Are you 'friends' with your parents on Facebook?

[Melittlebee]

I've temporarily deactivated my Facebook account because my parents make me cringe with their overly gushing comments. They aren't loving people in real life but on Facebook they profess to be the worlds greatest!

We don't have a good relationship for various reasons.

I'm on maternity leave and I actually miss being on Facebook as it's a good way of keeping on touch with people since being a mummy. (I literally only have friends on there and not hundreds of people)

I'd like to reactivate my account but block my parents!! Is this too awful to do?

Mine aren't on Facebook but I deleted my MIL for that kind of reason, don't know if she actually noticed or not! You used to be able to control who actually sees your posts with different settings , I think it's something like edit privacy, and then show this post to everyone except. .. (named people ). Could you try that so they're still on your friends list, but can't actually see anything!

My adult children are friends with me, but I’m on a list with family, so I only see certain posts. We are also respectful of boundaries when we post, DS is happy with open references to HFA, DD is not as an example.
If your parents don’t listen when you ask them not to post gushing untruths, then block them and make your account unsearchable.

None of us do Facebook, we value our privacy. Particularly weird to be “friends” with your parents.

Nope.

Really? What an odd generalisation. FB is used by many older people, and most of us have good relationships with our children.

I am friends with mine but they rarely post. They are in their 70’s though. They both like looking at my photos. I don’t post a lot but do take lots of pictures. We don’t live near each other so it helps us feel in touch.

I’d unfollow them OP so you don’t see what they post and just restrict what they see of yours. No need for you to deactivate.

Exactly treading my own parents aren't on but I am friends with some of my friends parents and even grandparents! I've known them since I was little and they like to see pictures of my own children growing up.

Here's what you do. Send a PM to all of the friends that you want to keep from your current account. Say that you are setting up a new account and you will send them a friend request with your new name.

Then create a new account with a random name. The only thing is that you won't be able to add anyone who is mutual friends with your parents.

I had to do this as my MIL was SO irritating, commenting on absolutely everything and being overly gushy, when we weren't in real life. The final straw was her referring to my pregnancy on FB when I had specifically said not to as we hadn't told anyone.

Facebook - yes
Twitter - most definitely not.

Also block your parents from your new account too, just in case!

It does sound a bit extreme to do this, but needs must!

My Mum is not a social media person , nor is Dad .

However we did discuss this and neither she nor I would want each other on Facebook . Not that she would ever go on it .

Particularly weird to be “friends” with your parents

Well they’re my closest friends in real life so....

But friends with one and not with the other simply because they’re not on FB. Also friends with various other relatives without issue.

No expert, but I believe you can create groups and then they only see certain things. I put my mother in 'acquaintances' (!) for the same reason. You shouldn't need you have to deactivate.

You don't need to show them every post, hide them from some then once in a while don't. If they mention you not posting much just say you find people too fake on fb

I'm friends with DM, but not DF, who proved himself unable to observe boundaries after going through my entire time line when I was about 18 and emailing me a list of questions about what I'd posted.

Ironically I'm closer to DF than DM.

Just put them on your restricted list so that they only see what you want them to see.

www.lifewire.com/facebook-restricted-list-4165790

I'm friends with my mum but not my dad. I don't let my mum (and mother in law) see all my posts though.

I just restrict certain posts from my mum, as she is gushy too. I also don't want her knowing everything!

I suppose it depends how often you post but you could just unfriend them and chances are they won't notice

I have my mum on FB because she lives on a different continent, so it's a dead easy way to keep in touch.

I'm also friends with both of my teen DCs. They use FB pretty much exclusively for their separate niche hobbies and I'm involved in both hobbies too so we're in the same groups.

I'm friends with my parents on FB. DM never posts anything. I've previously deleted DF because of his prolific posting about us - lots of tagging and attempts at humour. He now understands that we prefer our privacy and is a lot more restrained. I think he is a bit addicted actually, he's used it to get back in touch with lots of old friends and posts a lot.

My Gran, however, is more of a problem! She's added lots of my friends as friends and posts private messages to my page (although I changed my settings to stop that). I am pregnant and we told family very early on as my DGF was dying and I wanted him to know. DGM posted about the baby on lots of random meme type posts and some of my friends saw. She doesn't understand how it works, so is a bit dangerous.

Friends with my dad, my mother doesn't have an account but she uses his to look. She never posts, he will sometimes like things but if he comments on anything it's mostly things that his brother or cousin post. He likes looking at my picture of the kids but I don't think he's any more interested than that.

I’m friends with my parents on FB.

If they were annoying me by being overly gushy about my posts, then I’d put them on a restricted list so that they couldn’t see everything I posted.

Fab advice, I'm going to reactivate my account and sort out this restriction thing. Thanks everyone!