Category Archives: Facebook

Carolina in My Mind

I left North Carolina when I was 18 and never got much of a chance to go back.  I visited, sure, but everybody knows it’s not the same.  It’s true that you can’t really go back, and even more true when your parents don’t live there anymore.  And if  your old friends’ parents don’t live there anymore either?  Well, just forget it.  Even if you do go back, there’s nowhere to go.

This is the odd plight of military brats around the world.  Thrown together as kids in new schools in new towns every few years, we made tight bonds fast.  We understood the fears, we accepted the difficulties, we embraced others like us and were meaner than we should’ve been to those who weren’t.  We soaked in the sun on the Carolina coast and turned up the music on our boom boxes; we laid by the pool, slathered with baby oil, and bared our souls in the hot sun; we stayed out as late as we possibly could and laughed our heads off at every opportunity.   It wasn’t all funny.  We had all sorts of issues in our crowd:  binge-drinking, drugs, pregnancy, and eating disorders all reared their ugly heads.  But we stood strong.  We held hands.  We talked late into the night.  We cried the tears that only BFFs can cry for one another.  We made it through.
I moved away a week after graduation and over the next few years I fell in love with New England.  If I had time off, that’s where I wanted to spend it.  Most of my southern friends’ parents relocated, and I lost touch with many of them.  A few of us hung in there, some for years even, but after six moves I eventually lost track of most of them.
And then came Facebook.  I can’t tell you how nostalgic it’s made me to be reminded of those times at the beach.  It’s an entire chapter of my life that feels lost, sometimes, because I didn’t go back and it feels like it just ended, rather abruptly.  But it’s not lost. Not at all.  And in case I thought it was, my friends have old pictures to prove it.
I just hope they don’t post all of them!
photo credits:  Petra Broda and cletch

Simply Joy Sunday: 3 Things I’m Thankful For

I’m feeling thankful today, so I thought I’d join Heather’s Simply Joy Sunday.  Obviously, I’m thankful for my family and all things related—good health, good choices (mostlyJ!), and good relationships.  So what are some of the other things in life that bring me joy?  Here are today’s top three:

  1. I’m thankful for friends.  For someone who’s lived up and down both coasts, and in a couple of states in the middle, friends rank high on the list of things that bring me joy.  Holly (Wisconsin), Kathy (Washington), Missy (California), Debbie (Massachusetts), and Samantha (Pennsylvania) could all be long lost strangers by now.  Instead, they continue to fill my life with joy year after year.  They rock.  Not to mention the friends closer to home, whose names I don’t dare put on the Internet—you know who you are. You rock, too.

  1. I’m thankful for Facebook (see number 1)  Yes, you read that right!  Although Facebook can be a huge time drain, it has allowed me to reconnect with friends I haven’t seen in FOREVER.  Kara—from high school!—just friended me last night.  Jen—who I haven’t seen since 1989—was one of the first people to find me.  How cool is that?  I loved these girls and life just took us in different directions.  At least now I can peek in on them and see how they’re doing.  It always makes me smile. 

  1. I’m thankful we have plenty of snacks for the Super Bowl.  At first glance, this seems to have nothing to do with friends, right?  Think again.  I’m thankful both that we have the resources to be cooking up chili, and cornbread, and hot wings today, but also that we’re sharing them with our friends & our kids’ friends.  Go Steelers!

That’s my Simply Joy Sunday folks.  Hope you’re finding joy in life’s little things, too. 

Brave New World

So…..Facebook.  The thing we all know about the Internet, as parents, is that anybody can post anything and just about anybody else can read it.  This is the part our kids don’t always get:  what part of world wide web is it that don’t they understand?  Partly because they’ve grown up being supremely comfortable with technology, it’s easy for our kids to look at Facebook as their own private online corner of the world.  But it’s not.  Private should never even be uttered in the same breath as Facebook.  And even if you don’t want your kids out there, please realize that even the most sheltered kids can usually get access, whether it’s at the library or their friends’ homes.  The Scouts and the Coast Guard have it right:  Be Prepared and Always Ready.

In an effort to be both prepared and ready for my children’s eventual enrollment on Facebook, I talked to moms whose kids are already out there.  Here’s what they had to say:

  • Consider setting your child’s account up using their middle name as their last name.  Their friends will know how to find them (trust me!), but it will be harder for a stranger to track them down. 

  • Use the privacy settings to ensure that only their approved “friends” can see beyond a brief bio.
  • Use the privacy settings, but don’t stop there.  Be aware of what your child is writing, to whom, and vice versa.

  • Get your own account and have your child accept you as a “friend.”  Bummer for them, yes.  Will they resist?  Probably.  Do they want to be on Facebook?  Play the parent card:  you need to know what’s going on.

  • Kids want to collect friends, which is one of the reasons you have to know what’s happening.  Who are all these friends?  (They’re really friends of friends, which can mean total strangers.)  I have 10 friends on Facebook, which is completely unacceptable for anyone under the age of 30.  (Please note: I’m no longer in that unique group.)  When I checked the Facebook accounts of two of my high school babysitters (and yes, you can do this!), they both had about 500 friends.  They are mocking me and my 10, I’m sure.

  • Watch out for random photos.  Two of my friends have high-school aged kids, whose older cousins are in college.  The fun-loving cousins frequently post photos of their fun-loving college escapades to their Facebook accounts.  The cousins are, of course, Facebook friends with the high-school girls.  Enough said?  What kind of photos would you have posted in college?

  • Know your kids’ passwords.  Another bummer, I know, but don’t abuse it and it doesn’t have to be.  There’s no need to comment when your son gets four messages on his wall from four different girls.  But if there’s something more going on, then it’s a bummer for everyone and you need to know about it.

  • Check your kids’ Facebook e-mails.  Many older kids don’t even use regular e-mail anymore.  Once they get connected with all of their friends on Facebook, they just communicate there.  Also, be aware that it’s possible to check your kids’ e-mails and then mark them as unread.  It’s sneaky, I know.  Again, you don’t want abuse it, but it’s good to check in from time to time.  If it’s all minor, no harm, no foul.  If it’s major, looking at their e-mail won’t really matter.  They’ll have much bigger issues to worry about.

  • Talk to your child about whether they really want to use the “Top Friends” feature.  It’s extremely popular, but there’s a bit of a mean streak in it.  Think back to the cliques and pain of middle school and high school.  Think back to just trying to fit in.  Now think about what it would be like if everyone you know is out there on Facebook, and all of the “cool” kids are listed on GQ Athlete’s Facebook “Top Friends,” except for you.  Ouch.  I’m also told that kids use this feature as a sort of bribe, as in, “Well, if you don’t do x, I’m going to take you off of my ‘Top Friends’.”  Nice, isn’t it? 

It’s a Brave New World out there, moms.