My.facebook

When my seventh grade son asked me if he could have a Facebook page, I was inclined to say yes, mainly because I was pleased that he was even asking my permission. After briefly looking at the site, I also thought it seemed harmless enough. So I gave him permission, on condition that I would have access to his page. To do that, it seemed I had to sign up for a Facebook account also so I could be one of my son’s “friends.” This process took less than five minutes.

I was not too surprised to find that many of my kids’ classmates have Facebook pages, and that they use them to express all kinds of silly stuff. What did surprise me a little, however, was how slow my own generation has been to get on board. A search for my high school, college, and law school classmates yielded none of my actual friends (though one turned up subsequently). I wondered why more people my age are not trying this new networking device. Are we such old dogs that we cannot learn any new tricks?

I also wondered whether more parents shouldn’t be monitoring their children’s Internet activities more closely to discourage the kind of rude, crude and sometimes lewd behavior to which the denizens of MySpace and Facebook have been known to succumb. I know that people don’t always realize that everything they say online could become public, and I hope my own online presence will help my kids remember that. But I also wonder whether or not I am the one going overboard by snooping into their private zones. Perhaps my son’s friends will think he is uncool for allowing his dad to be his friend. I certainly never thought of my parents as my friends when I was in junior high school. And I do not want to harm my children’s popularity, as I know that is of critical importance at his age.

Thankfully, my son does not seem to mind my presence. In fact, he likes to send me messages, and invites me to play games with him. And one of his friends even invited me to be a friend. And though it is no doubt necessary for our children to have areas of privacy and the freedom to express themselves to their peers, it may be even more important to break down some of the barriers between interest group communities in both the virtual and real worlds. We need not limit our friends to those of our own age group, or who share common interests, or who belong to our classmate or workgroup community. We can reach out to others whose interests and beliefs may diverge a bit from ours. We can even try to create some bridges to our own kids.