landismom's blog http://www.blogher.com/blog/1051/atom/feed 2007-09-30T20:12:12-05:00 Facebook and family etiquette http://www.blogher.com/facebook-and-family-etiquette 2007-09-30T20:10:21-05:00 2007-09-30T20:12:12-05:00 landismom So I was talking to my mom on the phone this morning, and she was complaining (as she often does) about how one of my brothers (D) hasn't sent her any pictures of his kids in 2 years, despite the fact that she's constantly emailing him to ask for them. There was a moment where I almost said the following: "You should sic Z (another brother) on him. Z was the one who finally got D to put up a picture on his Facebook profile."

]]> So I was talking to my mom on the phone this morning, and she was complaining (as she often does) about how one of my brothers (D) hasn't sent her any pictures of his kids in 2 years, despite the fact that she's constantly emailing him to ask for them. There was a moment where I almost said the following: "You should sic Z (another brother) on him. Z was the one who finally got D to put up a picture on his Facebook profile."

And then I thought, is it wrong to 'out' my brothers (and myself) for having Facebook profiles to our mom? Will they feel weird about this? Will I have to spend a bunch of time telling my mom what Facebook is? and hey, what's on my Facebook page that I wouldn't want her seeing (probably nothing).

I have an anonymous parenting blog, which no one in my family knows about (or at least, if they do, they're polite enough not to tell me). If one of my brothers were to find out about it, I certainly wouldn't want them telling my mom about it, since one of the things I've done on my blog is complain about her, from time to time.

While I don't think that my brothers complain about my mom on their Facebook pages, they may be writing up stuff that they don't want her to read. Z is young enough (and single enough) to still have social conversations about parties and things like that on his page.

It's not like any of us are hiding--we all use our full names, so she could find us, were she to join Facebook and enter into the crazy world of Web 2.0. But what's the etiquette on revealing a friend or family member's online existence to others -- including people in that person's own family?

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