Facebook advice [Archive] - Bogley Outdoor Community

Don

02-06-2009, 05:43 PM

Crap. My mom discovered facebook.She friended me on Facebook a few minutes ago.
So, here's the problem. She's a good & judgemental mormon and I am not. We have spent years arguing about religion and have finally found a truce because we just don't talk about religion or politics anymore, ever.
Many of you know this can be difficult for me. I just keep my opinions to myself around her. I know it's a sad way to live, she really doesn't know me anymore, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life arguing with her.
So now what? Do I ignore her request and likely have her ask why? Do I delete my Facebook and claim something tragic like a hacker got me? Do I friend her and just restrict what I post? (This option will result in my dropping Bogley as a friend because I don't want her to find this forum). Do I call her now and explain why I don't want to friend her? Is there some option I have missed?

trackrunner

02-06-2009, 05:53 PM

:lol8:

I know of people that have denied facebook friend status to a mother, aunt, and even grand mother.

Don face it. your screwed if you do accept her and screwed if you don't accept her.

Maybe create a second profile. Tell her she contacted the wrong profile. One is for work/professional reasons. The other is for family & friends, or personal.

Udink

02-06-2009, 06:05 PM

I'm not sure if this will work now, since your wall is currently visible to anyone already on Facebook, but you might be able to play dumb and just say that you don't really use Facebook and didn't see her friend request. Of course, you'd have to change your privacy settings so that only friends could see your wall, so that she wouldn't notice any new activity from here on out...

DiscGo

02-06-2009, 06:06 PM

Not knowing your Mom, it is hard to suggest too much but I think you should just add her and ignore her. Maybe Facebook can be a good way for you guys to reconnect.

greyhair biker

02-06-2009, 06:07 PM

tell her that is part of your life you dont want to share with her. She probably wont understand at first. Sorry dude.

KapitanSparrow

02-06-2009, 06:15 PM

Be honest. Remember, a lie has very short legs :ne_nau:

Sombeech

02-06-2009, 06:49 PM

I was in this same dilemma @ a month ago.

Then I realized that all of the private messages I have with my girlfriends are not visible by other contacts.

:mrgreen:

abirken

02-06-2009, 07:14 PM

02-06-2009, 07:27 PM

Ummm, that's your Mom :nod: I would never ignore mine, just food for thought. But, we all have our own reasoning's for things and ours alone. :nod:

live2ride

02-06-2009, 07:31 PM

Just accept her and continue with your ways, all of my family now has it and I never post anything that I would be embarrased of or is out of character so I didnt worry.

greyhair biker

02-06-2009, 07:49 PM

you should never post anything that would incriminate you in open forum. I think that goes without saying I'm not for hiding anything but somethings just don't need to be explained to you mom :nod:

blueeyes

02-06-2009, 09:32 PM

I'd call her right now and just say- Hey Mom, as you know we both don't agree on politics and religion. Places like Bogley and Facebook are a place for me to vent my opinions. Just giving you forewarning Mom that there may be things on these websites that you don't agree with. Balls in your court on whether or not you want to be my friend on Facebook.

Don't hide. Don't lie. Don't cancel your accounts. Don't move Bogley. You guys agreed to disagree.

Done deal.

I agree with Alison... maybe it is time she gets to know the real you... let her know up front she is not going to like it and you are not going to discuss it with her... you are your own person. It's not like anything you post on here is incriminating...

BruteForce

02-07-2009, 08:34 AM

I ran into the same thing. My mom also discovered Facebook and friended me. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I've always been quite candid and my mom is no longer shocked by what I type/say or do.

She's your Mom. Either she'll accept you or not, but I'd recommend you just be yourself and be candid.

accadacca

02-07-2009, 08:54 AM

This option will result in my dropping Bogley as a friend because I don't want her to find this forum?
What? Huh? Bogley? :haha:

Seriously guys, what is FaceBook? Passing fad... :ne_nau: Is that like cheating on Bogley? :nono:

blueeyes

02-07-2009, 09:16 AM

LOAH

02-07-2009, 02:04 PM

I'm friends with my Mom on facebook. :ne_nau:

Hell, I've got 13 or so family members and they're mostly quite religious.

I just leave all the stuff I shouldn't let them know about me on Bogley. :lol8:

Sombeech

02-07-2009, 07:26 PM

I don't want her to find this forum

I wouldn't worry much about that. There are plenty of Dons on here, she won't know it's you.

My mom found out my username was Sombeech though. :haha:

denaliguide

02-07-2009, 08:40 PM

My mom found out my username was Sombeech though. :haha:

did she find the irony humorous?

Alex

02-08-2009, 06:13 AM

I am with the girls on this one. Got to face your mom sooner or later, can't run for ever. Grow up, grow some balls and live your life, she will adopt. Don't change anything, don't be someone you are not, don't lie.

blueeyes

02-08-2009, 06:27 AM

she will adopt.

:roflol: I am trading you in for 32 lb Puerto Rican!

That was always my mothers threat to me when she was mad. :roflol:

Don

07-13-2010, 03:25 PM

I knew this was going to be a problem. I f--kin' knew it.
So I learned about privacy settings on FB and set them up so my mom could see very little of my profile. No access to my wall or status updates. No access to see the groups I've joined or certain photo albums. And it worked, it's been what 18 months and no major breakthrough but no major arguments either.
It turns out that, even though she can't see my status updates she can see when I respond to a post someone else (someone not on my mom's friend list) made.
A friend posted a link to the NPR program This I Believe. It was Penn Jilette of Penn & Teller explaining why he believes there is no god. I responded to my friends post by saying "Wow, I hadn't heard that. Eloquent. I might send a transcript to my mom. Thanks for posting this Tracey."
Of course my mom saw it and managed to take offense. She messaged me angry and threatening to delete me from her friend list (which is funny considering I didn't really want her on FB in the first place).
I wrote her back, it was heartfelt and in depth. I spent hours working on it last night. I was careful not to be accusatory or derogatory 'cause I didn't want to make the situation worse. I'm not going to post it all here but essentially I said we should try to find a way to have a relationship past our differences.
She's been responding all afternoon. First angry, then an angry afterthought, then a slightly less angry afterthought, then threats of family banishment, then another angry afterthought. (And yes, another angry afterthought even while I'm writing this.)
I refuse to be sucked into a back and forth argument, it won't solve anything, it's why I wrote my response yesterday but didn't send it until this morning. Of course I want to write angry things back but I'll just not respond today and maybe not be angry tomorrow. In the mean time I'll bitch about it on Bogley.
What a pain in the ass; f--kin' Facebook. :facepalm:

Jaxx

07-13-2010, 03:37 PM

Don, this is your mother. I am borrowing Jaxx's profile, he is a sweetheart and alerted me of the post here. I can't believe you feel this way you harbor freight mother f...

Haha. Sorry to make light of your situation. I think you not responding will help both of you cool off. Good luck bra!

blueeyes

07-13-2010, 05:02 PM

you harbor freight mother f...

Classic!!! :roflol:

Sorry. I have no words of wisdom. Glad my mother lets me live my life. I saw your response to said article and read the article. Nice article.... I thought that sending it to your mom or parts of it to try and explain your view point was a good idea.

Anytime she sends you angry mail. Just tell her you love her and leave it at that.

denaliguide

07-13-2010, 05:59 PM

friends you can chose, family you're just stuck with. best of luck!

dbaxter

07-13-2010, 07:18 PM

What a pain in the ass; f--kin' Facebook. :facepalm:

I'm totally with ya!!! (Not my mom, though) My brother's wife found me and I ignored her. She sent me a PM, callling me all kinds of names, making all kinds of accusations,etc, blah, blah, blah. Funny because I haven't been in the same room as her in over 3 years-not even spoken to her or my brother once. I totally wanted to delete my account, but blocked all of them instead....:bootyshake::nod:. (Is there a birdie emoticon?) Not that that would work with your MOM of course. But I at least feel your pain! F--kin' Facebook...What have we done to ourselves?????:crazy:

Pelon1

07-13-2010, 07:21 PM

dbaxter

07-13-2010, 07:23 PM

Don, this is your mother. I am borrowing Jaxx's profile, he is a sweetheart and alerted me of the post here. I can't believe you feel this way you harbor freight mother f...

:roflol::roflol::roflol::naughty:

Don

07-13-2010, 08:45 PM

Thanks for the support and the laughs. I typed f--k facebook into Google and found some raving maniacs and this.
I gotta get me one of these.

35351

http://www.parkexmontreal.com/home.html

trackrunner

07-13-2010, 08:59 PM

Is there a birdie emoticon?

sure is :flipa::flipa::flipa:

Spooky

07-13-2010, 09:06 PM

Scariest day of my life...got friend requests from both Mom and Dad. Gack!

I'd call her right now and just say- Hey Mom, as you know we both don't agree on politics and religion. Places like Bogley and Facebook are a place for me to vent my opinions. Just giving you forewarning Mom that there may be things on these websites that you don't agree with. Balls in your court on whether or not you want to be my friend on Facebook.

Don't hide. Don't lie. Don't cancel your accounts. Don't move Bogley. You guys agreed to disagree.

Done deal.

And that's exactly how I handled it. Turned out to be a good conversation starter, actually. I'm pretty politically active, and my political posts led to discussions about Obama (turns out my dad voted for him...whodathunkit?!) and Utah politics. Even religion, to a limited extent. I let my mom explain why she believes as long as she allows me to explain why I don't believe. She's also friends on FB with my brother, whose son was just baptized Catholic and he celebrated by throwing the biggest beer bash any of those cops have ever seen. I mean...all the people at the party were in law enforcement. :haha:

So now she knows. We throw parties, we're members of Other <gasp> Religions, and she still loves us and we still love her. It's ended up okay.

Oh, and Sombeech taught me how to hide FB posts from family members. :lol8:

Spooky

07-13-2010, 09:09 PM

Oh sheesh, just saw page 2 of this thread. Crap!

Don, this is your mother. I am borrowing Jaxx's profile, he is a sweetheart and alerted me of the post here. I can't believe you feel this way you harbor freight mother f...

Hahahaha! :roflol:

blueeyes

07-13-2010, 09:29 PM

Don that is a great t-shirt! :haha:

Cirrus2000

07-13-2010, 11:00 PM

Damn... Hey Don, at least you still got a mom. I don't know what I'd do if my mom was still around and wanted to be my FB friend... :eek2:

My mom was very strongly religious/spiritual (as was I, growing up), and when I drew away from the church in my early 20s, she didn't make that big a deal about it. I was never very outspoken about my "spiritual quest" or anything. She died when I was 26, and I think that was the event that made me truly realize where my journey had taken me - all the way to full-fledged atheism. Part of that parallels what Penn said:

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

So cherish, tolerate, discuss and forgive. Argue a bit, absolutely, but always be ready to let stuff slide a bit, too. And most importantly, use this as an opening to discussing getting her the hell off your FB list!

I like the shirt, too...

Deathcricket

07-14-2010, 04:15 PM

My part of this is strange too. I saw your post on facebook, read the article, then went back to comment on it and it was gone. I assumed it was buried somewhere, I have trouble navigating the facebook news section. Then I went to your profile and didn't see it either. I suspected you put it up, then took it back down because of the situation with your mom and our conversation we had that day rock climbing a couple weeks back.... And of course I didn't want to post "that atheist article was interesting" on your wall where said parents would cause more issues for you.

Anyways now I have the full story.

Penn is one of my personal heroes, I don't always agree with him but always respect his viewpoint. I have posted his words before on here a lot and even this video. But in case you haven't seen this I'm going to post it again. Basically the premise is, your parents won't be here forever, love them as they are. In his case he is talking about his parents becoming old and frail and not what remembers. But if could be applied to your situation too. Where the belief system is so contradictory it's driving a wedge between you. Someone is going to have to bridge that gap. And clearly she isn't going to do shit about it. I would do anything I can to still maintain your relationship with your mom. Perhaps she will never be able to accept you for who you are though, that's sad to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-2PcEmf7c4&feature=related

Don

10-16-2010, 11:55 AM

Sweet. Alison shared this on Facebook but it really needs to be in this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn44fjWss68&feature=player_embedded#!

tanya

10-16-2010, 02:24 PM

Cant you just fix your settings so she cannot see your posts? I did that with my kids. You can also publish any post to a particular group or just certain people and block it from others. Maybe be a problem if you share some friends with her? Not that FB savy.

PS... Scott! Never would have touched FB if you and Beech did not push it. Now I use it daily. lol

Sombeech

10-16-2010, 02:42 PM

Yeah you can make any post or picture viewable by anybody, certain people, or everybody BUT a certain person.

accadacca

11-02-2010, 03:37 PM

http://www.hulu.com/watch/184577/saturday-night-live-moms-on-facebook

Don

12-18-2010, 11:39 PM

39826

cachehiker

12-19-2010, 08:48 AM

"After a night out do you DRUNK FACEBOOK?"

:lol8: :lol8: :lol8: :lol8: :lol8:

I could never friend my mom on Facebook and it has everything to do with her being judgemental.

Let's just say my parents stayed with me for a few weeks following some recent surgery. No Fox News for 14 hours a day sent her into withdrawl. If she want to be offended, let her be offended.

I won't even begin to go into the rest of it. I didn't in The Swell and I won't now.

I'm about to unfriend some ex-HS buddies given their repeated quotes of Cleon Skousen. :crazy: Should I follow through?

luthier

12-19-2010, 06:57 PM

I friended my parents on facebook, but I don't really have anything to hide from them on there. I can hear myself in highschool saying how lame I am now, but that's okay. I think the chart for friending your parents works really well.

Don

01-20-2011, 06:26 PM

Alex

01-21-2011, 10:23 AM

Looks like you worked it out in your own little way. Perfect!

denaliguide

01-21-2011, 12:50 PM

can almost taste the irony.:roflol:

Cosmic Kid

02-09-2011, 09:07 AM

Ah, hilarious, I was about to respond to something my mom said on Facebook today and I realised SHE is blocking ME! I can read her wall but not comment or 'like' anything.

I have never commented on her wall. I have never tried before because we have little in common and just don't interact, so I'm only now discovering something that may have been in place all along. So I'm not blocked for misbehaving on Facebook, instead I'm blocked because she thinks I might. Which is hilarious because I was concerned about her posting arguments on my page!

:roflol:

So are you feeling a bit jealous now? The irony....but seriously, your situation may go back to your orignal worry and you can't ignore your Mom--she's your Mom for crying out loud....you should be able to put her in a Facebook group and then restrict that group's privileges as far as what they can view on your page....whether it's your Mom or somebody else, there is always going to be somebody that is or wants to be a friend that you really would rather not have viewing your Wall....my philosophy: If I wouldn't want my Mom (who is deceased) viewing it, I don't post it

To each their own, but personally, I hate reading political or religious stuff on Facebook--I have defriended a few people for that reason

Don

02-09-2011, 02:46 PM

So are you feeling a bit jealous now? The irony....but seriously, your situation may go back to your orignal worry and you can't ignore your Mom--she's your Mom for crying out loud....you should be able to put her in a Facebook group and then restrict that group's privileges as far as what they can view on your page....whether it's your Mom or somebody else, there is always going to be somebody that is or wants to be a friend that you really would rather not have viewing your Wall....my philosophy: If I wouldn't want my Mom (who is deceased) viewing it, I don't post it

To each their own, but personally, I hate reading political or religious stuff on Facebook--I have defriended a few people for that reason

I have segregated my facebook friends and I do allow my mom to see some stuff. Actually I try to aim facebook messages at a particular audience; if I post something about the outdoors my bogley friends and some others can see that post, if I share family photos my family can see that but not most of my other friends, if I post about religion or politics that content is restricted to a specific group of friends who I already know would enjoy discussing it (usually, sometimes I post that content to a wider audience looking for a response from outside the expected group). This way most of my political/religious content isn't viewed by bogley friends (unless they are in the group for whom that content is aimed at).
'Cause yeah, I too hate reading peoples religious/political content when it's clear they don't want to discuss it. Worse still are the people writing about how boring their life is. If you are publishing how boring you are then you are right and I will drop you from my feed. :haha:

And no, not jealous, I thought the irony was hilarious. I guess we found our truce... for now.

Cosmic Kid

02-09-2011, 03:29 PM

I guess we found our truce... for now.

Glad things worked out for you ... be glad your Mom is still around to even cause you these headaches--mine isn't!

Cosmic Kid

02-09-2011, 03:32 PM

I guess we found our truce... for now.

Glad things worked out for you...and be happy that your Mom is still around to cause you these headaches--mine isn't!

Iceaxe

02-09-2011, 08:54 PM

Gotta love parents on Facebook. :haha:

http://www.lamebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/godad1.png

tanya

02-09-2011, 09:14 PM

I use to have my teen girls on my FB but it was too tempting to post to them, so I removed them. Kids and parents should not be allowed. :mrgreen:

canyonphile

02-10-2011, 10:14 AM

This way most of my political/religious content isn't viewed by bogley friends (unless they are in the group for whom that content is aimed at).
'Cause yeah, I too hate reading peoples religious/political content when it's clear they don't want to discuss it. Worse still are the people writing about how boring their life is. If you are publishing how boring you are then you are right and I will drop you from my feed. :haha:

You know, if I'd been able to figure this feature out back when I had a FB account, I might have considered keeping it! As it was, I seldom posted (for fear of boring people with photos of sunsets, rattlesnakes and posts about a trip to the Grand Canyon :roll:), and the "hide feed" button was the best feature of the whole site. I found that about 95% of the stuff being posted on FB, by people I originally thought were interesting and intelligent, was making them come across as narcissistic bores (the difference being that they *thought* they were posting witty, interesting stuff), vs. people who actually post how boring their life is. Sorry, but if you spend significant time on FB posting status updates, that's the definition of a boring life.