Your Mom Likes Facebook
My parents have Facebook accounts now. Clearly, the end of the world is near.
Yesterday, they were both over at my house in the late afternoon and we were all sitting around with the kids, chatting. Facebook came up somehow. I’m going to give you the transcript of the conversation because nothing I could say could ever be better than this actual conversation.
“I don’t understand Facebook,” said my mom. “It’s just a jumble of all these one-line conversations that don’t make any sense.”
“What are you talking about, Mom?”
“Well, all I see are one line sentences and they don’t make any sense.”
“You should be able to follow along with the conversations. Are you reading what people are responding to?”
(crickets, crickets, crickets)
“Here, let’s look at my page and I’ll show you,” I said. So, I pulled out the lap top and opened to the Facebook homepage and I started to sign in.
“What are you doing? Where are you? What is this?”
“This is where you log in, Mom,” I said.
“Oh, I’ve never done that.”
“You’ve never logged in?”
“No.”
(crickets, crickets, crickets)
Then my dad joins the conversation…
“I don’t like all these people who want to be my FRIEND,” he announced.
“Like who?” I said.
“Like all of them,” he said, clearly irritated. “Why do all these people want to know what I’m doing? It’s none of their business!”
(crickets, crickets, crickets)
“Well, Dad,” I said after a minute. “That’s kind of the point of Facebook. To connect with people.”
“Well, I don’t want all these people looking at all my personal stuff!”
“What personal stuff? You don’t have anything on your profile.”
“What are all these one line things?” my mom interrupted, still looking at her Facebook news feed.
“Those are status updates, Mom,” I said, getting frustrated. “You don’t know what a status update is?!?!”
“No,” she said.
“It’s where you tell people what you are doing,” I explained.
“Why would anyone care what I’m doing?” my mom asked.
“IT’S NONE OF THEIR DAMN BUSINESS!” yelled my dad.
And this is why parents should not be allowed on Facebook.
The End.
61 Comments
Beth
BEST CONVERSATION EVER! I lvoe your dad. (lvoe is how I spell it when I really really love it!)
Michelle
Hysterical!
Jenn
My mom is on facebook, although I really don’t think she uses it. However, she does believe that children and their parents should not be friends on facebook. Thank goodness for that!
Maren
Or when they’re like my mom and become totally obessed with playing the facebook games…to the point when you visit, the conversation stops when she stops to play.
And it’s all my fault…I encouraged her to join so she could more easily keep up with what we’re doing…*sigh*
Susan
HAHAHAHA!!! Oh, that’s priceless! Even better than my conversation with a coworker yesterday who didn’t understand blogs. “I just don’t get it. What’s their purpose?” The conversation did not go well…
Grace
This is hilarious. I walk my mom through facebook on a biweekly basis. Most recently, she was VERY CONCERNED that Amazon Kindle was trying to be her friend and requesting personal information. It turns out she’d “liked” their fanpage when she first got a Kindle and was then horrified that their information was appearing on her newsfeed. So I explained how to “unlike a page” and the world was right again.
Also, Gracie is looking so alert and grown up in that second picture where she’s looking at your mom. PRECIOUS!!
Waiting for Bulgaria
That’s great. My parents don’t get it either. And that is why they don’t have facebook accounts. 🙂
Jen @ Caved In
I’ve tried to explain Facebook to my parents as well with pretty much the same results. Thus I have deemed them unfit for Facebook. If you ever read failbook it has some really great examples of parents who don’t understand how it works. Hilarious
Katie W.
Umm my dad inadvertently called Facebook “My Face” one day and that’s what our family jokingly calls it now. He says it’s where he and his other self-absorbed “friends” meet. haha!!
Window On The Prairie
I love what your Mom said about “why would anyone care what I’m doing?” She has a point. I really don’t care that someone “Just finished vacuuming” Who cares? 🙂
David Pearson
This is funny on too many levels. I’m helping organize a class in New Media and Identity this fall for a professor and we’re spending a while on Facebook Identity Theory… wow I’m a nerd… Anyway, I’m forwarding this onto my professor now.
Mindee@ourfrontdoor
I pretty much live in fear that my parents are going to join. Lucky for me my dad is pretty sure that facebook is part of some big plot and “dangerous.”
Oooooookay then!
Margaret
Ohhh parents on Facebook. My dad comments on every.single. status update and my mom posts stream-of-consciousness updates every four months. It’s hilarious. Do your parents get what your blog is? 😉
Alaina
oh my God, that is hilarious. My parents, unfortunately, are on Facebook. And if I update my status with anything negative whatsoever, I get a phone call immediately. “What’s wrong? What do you mean you’re sick? Why are you stressed?”
Lindsay (Young Married Mom)
Hahaha! Makes you wonder what technology our kids will use that we totally won’t understand!
Kimberly @ The Sparks Life
Haha! Hilarious! Sounds like a recent conversation with my mom about how to use her cellphone.
Carrie T
This is my husband. He gets so mad at me cause I’m on FB and doesn’t understand why I would post, “was a beautiful weekend of yard work and farmwork.” If I even thought of adding a picture of him where people could see, I’m pretty sure he’d divorce me. lol I do have an excuse now though. I have been selling a lot of my landscape photography and it’s all done on FB.
Lindsay
My mom is on Facebook. She once called me in a panic because she thought my boyfriend and I broke up. “I can’t see that he’s in a relationship with you!!! DID YOU BREAK UP!? ARE YOU OK!?” Um, yes mom, I’m fine…you need to be friends with him in order to see that. We’re actually at dinner right now. “Oh, ok…well, have fun!” Thanks, Mom.
This doesn’t even compare to my grandmother who is ALSO on facebook and thinks that LOL means “Lots of Love” so she “LOLs” at really un-funny things…like me being sick. Good Lord help us all…
SanDee
My mom can’t figure out how to comment…so all she does is ‘like’ everything…one of these days I’ll have to show her…I guess it’s not as intuitive as I thought it was… 🙂
Rachel @ Linesacrossmyface
Hahahaha… that is hilarious!
Lissa
Love this! And at the risk of making your dad REALLY mad, I might share this post with my friends on facebook 😉
Diana @ A Little Bit of Life
My parents are luckily nowhere near ready for Facebook. I attempted to teach my mom how to text message this weekend. NEVER AGAIN. I went through the process 5 times step by step. She still couldn’t figure out how to even get to the texting screen! UGH
Tara@thatsAwrap
Ok too funny. My parents are so scared about blogging I feel like I am back in high school worried I am gonna get in trouble or disapoint them. I told my husband just this morning it gonna be a neighbor who would kidnap our son over a blog reader. I think my mom really just wants it all to go away and thinks I’ll forms of social media drive this generations ego. I so will never bring FB up with her or sir enough I will be 15 again and deleting my page as to impress her!
Melissa
So funny. I talked my grandma into signing up for facebook, now I have to deal with the questions…
Kathleen
My Mom “stalks” (in that loving motherly way) us through my Dad’s Facebook page, which he doesn’t update and only joined for his reunion. Mom is in a tizzy because she does not like that we have posted pictures of her on our pages *sigh* we keep telling her to quit using Dad’s page and get her own!
Ashley @ A Recipe for Sanity
I am DYING over here. Love it. First of all, I can do one better because my GRANDFATHER is on facebook. He’s 80. It’s hysterical. Second, my mom got on and I became her personal hero when I helped her get rid of those Farmville notifications. It’s hysterical. Your parents sound so funny!
Beth @ Persnickety Hall
So funny! My mom joined facebook because a lot of her friends are on there and they kept sending her requests. She never could figure it out, even after i helped her multiple times, and ended up deleting her account because it drove her nuts. Haha. I was like “THANK GOODNESS.” Kind of makes me wonder what it will be like when we’re older. How social media and technology will be.
Sara R.
ahahahhhahah That is too funny.
Tressa
And….THIS IS THE REASON WHY I DON’T HAVE A FACE BOOK ACCOUNT!!!!! I don’t get it either. My daughter has tried to tell me I need one! What for? What would I say. People don’t care what I’m doing. I don’t get writing on the “wall” or whatever it is! Trust me, it’s best that I remain facebookless!!! I’m in the same boat with your mom and day 😉
Abby @ They Lend Me Their Hearts
Oh My Goodness I SO AGREE! Drives me crazy that my mom doesn’t understand how to use it, though she tries anyway! I love her dearly but man!
Lori @ I Can Grow People
And this is why I am thankful that my parents have never even made it passed e-mail!
Valerie
Love it!! Simply hilarious!
Jennifer
Love this!!! When my Mom told me she was getting on fb I instantly had this feeling wash over me that I was back in Middle School/High School! I constantly have to tell her and my Dad about security settings, etc.!
Christy
That sounds eerily familiar. My dad’s a facebook drop-out. My mom has an account but doesn’t ever go on and my sister has never had one…and she’s YOUNGER than me!
Chloe
hahaha
Love this!
My dad and MIL have FB accounts (just to control what my husband and I are doing) and they are like your parents! Every week my MIL phones me to ask me how to send a private message or how to leave a comment… They shouldn’t be allowed on Facebook.
Kristin
This might be your best post ever. HAHA!! I guess they don’t understand Twitter either?
Dessi
This is priceless!! I helped my mom and grandma get started on facebook. Their initial questions cracked me up but they have learned to do most things on their own. Luckily, they don’t facebook stalk me, although a friend of mine can’t sneeze without her mom commenting about it!!
Amy @ A Little Nosh
I’m hysterically laughing. My son just asked me to be quiet because he couldn’t hear Diego over me. This is basically the exact conversation I had with MY parents about a year ago. And now my mom’s up in EVERYONE’S business.
Ashley @ According to Ashley
HAHA! Love your parents & I don’t even know them.
jend
Its probably better than my mom who continues to make inappropriate comments on my wall or in response to someone else’s comment. I can’t even count the times I’ve signed onto her page after to remove something she’s written….hahahahahahah. And, don’t even get my started on my dad. He “hates facebook” but still signs onto my account at least twice a day to check out everyone’s status updates
Kay@bluespeckledpup
I had a good laugh along with you, Katie. I love when you write conversations out for us: sometimes truth is better than fiction!
abi
haha….too funny! My parents thankfully get it and do ok with it….but our whole family is pretty facebook oriented though – even my grandma is on it!
Erica
I seriously just peed my pants a lil bit!! This is one of the EXACT reasons parents shouldn’t have facebook : )
melissa
dear katie,
i despise facebook. i concur with your parents. amen.
love, melissa
sarah
Seriously, this is hysterical. And the comments are hysterical too. I guess my parents aren’t the only technology-illiterate people around. This all makes me very glad I can’t even get my mom to understand how to send an email.
Jen at Cabin Fever
HA. This is awesome…. and my mother’s take on Facebook would totally mimic your mother’s. She called me the other day to ask me how to get old information off of a Floppy Disk. ….sigh… Cabin Fever in Vermont
Kat @ Living Like the Kings
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah – that just about sums things up. ps- Gracie is getting so big! I love her chubby little face! Little Peanut-butter-face is still SO TINY.
britt@knewlywifed
I love this! My mamaw (who doesn’t know how to turn a computer on) think she might should ‘get one of those tweeters’.
momiss
Turn them on to how they can see pictures of people’s children (is Jenny still far away?) and they may see the beauty of FB. Also, I really like your dad and feel about the same way about “all those people!” LOL
farrar
LOVE IT!! my Mom is the same way, she just wants to farm, and can’t stand it when people keep trying to “chat” with her! :0)
jacquie
This is how you tell that your mom and I are from the same generation! I have the same conversations with my kids.
Cousin Jacquie from NC
Alyssa
I love it! It took my mom forever to understand it…now she’s addicted but still doesn’t quite ‘get it’
Whitney
Seriously. I laughed so hard that I’m sure Levi is going to come walking out of his room (from his nap) at any minute. This. Is. Awesome.
Rebecca @ The Reluctant Housewife
HAHAHAHAHAHA! So true! I created my mom’s Facebook page years ago. One day I was in under her account and I saw a picture my sister posted from Greece. I commented, “Dude, that’s awesome” but as my mom. My mom didn’t understand how I did that…or how I had her password. I CREATED her account. It took her a few more minutes to understand that because I created her account I also inherently created her password. Parent’s are hilarious.
Alyssa
This just MADE my morning! One of your funniest posts ever! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
rabih
my mom is 46 year old and she is already a facebook addict. she learned by force!
Jackie
I know for a fact that Facebook, Twitter, and an iPad are a grandmomma’s best friend.
Nona
I am right there with you! My ex-husband just wanted it to be the same on IPhone and it isn’t he would look at mine and be confussed. All our girls laughed!!
Emily
Too funny! I especially love when my grandparents reference something they saw “on facebook.”
molly
LOL! The day my parents are on and understand facebook is the day I get off of facebook 😉
Michelle
I laughed so hard I cried! So funny! I also love the pictures of your mom and Gracie, they make some of the same faces. 🙂