Protective Mother

I used to be a Facebook junkie. I am one of those parents who never wanted my princess on a social network like MySpace. I was concerned about stalkers, and, after watching Dateline, had the most terrible images in my head as to what might take place to my extremely gorgeous daughter.

Then, it happened. I caved. Not to my daughter but to my friends. More and more, the grownup group was using Facebook. My close friends were saying things like, “Oh Susan, you are so previous created. It is so safe.” “You join and get to keep an eye on what your daughter is doing.” “If you set her personl privacy settingas, only individuals she ‘friends’ will be able to see her page.” Oh, all right, previously! I will let her have a Facebook page and I will get one, too. She had already been seated twice for having a MySpace page. I might as well get on the social networking prepare with her.

It was Xmas time, and we were on our separate. We both set up our accounts. Since she was 14 and had a paranoid mom, she decided to let me have her password. Otherwise, all gamble were off. I had to be able to make sure this was a secure move, and I was well prepared to get involved if I needed to.

I sat in wonder as she showed me how to set up my account. She showed me how to download and promote images, how to find buddies and suggest friends and invite friends. I looked at her and said, “You’ve had some process, huh?”

Her response was, “Mom, everybody really is doing it.” I could only laugh because she was right. It was because of my adult friends and family that I had lastly given into the Facebook mania.

Okay, so now I am set. Although, since she helped me set my account up, she unintentionally put her birth year in. I can’t wait until July when I finally turn 18 in the eyes of Facebook. The irony is that she made 18 in March. Good grief! She and I used to change the date, but whatever she did, it could not be undone. It became one of our continuous jokes. She now teases about being older than me.

The Lure – Still the Protective Mother

I signed on to Facebook in the starting to check my daughter’s status, and every now and then I would sign in to see who was creating on her wall. I found nothing unsuitable. Now, I did keep viewing the same creates for profile pictures from young girls. Certainly they would have their picture taken with their mouth provocatively sticking out the side of their mouth – they looked ridiculous.

My daughter knew I would throw a fit if she published such a picture, so she had a lot of fun satirizing that poise by staying her mouth out in silly ways for her profile picture. Then there were the child like high school boy images on her “wall” of boys standing in front side of a mirror with their cell phone displaying in their hand taking a picture of their posed upper bodies that looked more like skinny, skinned squirrels than muscle, macho men.

I would laugh at these pictures, but I told my daughter, “You need to tell Jack to post a new image or you can’t be his ‘friend’.” She would tell the person, and sure enough, he would change his picture.

The Withdrawal

It was hard, but there was definitely no innovative value in spending my time playing Bejeweled Blitz. I had always desired to write and had written a few things and began some writing tasks. I had taken online writing classes, so I decided that was what I was going to do to free myself of the Facebook compulsion. I began to take a class for creating on the web.