The Facebook Diaries

No doubt, the advent of Facebook has brought many previously unheard of  issues to the forefront. From being just a “Hi, howdy-do” site, to the virtual reality of some people, it has also opened up whole cans of legal worms here and there. Yes, perhaps most of the folks in my age group who frequent Facebook use it as just what it was meant to be: A social network. In worlds that are filled with kids and jobs and the stresses of keeping it together in a faltering world economy, few of us have time for the real deal of friendship and camaraderie unless we work together. And those of us with unique situations have found support groups in the flesh to be too much to include – so we put together Groups on Facebook and get a wealth of friendships, information, advice and support all without having to travel away from our computer screens. Plain and simple, in this capacity…it works.

And then there are those who take social networking to a higher level and utilize it as a place to vent their spleen, to cry the blues, to boast of what their children did in school and to share what they are having for dinner. This is to say nothing of the pictures that are posted! We are treated to everything from our friends’ vacation photos, to their tattoos, to their weddings and funerals, and just plain old silly pictures. We have gamers who want us to play with them, and poets who want to share music and videos. Facebook seems to be  the one place where it's okay to talk about religion and politics, posting and forwarding articles that reflect our opinions on candidates and issues, and join Groups that feel the same way. And while this approach can be a turn-off to those who keep their personal lives personal, for those who are more...well, social in this capacity, it works. 

Or does it? I have seen no less than five articles in the last week or so that have warned – if even briefly – about the “dangers” of Facebook. Identity theft. Cyber stalking. Cyber bullying. Pedophiles on the hunt. Job discrimination and loss as a result of less than flattering things posted on Facebook. Can you be fired from your job for grumbling about it on Facebook – or is it protected speech? What happens if you don’t name names? What happens if you do? Can a prospective employer not hire you based upon the video you posted when you were drunk at your cousins wedding? (Technically, no…but I’m sure they’ll find something about your resume to pan you for.)

I’ve got a whole bunch of kids that introduced me to Facebook, and it’s become something of a friend to me, and I have had to step back and take a good, hard look at what this new dynamic, this “Social Network” has done and is doing to our new and improved human society. 

Like ANY technology today, it is not good or evil in and of itself. It’s kind of like Tofu – not real meat – takes on the flavor of whatever you mix it with. So for me and a host of others, it tastes just like our plain-chicken lives. For the teenagers, however, it’s a smorgasbord of everything from hot and spicy, to exotic, to just plain awful. And for kids in particular, they have not been taught cyber etiquette – if there even is such a thing. 

I was raised in a world where there were things you did and did not talk about, and you found out the difference fairly early in life, when you were soundly scolded for spilling family secrets, exposing dirty laundry, or swearing (at home or in public). The things you could not or did not say out loud, you confined to the pages of your diary. Here, you could cuss out the unfair teacher, rip your enemies to ribbons, say whatever you pleased, and close the cover and put it back between your mattresses, vented and satisfied that you had recorded this colossal event in your diary, to be immortalized forever. No one ever knew how much you hated this or that; no one knew how happy or depressed you were – just your “Dear Diary”. 

Not so much anymore. It has come to my attention in large ways lately how powerful Facebook has become, and how scary many people, especially parents, perceive it to be. If you read the list of done-me-wrongs above, yes – I guess I get that. I’ve been dismayed on more than one occasion when a child of mine has cyber-vomited up some computer phlegm all over their status and wall. More than one post was aimed right at me!! How dare they!

I came to most of my decisions about the use of Facebook in my teenage-dominated home by default, playing it as we go. (Is there any other way to parent??) All of my kids have a Facebook account and all but one use it daily. We have come to some understandings about our family’s personal etiquette. First, if you live at home, I have access to your wall. You block me, I block your computer. Second – I don’t hang out on your page, lurk on your wall or snoop. Fair is fair. If I think you are suicidal, I’m going to come looking at what’s going on there – but I have a real respect for the right to privacy, and for the establishment of trust. So far, so good. Also, you are not required to be friends with your siblings – and in fact, this has become a real barometer of relationships – but you do have to be a part of our personal family page, so notices that go out there are subject only to family, and have become a means of family communication over everything from new babies, to career changes, to clean-the-house day notices. The family page also has served as a place to have that argument without the volume and the knee-jerk hurtful comments that might happen if someone didn’t have the chance to think and write out their ire before hitting the “send” button. 

So over the past year or so that Facebook has risen up the priority list of peoples’ lives, I have heard on so many occasions what has become the official beginning and end of many relationships. “I’ve been deleted as so-and-so’s friend.”  “I’ve blocked him from my wall.”  “I had to delete her, she’s such a pain,” etc. etc. etc.  Statuses of relationship declarations have become the plumb line of all romances: “It’s Facebook Official!” “Oh dear…she’s single again?” “But WHO is he in a relationship with?” Even saw a cute version of Mary and Joseph and their Facebook relationship, premarital pregnancy and all! 

So, in the case of Facebook Appropriate, what’s the deal with all of this? Is it okay for teens and young adults to post anything and everything on their walls and statuses? Should some of it be kept private? What should you be shouting from the Facebook housetop, and what should you just keep confined to the pages of a private diary? 

I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no wrong answer to that. It depends on YOU. What do you want the world to know? Or in the case of the teenage angst, do they even care who knows? In the midst of their myopic world, the heat of anger and emotion seems to far outweigh the self-consciousness and apparently prevents them from pressing delete instead of send. But after reading yet another disturbing post from a child that got them deleted from several adult friend lists, I had to wonder about it all. What is okay to post, and what is not? I sat down and talked with the currently offended child, and came to still more conclusions. 

After hashing out the issue, I sat down and perused her wall. And while I was mildly shocked, somewhat dismayed, partially bored, and feeling like I had nothing in common with this giant group of “friends”, I realized that I was, in fact, just reading a great big collective diary. I took a moment to head back to my teen years and visit with some of the shit I went through when I was there. It was a long time ago, and it took some doing to generate the feelings of love, lust, betrayal, loyalty, fun and games, war and peace of that era. Times have changed, but people really have not. Just the frame the picture sits in is now digital. 

I was hardly thrilled with some of the comments that were there – but the fact that they exist at all is not such a bad thing. Diaries and journals have always been therapeutic. The written word is a powerful cathartic for that which ails you. We just used to hide it under the bed and hope our brother didn’t read it. But now we not only want him to read it, we want him to know that he’s the reason we are pissed off! 

I’ve seen that Facebook has a feature that will compile all your statuses for a year, so you can read all that you wrote. In other words, they will publish a copy of your Facebook diary for you to read. Yes – that’s all it really is: A diary of your thoughts and feelings, which you deemed important enough to want to share, even if it’s behind the façade of Facebook. It’s actually a safe place to do so. You are in control of your friend list, and even then, it’s very impersonal. The most you will ever get from a Facebook friend is a {{HUG}}, and the worst you can be punished with is a nasty comment that can easily be deleted, or deleted from someone’s friend list altogether. (Of course I realize that the love of drama keeps even the ugliest of “friendships” alive on here, but that just might be the nature of the beast these days. If I delete you, I won’t know if you spread any more trash talk about me to my other friends!) 

But in the face of all this, what you are getting is reality. When you read some of the posts, you don’t find yourself asking, “Tell me how you REALLY feel…”. No…it’s plain enough! So, I had to ask myself, do I want my kids posting things that curl your hair? What is the alternative? Keep it to themselves? Hide who they are, what they think, what they do? Surely there is the ever-present TMI (too much information), which you certainly won’t find on my page, but if you look back through the journals I kept through that time in my life, it reads much the same. It just wasn’t open to commentary. And I’ve kept these journals for posterity – and I know that when I walk the next world at least some of my kids will be glad to know the childhood version of their mother they never met. 

And I think about my journals of old, and know that my mother never knew a thing about them. She did not know when I was so mad at her I risked the displeasure of God himself by announcing in one entry that I would spit on her grave! (She had our dog put to sleep, for reasons I did not understand at the time.) She did not know when I smoked my first cigarette, started taking drugs, or lost my virginity. She had no idea how much I hated myself, and how much validation I was seeking. She was clueless to my suicidal thoughts. She would never know just how infatuated I was with my first boyfriend, or how devastated I was when we broke up. My quiet sullenness was a mystery, which only my diary had the answers to. And this was hidden in the depths of my room, smoldering between my mattresses – everything that made me tick. And that’s just the way it was. 

But it’s not like that anymore. I want to know why my kids are quiet – why they are crying. Why they slammed the door, why they don’t want to come home, and why they don’t want to leave home. I would much rather know where they were all weekend and what they were doing, and know that they were safe in their choices – poor or otherwise. And if they weren’t – I want to know that, too. I can’t address what I don’t know. And I have decided that I don’t want the sanitized version, either. I don’t want them to have to lie to me. I realize what "the experts" mean when they say you can’t be your childrens friend – but one surely needs to define “friend”. Because looking at my older kids, I’m glad that I am their friend – it’s all we can hope for at the end of the parent/child relationship road; to go from loving, guiding parent to trusted friend and adviser. I will always be able to pull rank, if necessary – but if you have no idea who this person you have raised really is, how will you effectively do that? 

I have found that I can take every “questionable” comment and picture that they post and use it to my parental advantage. Yes, even the proverbial drunk wedding videos. However inappropriate they may seem, there are a few things to remember. Number one is the DELETE option. Oh, I realize the well-meaning-ness of “once on-line, forever viewable” warning – but that’s not necessarily the case. Go ahead and try to find the picture you deleted of yourself with the lampshade on your head at the party. You can’t find the adorable one of your granddaughter that you accidentally deleted, either. You are going to have to REALLY want them to actually find them. And yes – if your boss sees a compromising picture of you on Facebook, your job might be at risk – but the boss might as well know who he hired, too. If he can’t see that Conservative Connie only breaks out of her business suit once a year on Christmas and forgive her – well, here comes the lawsuit. On the other hand, if seeing Harry the Hippie doing bongs every time he boots up his page, he should have the option of letting him go, or at least drug testing him one more time. The beauty of it is that it’s up to Connie and Harry – the individual who “owns” the page – to decide what they choose to share, and what they choose to keep private. 

And what a great opportunity to talk to my kids about relationships – and the drama – and the bad apples – and the keepers. Parenting at the coming-of-age is, in my life, primarily a spectator sport. I sit in the stands and watch – and I cheer, and I grimace, and I wince, and I shout…but it’s not my game anymore. It’s theirs. I get to come out on the field at half-time and mop up the blood, bandage the boo-boo, and replace their mouth guard before I head back to the stands and watch them continue on in their lives. I shout out the potential consequences of that move – flail my arms and shout when they are headed for a wall at full speed, but realize that few things on the field are fatal. The older they get, the less and less I get to be in the huddle as they develop their own team. But I do hope to maintain my position on the sidelines as the special teams coach – and the trust that has been built or destroyed will have everything to do with whether or not they want me as part of their adult team. 

When I look at some of the immaturity on display, I can’t help but re-frame my dismay by realizing that at that age I was doing the same, if not worse – and that in 18 months I had pulled my head out of my ass and become a responsible, married young mother. I’ve come to see that growing up – maturing – does not have to mean we no longer have fun, or do crazy things, or become silent, stoic, and stuffy. I am who I am – I have grown through every experience I’ve ever had to live a crazy, wonderful life. And so will they – if they are allowed. 

So, like the judge in the courtroom, testimony has come up that the prosecution objects to…but in my case, I’ll allow it. It’s part of a world we 40+ aged people did not have. We had our own version of immaturity and growing up – and our children have theirs. We are all just part of the grand anthropological experiment called being human – “The comparative study of human societies and cultures and their development.”  For all its components, the world of Facebook is, in fact, the world they live in – and I’d rather have the full version – not the Cliff notes. 

In our “hurry-up” world, I am choosing to look at Facebook as more of a Reality show, where the players are my own kids, and I am reading their diaries, live on the news feed, rather than waiting for a day where I pine for their presence, and read their diary only to find myself face to face with a child I never knew. I’d much rather talk about the good and bad in life with them now, while there is still a sporting chance to capitalize on the good and evade the consequences of the bad. 

Each kid who plasters all that they are on Facebook today is simply writing their biography – to be read now, in the present, and not saved for a day when there is nothing we can do about it but look back wistfully on what was. In a world where kids are lacking purpose and validation, despite a school system that has leveled the playing field and taught Even-Stevenism for all, they stand with their fists in the air and bodies on display, crying “SEE ME!!” And I want them to know I see them – I acknowledge them – I value them – I love them. They are, indeed, my friends.