MOM ON THE RUN: Social networking sites work for adults, too

It’s been at least a couple of years since I created my Facebook profile. I started a MySpace page too, so I could check out my kids’ pages, see what they were up to, keep them safe. It was all over the news then, the dangerous things happening on MySpace and Facebook, the bad guys that lurked there. So I started pages … then discovered that my son wasn’t on either site, and my daughter’s privacy settings wouldn’t let me see what she was up to.

So I abandoned the project. I logged on every now and again, poked around and found nothing, and logged back off.

But then a few months ago I discovered that grown-ups were on Facebook too. “You don’t use it for work?” a colleague asked, and I went back on and started posting on my wall. Not often, it still seems easier to just e-mail or call people, but I established a presence, found some friends and some friends found me, and it was good, even if it had nothing to do with the original goal of checking on my kids.
And then, strangely, my daughter “friended” me! I could see her page, her postings, her pictures! Then some of her friends friended me, and some of my friends’ kids friended me. And my Facebook page went from light grown-up fun to strange grown-up burden. Suddenly I had to watch what I said (not that I said anything bad, really), and what groups I joined.

I mean, kids are watching, right? If they’re studying my page the way I’m studying theirs, they’re reading my profile; assessing my pictures; watching to see if I post “25 random things about me.” I had to be a role model — and I had to watch out that I didn’t become that weird mom who hangs out in her kids’ pages, commenting on their lives, friends, clothes, relationships. I saw other moms do that, and I did not want to cross that line.

So I confirmed my daughter’s friends’ friend requests, and my friends’ kids’ requests, because it seemed rude not to, but I decided to stay separate, to look but not participate, to not become the weird mom.

Until tonight, when I log onto Facebook for the first time in a week and see the message that my daughter’s friend Andy — and I guess my friend too, right? — posted: “days like this make me wonder why I try so hard and yet I still fail.”

Oh! I sit for a minute, stunned, my hands covering my mouth in dismay. No, he doesn’t mean that, does he? Because Andy is a great kid. He’s truly brilliant, funny and friendly. He’s got 299 Facebook friends and has demonstrated more natural ability and potential in his 16 years than I have in all my 42.

I sit and look at the message. He posted it 27 minutes ago, and nobody has written him back. Almost a half-hour, an eternity with no sympathetic response! Nobody, out of 299 friends? Oh, I think, I can’t let Andy feel this way, that he’s a failure and nobody cares. I just can’t.

I bend my fingers over the keyboard and … and then I stop. I know what will happen if I post a reply. All of Andy’s 299 friends will see it, and they’ll know I’m a mom, and whose mom I am. They’ll post back and forth, laughing at me. My daughter will get in on the action too, adding notes about how crazy I am. And suddenly I will be that weird mom, the laughingstock!

The image seizes me, and I freeze, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

But then I read Andy’s message again, see that still nobody has written back, after 29 minutes. And I can’t do it. I shut my eyes, throw caution to the wind, and start typing. I become that mom … and I hope I become a friend, too.

Lianne Wilkens lives with her family in Manassas. She can be reached at liannewilkens@hotmail.com.