, maybe not exactly, since a billboard is open to anybody driving by, while FB at least is open only to friends, but it’s certainly not a private conversation. </p>

<p>Maybe it’s like having your teen singing on stage, or playing a sport, and you not being allowed to attend so you don’t interfere with their life. Or having a group of parents and kids sitting around talking but you’re not allowed to be there so you don’t eavesdrop.</p>

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<p>This is when my kids would toss back at me one of my mantra’s as they were growing up.
“I am not your friend, I am your mother.” I can just hear my oldest saying they won’t “friend” me, but they might “parent” me.</p>

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<p>3bm…I know a FB wall is not a private conversation. But it is akin to a group of college kids sitting around talking and I come along and eavesdrop on the conversation. Likewise, I truthfully don’t want my kids to eavesdrop on my conversations with my adult friends as we often talk about our kids and my kids know that I do that but I would still feel awkward for them to know the specifics of the chatting I do with my friends. </p>

<p>It is not like my child having a billboard and I drive by and not look and it is not like not attending their theater production or sports event! Oh my! I have attended thousands of my kids’ events!! I know every single event in their life. I just hung up from a phone call with D2 and I know everything she did today, as what my D1 is doing today. They share their happenings with me. What we don’t share is our conversations with our friends necessarily. </p>

<p>I have no problem if others communicate with their kids via Facebook. But to imply that those who don’t are not connected to their kids is just not so. I have phone and email. I don’t need five forms of communications to stay closely connected to my children. For that matter, I do not have text messaging as my cell phone doesn’t work where I live (I only use it for traveling out of town). Imagine, we get by without texting!! What a concept. We call on our phones. We may use email for some things. Older D who turned 24 yesterday, for just THIS year, is also Skyping with us since it is free and she is in Europe for a year, though we still use phone and email. I don’t have a NEED to also use FB with them. It would not add to my communications or closeness to my children. The only thing it would add is that I could see their conversations with their peers and they could see my conversations with my friends. As far as what’s going on in their lives, I ALREADY know as they SHARE it with me! If they read MY Facebook wall, I would likely not be free to have some of the chats I have there as I talk about my kids with friends and my kids would probably not love that I do so to such a degree (though most parents do it!).</p>

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<p>“.I know a FB wall is not a private conversation. But it is akin to a group of college kids sitting around talking and I come along and eavesdrop on the conversation.”</p>

<p>Facebook actually now is one of the few places in which people communicate across generations.</p>

<p>In part, because I’m in community theater – and most of the productions that I’m in have Facebook pages for casts-- I have Facebook friends who range from being middle school age to senior citizens. For most – including the younger folks, I have full access to their Facebooks.</p>

<p>I think that although FB originally was for college students who used it to post pictures of their partying and similar things, it has evolved a great deal, and that evolution has occurred because people with good sense – including young people – stopped putting things on FB like pictures showing drunkeness – that would hurt them in the job market. </p>

<p>Just to show, here’s what’s currently on FB for some of my young friends:</p>

<p>College student son has posted announcing that cast lists are posted for the fall shows at his college. He also has posted a link showing a video of an awesome dance/light show.</p>

<p>A friend who’s a high school student has an update saying she’s happy it’s the weekend.</p>

<p>A college senior friend has a post saying he plans to write a book.</p>

<p>A young friend who’s in grad school posted that she got veggies at the supermarket in Paris where she’s living this semester.</p>

<p>Several college student friends have posted links to articles critical of Glenn Beck’s rally.</p>

<p>The people I know – including young people - -tend to post things that anyone could see, including their parents. The young people I know also tend to cross generations in real life when they converse. They don’t just talk to people their age.</p>

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<p>I guess my point of view hasn’t been stated clearly enough. I am positive there is nothing on my kids’ walls that would be inappropriate for me to see. My kids are NOT the type to post photos of partying or anything like that or anything I would not approve of. I am sure there is nothing on their walls that needs to be hidden from me at all. My kids are not just friends with people their own age, though that is a big chunk of the friend list. I have seen the list of friends on D2’s profile (that is viewable) and some are even faculty and many professionals in her life in her career field. (She has 1,432 “friends”!!!) So, I agree it crosses generations or age groups. </p>

<p>As far as posts as to what they are doing today, I already know that and don’t need FB to find out. They TELL me! I happen to know exactly where each of my kids is right now. We talk by phone every 2-3 days and sometimes more depending what comes up. It is almost too funny for me to think anyone would infer that by not having access to my kids’ FB walls that I am not that connected to the kids or close or whatever. If anything, my mom used to criticize me for knowing so much and being so involved with my kids! I don’t need five methods to communicate with them or learn about their day to day life. I don’t need FB for “announcements” as I get the announcements from them in a personal way on the phone and much more. </p>

<p>It is not as if their conversations with friends are not appropriate for me to read. I am sure of that. But why should I know the details of every exchange they have with friends or why should they be able to read my exchanges with my friends? I give them some independence of not having me be privy to every exchange they have with friends. Likewise, I do not post inappropriate material on my wall but I don’t really want my kids to know every conversational exchange with my friends or that I talk about their lives or so on. I want to be able to have “chats” that they aren’t reading along with and I imagine they feel the same. We have never discussed being friends on FB. They readily share photos with me. If they come home, they may share their FB photo page on the computer. While away, they may send me a photo collection of their show or a trip they took or some such. I’m not MISSING anything by not reading their walls. I’m only missing who said what to whom. Should I know that level of detail in their life? Do I need it? I only need to know my kids’ happenings, thoughts, feelings, etc. and not their conversations with others (no matter the wide range of age of their friends). Likewise, my kids know what’s going on in my life but are not privy to every conversation I have had with my friends.</p>

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<p>i make it a policy not to mix my peer and elder (I would say adult, but I am over 18) social spheres. My parents have not friend-requested me, and neither have any of my elder family friends or family members. I do not think this is unreasonable, and I will kindly decline any facebook friend requests from people like parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, family friends, bosses, etc.</p>

<p>I’m hardly a contraversial sort of person for my age (no drinking, drugs, or uncouth activities or photos on fb here), but I just think it’s wise to keep those two elements of my life separate.</p>

<p>Thankfully, my parents are very respectful of that. I think it would be unfortunate and inconsiderate if any adult would not be able to respect such a decision of a teenager or young adult.</p>

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<p>I have a facebook account that was set up for me *by *my son (now in college, but perhaps a senior in high school when he set it up). It was his initiative and he was my first facebook “friend.” His older sister is another of my earliest friends. They were enthusiastic about my joining in. </p>

<p>IMO nobody should post anything on a facebook wall they would not want to share with the world. They have no control, despite privacy settings, of where their info could go. (Somebody in their group could simply copy it and send it off anywhere.) So I see no privacy issue in reading my kids’ walls – it is like reading signed graffitti or a column they wrote for the newspaper. IMO some people use facebook similarly to a blog. </p>

<p>It also helps me come to “know” the friends they are making at their schools (S in undergrad, D in grad school). Just today, as I was driving my S to his college for his fall semester, he mentioned a friend who had contacted him and asked if I remembered her. This was someone I had met on campus at one point, but seeing her pics on his facebook wall had helped me know and appreciate who he was talking about. </p>

<p>I know the kids do this, but I simply do not “get” using facebook to talk back and forth. For that we use phone or e-mail or IMs. For me, a big part of the fun of facebook is the pics. Both my kids post pics with entertaining captions.</p>

<p>Anyhow, my facebook experience started with my kids so there was no issue re our being friends. Since then, of course, I have branched out and most of my facebook activity does not relate to or interact with them. </p>

<p>However, I do follow certain self-made rules re my own use of facebook:</p>

<ol>
<li>I do not send friend requests to my kids’ friends, or to anyone of that generation. It just seems like “stalking” to me. (I am NOT a “cougar” LOL!) I let the younger generation take the initiative. However, some of my kids’ close friends, who have known me for many years and are like extended family, have “friended” me themselves and I am happy to then accept that.</li>
</ol>

<p>My niece has friended my kids (her cousins) but not me (her aunt)* or *her parents. That is her choice and I respect that.</p>

<ol>
<li>My daughter, the one time I posted an innocuous comment on her facebook wall, removed it – so I took that as a cue** not** to post on her wall. She may have simply felt it was not “cool” to have her mom appearing there. But she has not closed her wall off from me.
My son is like me, his life is an open book, and I think he is happy to share with anyone of any age what he is up to. He will comment on my wall often. Occasionally I might give feedback to him. We share certain interests and are amused by similar things so sometimes facebook is another way of sharing those interests. It would take him extra time to send me separately, via e-mail, a link to an article he had posted on facebook. This way he can share with me, as *well *as with his other friends, things he has come across that are of interest or that he has opinions on. Sometimes when we are together we will discuss some of these articles.</li>
</ol>

<p>I know my son is facebook friendly with at least one of his friends’ parents. He is also a facebook friend of at least one or two of his profs, who are of my generation. So his collection of facebook friends is multi-generational. </p>

<p>My kids’ facebook pages have never shown anything inappropriate, and both kids lead lives I am comfortable with their having and sharing. By NO means do I mean to imply that kids who will not “friend” their parents are hiding anything. Many kids I know do not “friend” their parents, and that of itself does not make me suspicious. It is a matter of personal choice, and as such, to be respected.</p>

<p>Just one person’s opinion. ;)</p>

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<p>Like anything else, everyone can agree to disagree. There are kids who happily friend parents or other adults, there are some kids who refuse to do so.</p>

<p>What works for my family may not work for someone else’s. </p>

<p>I have a relative that won’t friend her parents, but she friends all her other relatives. </p>

<p>I think it largely depends on your own personal family situation. I would hesitate to judge anyone else with regards to this matter. If it works for them, great. If not, no worries.</p>

<p>Facebook does transcend generation lines. It’s convenient and easy to share parts of your life in a way that you can control if you use your privacy settings to full advantage. </p>

<p>Definitely no one right answer for everyone.</p>

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<p>my cousin friended my mom on fb, and sometimes she posts things (which show up in my mom’s newsfeed) which I wouldn’t want to be sharing in that context if i were her.</p>

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<p>Does your cousin understand the privacy settings?</p>

<p>I am often shocked what people will put in their status pages. I intentionally go through my list of “friends” to make sure that what I say will be appropriate for them. If they are people I don’t want to share this information with, I put them on a limited feed list.</p>

<p>I also don’t post updates which discuss vacation plans or anything too confrontational. Nothing like telling the world that you are out of town and your house is completely vacant, or saying something that might offend one of your friends or family members.</p>

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<p>I think she does, but I guess she makes her status more public</p>

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<p>Like I said, I have no problem if other parents/kids choose to be FB friends. My kids and I have never discussed this actually! </p>

<p>I can see, however, for example, in Jyber’s post, how her D removed a post from the mom to her D’s wall. I can see how it COULD maybe embarrass a young adult to have their parents commenting on their wall where they talk with their friends. I’m not saying they SHOULD be embarrassed but I can see how this CAN happen.</p>

<p>For me, it would cramp MY style if my kids read MY wall. I mostly use FB for a parent group I joined and the group is centered around one of my kid’s interest areas. We talk about our kids on our walls all the time. I likely would not feel so free to be chatting it up about my kids on my wall if they were viewing it. It’s my conversation with my friends. They likely would be embarrassed a bit that a bunch of parent friends are discussing their kids’ activities and so on. </p>

<p>I don’t feel I am missing anything by not reading my kids’ walls. They already share what’s going on in their lives . They already share many photos. I just feel that there is an element of their lives that are their world where they are responding back and forth with their friends that I don’t have to see and vice versa. I already know their “news.” I don’t have to know who they spoke to, what was said, what their friend posted back, etc. </p>

<p>For one of my kids, she is often a part of a FB “event” pages (she is a performer) and those are open to the public. I can view those and see who is attending her events and the comments posted. I have even posted on those a few times. Or, for example, my D is performing with a group tonight in NYC (is an ongoing group) and I also joined the group page and have left positive feedback (having seen their shows) on their wall.</p>

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<p>I would be very concerned if my kids would not be FB friends w/ me. I have found that most of “their friends” that I am friends with, have requested me.</p>

<p>I am not, however, friends with my H. We live in the same house, for goodness sakes. My D2 told me recently that she actually respected the fact that H and I were not friends. We have no need to rack up the friends numbers. And we have so many mutual friends, it would be difficult to hide anything (not that I think there is anything to hide.)</p>

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<p>Why would you be concerned if your kids did not “friend” you? I have NO concerns. I feel so certain that neither have anything to hide as they share soooooo much with me on everything. I just think they deserve an independent life among their friends where I don’t listen in. I know they have nothing to HIDE. Do I need to see every comment a BF leaves on his GF’s wall? My kids are not hiding anything as they are “friends” with professionals and other adults as well as young people. I don’t have anything to hide on my wall either but I don’t need my kids to know every comment I have made to my friends and they have made back to me. I also am not FB friends with my husband. I don’t think he uses it that much and I can see his friend list and a majority are people he looked up from high school, and very few are local friends.</p>