to feel horrified by young people and Facebook?

[whitewedding]

I am a secondary school teacher and have just started maternity leave for the second time. My daughter was born in May 2009 and my next baby is due in June.

Some of the sixthformers have requester me as a friend on Facebook which I was happy to accept. But I have spent some time looking at profiles of children much lower down the school (who are friends with these older students) who mostly have open profiles where everything is visible with just one friend in common.

I feel absolutely ancient for being so shocked, but I am. Girls in particular, some of whom I always thought of as being well behaved, well mannered students have got some absolutely awful stuff on there. Things like "works at The Street Corner as Prostitute" or "Slut at Brothel." Accompanied by status updates including the word 'fuck' at as many opportunities as possible and photos of them smirking, preening, cleavage revealing.

I sound ridiculous but I've just had my daughter on my knee and held her and cried my eyes out. If it was her, I'd be horrified and more to the point, I feel stupid, I feel as though I've been tricked into liking these girls and thinking how nice they are when actually they are foul mouthed promiscuous little bullies. I can't bear the thought that my daughter and my next child would be growing up like this or that they will be friends with these sorts of children. I'm probably being hormonal but am I being unreasonable?

I'm really not surprised.
It's because adolescents feel the need to rebel shock and offend, what we should be questioning is why they now need to go so much farther to achieve this than in the past!
I also agree it's unlikely that they're actually being promiscuious

When I was a teen I clung to feminism (not a great understanding of it admittedly) as a way of rebellion, I constantly said that men/marriage was useless and repressing. I said id never have kids etc
Fastforward I'm now 24 have been happily married since 21yo and now pregnant with DC2

My point is they are just learning about themselves and society and will change/grow their opinions as they get older

I have done so thank you and I'm not :) When the girls first asked I said that I had no problem with this but I'd check with the Head first - I emailed him and have the email saved which says that is fine and wishing me well for my maternity leave. The students will leave in four weeks. I have no year 12s on there, only Year 13s, and all three are born september - feburary so are all over the age of 18.

But I have explained this a few times now and no one seems to be listening :)

Yes you're right Edward; I can see that now. Hormones eh :)

It will be appropriate for them to have a teacher/ex teacher on their FB when they leave school. The DDs, not the teacher.

Welcome to mumsnet. I'm sure you'll find all the support you need for this and any other issue to do with school pupils during this busy holiday period. I hope you manage to relax today and enjoy an Easter egg or two away from the computer.

Yes but the profiles of the students you were snooping on and now complaining about were only 13, why were you snooping at their profiles in the first place?

I am shocked by the stuff my DSD has on FB. The problem is that it is just like being a fly on the wall in their bedroom when they have their friends over - tbh I can't beleive they allow adults to be their friends for that very reason. Kids will always show off to their friends, is just that nowadays we are privy to it through the power of FB.

I don't like you calling them promiscuous... would you describe the boys as the same?? Or is it just teenage girls talking openly about sex that bothers you?

YANBU. The liberal acceptance of such degenerate behaviour amazes me.

We as a society are storing up huge problems for the future if we do nothing to challenge it. Teenage girls in particular are being moulded to fit in with a type of behaviour which has been been created by the porn industry.
It is truely damaging.
How can we check it if we don't know what is going on?

Agree with this "Teenage girls in particular are being moulded to fit in with a type of behaviour which has been been created by the porn industry"

As is displayed by the recent 'duck face' phenominon

TV, I didn't see it on the boys' profiles at all is why - I'm not being sexist, I would have been just as shocked had it been there, but it wasn't.

I suppose this is really the problem, they're not promiscuous (that I am aware of!) they are lovely girls really and the cyber "them" is not the real "them" but the impression they're giving of themselves is horrid. I'm sorry if I have caused any offence with my description, I didn't mean to. I was quite taken aback this morning. I've known some of these girls since they were 9 years old and coming up to us for year 5 taster days and to see them claiming to be from a place called "Hairy Minge" and saying to one another "let's have a spit roast with ---" - OK it's not serious but it was HORRIBLE!

I am friends with some teens on fb and they are nothing like those girls you describe.

Fair enough, it just seems that often people are totally shocked by teenage girls being promiscuous like they should be ashamed of their developing sexuality where as there is no male equivalent..

YANBU. Despite what you say about the 3 you have friended leaving school soon, you know them through your position as a teacher and not as a friend. I think you are confusing the personal with the professional and I'm a bit surprised at your naivity (not in being shocked at the comments but in expecting such personalisation of an employment relationship not to throw up problems).

I was also a bit surprised at your comment that you liked the pupils - again I would say it is slightly irrelevant whether you like them or not (although nice if you do), you are there to teach them, not to like them, be their friend, etc.. Just as you are other pupils whom you do not like or are not your friends.

IMHO you should keep work life and personal life absolutely seperate. I lecturer ad hoc at university level and I would never ever befriend a student or former student on Facebook unless a long time had elapsed and I knew them socially. Ditto tenants in my flats.

I think your answer to this all is that it is not working, you are shocked at what you read (although I think most of it is bluster and age appropriate use of language to fit in). I'm suprised you cannot see this.

'a 13 year old claiming to be a professional prostitute just makes me feel a bit ill to be honest. I know I sound incredibly naive and a bit prissy and I don't think I am. I am trying to remember being that age myself, and we were interested in boys and in sex of course, but I honestly don't remember anything being talked about beyond a sort of vanilla level '

When my good friend was this age, she and her friend went to a business card printing machine and printed out cards that said something along the lines of 'Clare and Anna, prostitutes, the brothel, whore lane, tart's road, slut town' and handed them out to their friends at school. Her parents still have one stuck on their cork board in the kitchen and it was mentioned in her dad's speech at her wedding. She's 31 this year.

She's a very respectable senior social worker now if that helps...Lost her virginity to her now DH...

I think tbh the person not listening is you! We get that they will soon be over 18 and it is not the parents I would be concerned about but their links to other people still in the school, also that you are still a teacher in a school where they are still pupils so are going against recognised advice from many professionals, LEAs and unions. Whilst I appreciate your Head has approved it you are still being incredibly naive - that wont cover you if something happens! At best you are blurring the boundaries between teacher and friend, at worst you are opening yourself up to lots of possible trouble (just try google for some of the news stories and remember there are many that don't get reported but still have serious consequences if the unions are to be believed)

I am a teacher and I do have ex-students on FB - students I met when I began teaching 15 years ago who now range from their mid-twenties to early thirties... It was lovely to 'meet' them again through FB and to find out how they have been getting on since leaving school.

I never have current students as friends: that seems naive beyond belief to me. The only recent ex-students I have as FB friends are two in their first year at university who come back to help my colleagues and I out with outdoor activities, so are now regarded as 'staff' iyswim.

tvoffnowplease LOL at that video

pause at 0.06 EYEBROWS!

This may be of interest OP.

My ex is a teacher who has a profile for his pupils or ex pupils where they tag him in photo's from trips etc. But he has a private profile which is unfindable.

I am a nursery nurse and I never have parents on fb as it's private!

I am friends with one of my teachers on fb....I am 33 and he is 67!

He is also the school archivist and tags me in awful pictures! Very bad 1990s hair!

So far as Facebook is concerned I've come to the conclusion that only grief comes from befriending workmates or the Offspring of your own friends - I'm talking teenagers and a little older here. You don't want everyone at work knowing your every move and you'll be driven demented by the spelling and ludicrous leaps of imagination that the younger ones rely upon.

Quite a few of my family and friends are teachers and they avoid, like the plague, the befriending of pupils or former pupils. They cannot see what good can possibly come of it, tbh. Real life exists in order to keep in contact with people. Strange as that may sound.

I think it's not for our eyes - it's teen and inbetween speak and they have a right to their in jokes and bravado and what seems to us filthy shit.

I still have an inward sometimes audible groan at DD's antics on FB, she's 19, she has FB banter that is totally unreadable in any other context especially with one particular group of her mates.

It really is banter - believe me... you can block posts from FB - I'd forget about it, they're still good kids and don't read it if it upsets you.

Bit weird thinking of your LOs becoming like this when they're still wee - or not even here yet! hormonal