7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Be Friends With Your Kid On Facebook
2 Aug
Facebook has interesting features, one of my favorites being, “here is someone Facebook thinks you know.” I love it because Facebook seems to think they know my life. Granted, they are correct, I do technically know that suggested person but there is no way in hell I’d want to have any form of contact with them either online or walking past each other at the free clinic. Facebook, you don’t really know donkey balls about me when we get down to brass tacks.
The other day, a friend of mine told me one of the people Facebook suggested was his teenage daughter. Sure he knew her. Did he want to be friends on Facebook? Hell no. It’s bad enough they both live in the same house. He felt the same way about the situation; the last thing a parent wants is to be connected to their kid on Facebook.
Here is why…
You’ll Have To Fake Interest In Their Lives
They babble on at breakfast about their favorite TV show, the sounds they swear are music, or the stupid celebs they find interesting. You nod your head and fake interest while contemplating how long it would take to sip bacon grease until your heart explodes and you can leave the table.
If they have contact on Facebook, you’ll be the first on the list to get a request to join all the dumb groups and fan pages they love. “Your daughter thinks the Jonas Brothers are the second-coming of the Beatles and wants you to join the ‘Jo Bros Get No Hoes’ Fanpage.” No thanks.
Parents of Their Friends Can Find You
You’ve done a fantastic job blowing them off so far. All their invitations to dinners, book clubs and swinger parties are getting fewer with each passing pick-up at your house. It’s bad enough your kid has taken a liking to their booger picking offspring, you don’t need to be chummy too. This isn’t a sitcom. Kids can be friends, you’ve got more than enough people to hang out with on weekends. Even if you don’t, you’re not going to waste time around these PTA planning pud-heads.
Facebook gives them a whole new set of chances to invite you to their stupid functions.They are friends with their own kid, who is friends with your kid, who is unfortunately on your friend list. Too many degrees of Bacon Brothers. “So and So has just invited you to their ‘Only 24 more days left in summer BBQ’. Will you be attending? NO! NO! ONE HUNDRED CLICKS OF THE ‘NOT ATTENDING’ BUTTON NO! Plus, being connected makes it a hundred times harder to lie to get out of situations. You’d want to tell Daddy and Mommy Dorkerson you’ve got plans for the weekend but your FB status clearly states your looking to get a couple boxes of wine deep into old episodes of The Wire. Not exactly unbreakable plans. Not being friends with your kids means avoiding all the people in their life you’re looking to avoid.
They’ll Be Up In Your Biz
You’re a parent but you’re still an individual. You’ve got a life. It involves people and things that aren’t under four feet tall. Remember how much you loved going to things like Comic-Con or Drinking-Con? Facebook is a great place to keep in touch with all those people from that much more interesting part of your life. You don’t need your kids snooping around into your groups, links, and friends they’ve never met. “Why am I friends with NJ Weedman? Look, son, there are things about dad you don’t have to know. Not yet anyway. Now, you gonna help me with this massive ice cream sundae or not? Daddy is feenin! Where are the Triscuits?”
Your Kids Are Embarrassing
Admit it; your kids do at least two or twenty things a day that make you cringe. As much as you want to take a DNA test to be absolutely sure you share the same chromosomes they are sadly your children and they are going to continue to say and do dorky things until they realize how stupid it makes them look. Until then you’ve just gotta laugh and say “He gets that from his mother/father and because he used to chew on paint chips as a toddler.”
Now, with the advent of social networking, all the dumb things your kids say and do can just hang out there for years like that pair of underwear in the glovebox you won’t admit belong to you (that was one hell of a trip to the DMV!). The kid makes a goofy joke or statement on their Facebook status for all the world to ingest for a couple thousand days. Worse, you’ve got to read it and be embarrassed as well. If you aren’t friends, you have no idea about all the dumb things they say, do and link to.
It’s An Admission They Are Your Kids
Who? That kid? Don’t know him. No, everyone calls me Dad. It’s a nickname like “Slim” or “Vinegar Balls”. Why is he getting into my car? No idea. Hey! Hey kid! Get the hell out of my car. I don’t know you. Is that my favorite t-shirt? Damn-it to beets!
Facebook is concrete proof they belong to your family tree. Besides the fact your bother attractive in a horrible grotesque way. It’s a compliment.
Farmville
If they make a request for you to join, march up to their room and immediately tell them they were adopted from a group of traveling circus performers. They will be back in town in a week and they want them back. You’ll help them pack. They’ll love circus life. They all ready smell like a donkey.
It’s Better You Don’t About Their Life
All these parents that keep track of their kids lives on Facebook and then call them out on it whenever they do something they don’t find acceptable need to grow the hell up. Suppose your parents watched you every minute of the day? Think of the hell.
You don’t want to know all the stuff your kids do. You’re better off pleading ignorance for your and their sake. Just let them live their lives without being a nosey parents commenting back on their status or tagging embarrassing photos of them for all the world to see. Seriously, haven’t you got better shit to do all day than hang out on Facebook? Oh, right, your job does suck. Well go bother someone else. Like your husband or wife, who is on Facebook hooking up with ex’s and joining S&M groups that meet at Stop & Shop. In the produce aisle. Among the cucumbers. Let it sink in.
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OMG…laughed so hard i cried! too funny
You know, Chris. Although the middle school and high school “people” tell us we need to relentlessly stalk our children on social media, the question remains. Do you we really need to see that picture of our evil spawn on the football coach’s bathroom floor knee deep in their first Tanqueray and Tonic porcelain throne puke? Imma agree with you and say …Hell, NO. Thanks for the enlightenment. I can turn my cell phone off at night now.
Look at it this way; you did the best you could. It’s all in Jesus Juice’s hands now. And even if you didn’t do your best, eh, so be it.
One last thing (in addition to the Facebook comments)…that one family photo is totally creeping me out. That little girl is grabbing her dad’s “penis”. How is it legal for you to post that?
I found it online. Fair penis. I mean Penis Usage. I mean. Whatever.
Frankly, I’m disturbed anytime someone has to put the word ‘penis’ in quotations. Is it some kind of ironic penis?
You know I have realized too that being Facebook friends with your kids you can’t talk about certain things. Like how Santa needs to go shopping or there won’t be presents under the tree! (My son is following me and I knew that if he read that he would be shattered.) And my daughter..she is always making stupid remarks to my posts. I think I am going to have to get them off of there right away!
Exactly. You don’t get to be you! If that makes sense. LOVE YA BLUE!