By Stinson Carter
Source: HuffingtonPost.com
Facebook: where we spy on our ex, stay in touch with that fling in Europe, judge our friends’ inane hourly updates, and get hounded by our high school classmates. But where we keep up with mom, it most certainly is not–or at least not until now.
A friend of mine complained to me the other night that his mother posted a “Happy V-Day, Love Mom” comment, and he called her to apologize after deleting it. A girl who overheard him retelling the story piped in immediately, “I can’t believe you! If I saw that on your page I’d think it was adorable.” When she was finished with him, it was clear my friend would never delete his mother’s posts again.
Remember how you always told your Mom she couldn’t stop youth culture? Well it’s payback time, and you can’t stop mom culture, either. Today, with an audience of millions of moms across America, Oprah joined “the Facebook revolution.” You thought your Mom was getting a little too close for comfort on the Internet before? Just you wait. You’ve gotten that Sunday phone call ever since you left home, but get ready for the Sunday comment and photo tag.
Maybe you’re afraid she’ll snoop around your page. Are you still talking to that old flame she always said was “just not good enough for you?” Are you getting tagged in pictures of you wearing that “naughty nurse” Halloween costume or that Michael Phelps-esque portrait of you and your bong? Probably. But rather than worrying too much about that, maybe you should just be thankful that mom’s interested in being part of your life.
I was a little freaked the day I clicked the “new friend requests” tab and saw my Mom smiling at me. I took a second to adjust, and then clicked “Approve.” Aunts and uncles started showing up in there the next day, and I think it’s wonderful. For the most part, they’re far less innocent than we think they are. So what if they don’t want their relationships with us to move into grandparent mode when we move out of the house? They’ve heard about “this Facebook” where everyone around the world is connecting. They want to be part of it, and you’re who they want to connect with. So if the question is, “How do you ignore your mom’s friend request?” The answer is, “How could you?”