Should your mom be your facebook friend

To Parents, being given access to your Facebook profile is like being allowed into the secret World of the Cool Kids. When you accept their request , your parents will feel loved and included, resulting in a more trusting relationship. In the end, adding your parents to your list of friends lands you with more freedom and maybe even the car for the weekend. They are happy living in the dark, still believing you can do no wrong. So, when my mom friend requested me, I interpreted it as her being ready to learn the truth about the teenager she raised. The friend request alone was a sign that my parent was ready for the content to come.

A few months ago, an item in my Facebook news feed sent a weird, sick feeling through my system: my kid sister had just become Facebook friends with someone I knew very well: our mother. My mother loves the computer. She is obsessed with emails, particularly forwards telling me about the dangers of lemons, the truth about credit card scams, and how we can all find hope in the poetry of a dying child. She and I communicate mainly through AOL Instant Messenger, as both of us are somewhat phone phobic and prefer the safety of keyboards and emoticons. So I wasn't terribly surprised when she asked me about setting up a Facebook account.

One in three mothers are connected with their teenaged kids through Facebook. Josh Knoller, a young professional in New York City, spent years refusing his mother's "Friend Request" on Facebook before, eventually, "caving in". Today they have an agreement: she'll try not to make embarrassing comments, and he can delete them if she does. With more than 1 billion Facebook users, that's a lot of mothers and kids keeping in touch through social media, says Fordham University communications professor Paul Levinson, author of "New New Media. Kelly McBride, an assistant professor of communications at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, says her students who "friend" their mothers keep their Facebook pages benign, using other social media like Instagram or Twitter for the racy stuff.

More than 27 million women identify as mothers on Facebook and they are all very, very proud of you. Here are five reasons you should be friends with your mom on the Internet. Terrisita Grant volunteers at a clinic in the Dominican Republic, where she moved two years ago. Her daughter, Julia, is getting married in Windsor, Ontario. The older you get, the farther from your mother you probably live, according to the Facebook Data Science team.