So for months my 16-year-old daughter has urged me to get on Facebook, insisting that I remain "plugged in" despite my advancing years. So I set up a Facebook account with a weird made-up name and a quite hilarious headshot, if I do say so myself, of one of my favourite fictional characters. My son, daughter and American nephew invited me to be their friends. I have only three.So my daughter is away for most of the month with my beloved in-laws, and told me if I need to get a message to her, just post it on her Facebook wall because she goes online once a day. I thought this was odd. I mean why not just e-mail? But I did as she said.
So one day I post a message to her wall and I see that all of her girlfriends, lovely girls that I have known since they were all in junior kindergarten together, have also posted her messages to tell her how much they miss her and .... oh yeah .... to divulge in great detail the fact that all four of them are raging potheads. Oh yes. All sorts of posts about how high they all got the night before and how they almost got arrested and "I'm so stoned right now I can barely type but getting high without you is not the same!" and so on and so on and so on.
Now I can't say I am terribly surprised. I keep finding lighters in my daughter's knapsack, after all. And one night the four girls showed up at about midnight after a night out, giggling uncontrollably while hoovering back several boxes of Honeynut Cheerios. I am a pretty cool mother and I know this is what kids do -- I did it at their age, and quite honestly, marijuana-smoking does not freak me out nearly as much as heavy boozing. They are good, close friends, look out for one another, hang out mostly exclusively with one another, they all do well in school, they all treat their parents (for the most part) with respect, they are not lazy, not stunned, they obey their curfews, they are basically very good kids.
But to see it all laid out there on Facebook was a bit disconcerting. I posted the following message: "I see you and your friends are all potheads. You're grounded." I soon got a phone call accusing me of violating Facebook etiquette -- you don't read people's walls, apparently, except your own -- and also accusing me of stalking her. She dumped me as a Facebook friend. The best defence is a good offence, I guess. I now have only two friends.
I'll leave the contemplation about what to do with the discovery she and her friends smoke pot regularly for another time. I have some time to figure that out until her return, and I have to measure my response with the fact that I think marijuana should be legalized and I shouldn't be a hypocrite. I need to dust off the drug talk again and lay down some rules and regulations.
But what the hell is with this Facebook phenomenon? Do these kids not realize that all of their "friends," hundreds of them, some of whom they barely know, can read their walls? What is the point of Facebook? Why not create a group e-mail list? Why would you want the world to be able to read what are essentially your private exchanges with your closest friends?
Facebook? No thanks.
30 comments:
LOL.
I am trying to figure this whole Facebook thing out.
So far, I have two accounts -- one in my own name and one in Deirdre's name.
I think, like you, I was my daughter's friend and then she unfriended me for violating various Facebook etiquette rules including saying I am a reverend, in an open relationship, a grandmother and engaged.
I also pissed my daughter off when I phoned one of her friend's mothers to say that my daughter had set up a FAcebook account for her daughter, and I thought she should know.
She thanked me, said she would check it out, and now Mom has her own Facebook account as well.
I don't have many more friends than you Jacy so don't worry.
And as for the wall, I'm sorry, your daughter is wrong. Of course, you get to read other people's walls otherwise they'd be called a diary.
p.s. I want that t-shirt!!!!
p.p.s. I am in denial about the whole pot thing -- until it happens to me!!!
I started reading this thinking..."Well, this can't be good". Yep. The list grows and grows. No Boys, No Cars, No Thongs, No Booty Shorts, NO COMPUTER!!! Piko may as well join the convent now.
My daughter is 10
I first smoked pot at 12
I'm on facebook. She's not. Yet.
But, I can feel the double-standard head-on collision coming. Dear God.
Lemme get this straight... your daughter is out until midnight? You don't mind her smoking pot?
Me=thinks you should be drinking that koolaid after all. Disgusting.
She will be 17 in a month. Yes, she stays out til midnight. Her friends have a 2 a.m. curfew. When I was her age, I had a 1 a.m. curfew. I am considered a hard-ass on this front.
As for pot, I am trying to be realistic. It's not that I don't mind her smoking pot, but in the long list of substances teenagers routinely abuse -- whether you're willing to accept it or not -- I feel pot is the lesser of many other evils. You don't pass out and get date-raped smoking pot. You get giggly, paranoid and/or hungry, but you don't lose consciousness.
But thanks for enlightened input, Jonovision. It's not 1958 anymore, by the way.
p.s. And I should mention that midnight is her weekend night curfew, not weeknight.
Me thinks Jonovision needs to get off the koolaid if she thinks it's a good idea to keep a 17-year old in lock-down on the weekends..
Me also thinks that knowing and regulating a child's activity is a much smarter parenting strategy than denial and refusal to see what's going on all around.
Me also thinks that moral panic over pot smoking is the easy way out of constructive parenting.
It would be so much easier if everything were black and white, but alas, it ain't.
Wow, thanks, GT. I couldn't have said it better myself.
HAhahahahah! Jonovision...disgusting indeed...your antiquated thinking, that is.
Do you have kids, by the way?
I think I have Facebook. I know one person asked me to be their friend and I said sure, why not.
I notice the anonymous morality police have found you. Just what you need to make your day.
(I consider people anonymous when they don't have a link and I have yet to see a flamer come in with one).
Hmmm... well I'm not just willing to flame and duck.
Does everyone here really think that it's a rite of passage for kids to get drunk and high, the experiment with drugs or sex?
I'm a youngish parent (three boys), non religious, and pretty easy going. I'd like to think I know my boys well. I'm pretty sure that aside from the wine at holidays (when they were 16) they haven't been high or drunk.
But really, y'all accept this as a normal part of growing up?
BTW - I don't have a website. Not allowed to comment unless I have one?
I would suggest that they are just adept at hiding their highness/drunkenness from you. Sorry, but some kids are smarter at covering their tracks than others.
The girls I am talking about -- all gifted athletes. Pretty much all straight-A students. All from good homes with aware, smart, non-judgmental parents. One is valedictorian. All of them are virgins.
So I don't mean to sound harsh -- but clue in. And you might learn something you don't really want to know if you ever go onto Facebook.
And if you honestly believe that a midnight weekend curfew for a teenaged girl who's almost 17, works a part-time job and volunteers at a homeless shelter is outrageous than you, Jonovision, are in for a rude, rude awakening. You heard it here first.
So where does your soon to be ex husband weigh in on this? Does he have any influence at all? Or is he a pothead too?
Midnight is late for a 16-year-old? Sounds prettya average to me?
Also, Jonovision and Anonymous, at what age do the people in your world first experiment with pot and alcohol?
And does smoking the odd joint make you a pothead? If I drink wine every day am I an alcoholic?
Can we lay out some standards here?
Oh my. We could start a group on Facebook to explore the teenager, drinking, pot-smoking issue in more detail. Just a thought.
And to answer your question, Jacy, the point of facebook is to post embarrassing (perhaps drunken) photos of others (tag them) and to acquire 300 meaningless friendships with people you barely remember from high school. A good use of time and energy, I think. (No really, I do. Heh.)
Ex-hub not a pothead, but a child of the 70s who once played in a punk band, so he gets what's going on among that age group. We are on the same page. We know it's serious, but we also know it's pretty typical.
So let me get this straight: You feel it is necessary to discuss your personal life in public, but don't understand why your kid does Facebook?
Oh yeh, the "your children are lying to you" retort.
Unclever and inaccurate.
The fact that so many of you surrender that experimentation with drugs will happen is sad.
I am in fact a teacher, and when I haul parents in to hold them accountable for their kids' smoking up at lunch, they give me the same kind of pathetic excuse.
You make like I am absolving myself of responsibility and saying: it's fine, no problem, keep on toking, sweetheart.
I am not. She will be disciplined and grounded if need be.
But I am also not naive and not willing to pretend that my kid would never do such a thing. I even know ethnic families, with kids who are first-generation Canadian, church-goers and mosque-goers -- they've caught their kids drinking and experimenting with drugs.
I always feel that anyone so judgmental about drugs like marijuana, and about parents who deal with teenage crises intelligently and calmly, is not wanting to deal realistically with what really goes on in the lives of their children. That's just been my experience. Show me the parent who says his/her kid never drinks and I'll show you the kid who's the biggest lush in his or her group of friends.
Anonymous 10:24: I see your point. But I don't attach my real name to my posts and change identifying details to protect my kids. No one but a handful of supportive girlfriends even know about this blog, and a couple of others who don't like it but who can very easily simply stop reading it. Because it has proven very therapeutic during what is, hands-down, the most wretched period of my life.
It's not like I've posted photographs of myself and invited everyone I know with an e-mail account to read all about me.
But thanks for weighing in, A. Hope it's not all too uncomfortable for you.
Someone thinks Jacy is too personal, even though no one knows who Jacy is?
Get a load of this blog!!
http://onedatatime.typepad.com/dick_liker/
Hmmm...this is interesting.
There seems to be two issues being discussed: teen pot smoking and personal blogging.
What are people's thoughts with city/suburban living? I ask because from what I've seen of my friends that live in the suburbs they have a lot more drug/alcohol issues with their kids than the ones who live in the city.
I don't know if maybe the suburb kids are bored and have a bit more money to spend, and sometimes the parents aren't around because they're commuting? And maybe the city kids have more outlets so they're 'busier' or something? I'm just asking, everybody relax, I'm not saying I have an answer.
I do believe that most kids will experiment with smoking or drinking, not all kids of course, but most.
I remember one gal from school, she went to church every Sunday, carried her bible everywhere, and yet stole from The Bay like crazy!
Also, Anonymous at 1:00 am...what is your point re: that porno blog you linked to?
Jonovision: WHY exactly are you attempting to hold the parents responsible for their teens' bad behaviour? You're one of those teachers, are you? Must be entirely the parents' fault?
Study after study has shown that once a kid gets into their teens, parents, good or bad, have very little influence anymore on their behaviour. Friends and social life become tantamount. They become the chief influence over a teen's antics.
A good, an enlightened teacher might actually sit down and talk to the kids, not the parents, who are increasingly cut out of the equation, about what's going on in their lives and with their friends to prompt the drug/alcohol abuse. And approach the problem WITH the parent. Not blame the parent for the problem.
I have three kids, all raised the same way by loving, responsible parents who are still together. Two of them got in trouble at school. One had a teacher who was fabulous and helped us get to the bottom of it. One had a hostile teacher who seemed to blame us entirely for our son's mouthiness in class. Which teacher do you suppose had the most success?
I echo Jacy -- clue in.
Does the ex know about this blog? If not, maybe he would learn a thing or two about the consequences of his actions.
Just want to clarify that you are welcome to be anonymous here. We recognize that anonymous speech has a long and valiant history (along with all the negative stuff.)
However, if you are going to be anonymous, keep it civil and smart and preferably witty.
Jonovision, you are not sounding real to me. Tell us about your kids, their personalities, you relationships.
surely you realize that most teens aren't like the ones you describe -- so how come yours are different?
Shed some light on the situation. We need to assess if you are odd woman out on Trip Advisor.
Tanya, my experience was the hornies girls always came from the suburbs where their parents had moved because it was better for the kids.
But I hate the suburbs so I'm definitely biased.
Yes, Tearfree, I also hate the suburbs.
And since when are parents able to 'control' their kids?
Are parents to be held responsible for every thing a kid does; does that include the positives too? If a kid turns out to be a lovely wonderful successful person can the parents take credit or is it just the luck of the draw?
Wait, am I getting into that whole nature/nurture debate here?
I have to go put my kid back in his crate because he's crying and it's bugging me.
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Kidding! I'm kidding. He's not crying that much.
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