To not want my MIL involved in my social media?

[dodgykeeper]

We have made several big moves over the years as have many of my friends from uni so I now have friends all over the place in several different time zones so sites like Facebook are really important to me and my family. My MIL 'likes' and makes comments on EVERYTHING. It's embarrassing and I hate it so I post less and less. I had been using twitter and Instagram instead but she has found me on there now too. She does the same to our 14yr old dd. I did one of those review things and it showed that she commented 4x more than anyone else on my Facebook page last year. She's a nice person but I'm really startup to hate her, and then I feel guilty for feeling that way!

If you have already deleted your twitter an instagram accounts, what is to stop you setting up a new email account that your MIL can't search for and setting up new accounts? just use a false name. It isn't weird more and more people do that. I certainly do

Gosh what latter day Dorothy Parkers you all must be to be so affronted by the 'witterings' of women who are older and experienced than you!

My advice to them would be to delete you...they clearly won't be missing much.

My mother is like this and friends even commented on it, if she doesn't understand my status update she will comment '?' Ffs! So I've limited her but then I had to do it to dad and brother etc so she wouldn't realise as she constantly talks to ppl about what's happening 'on facebook'

Why not start your own forum? It will be totally private and you get to administer it and invite who you like. It's quite easy to do as a template is provided and doesn't cost anything. Then you can post pics and share information without the risk of it going global.

Google 'start a forum'.

Question.

I'm not on FB (I be afraid of it! ) but surely if you've got SILs, BILs, cousins and aunts and uncles on there then isn't it going to be obvious and look odd that you've excluded just one family member? ie. the ML.

My MIL blocked me from FB so I don't have that issue anymore

My mum is on there but she doesn't use it much. She too writes status updates instead of writing on someones wall and once put a PM as a status update. Bless her, she tries but technology just isn't for her.

Think I'll be in the minority here but YABU. She's only liking things not slapping you in the face. Why are people so bothered about it, that's what Facebook is for, in laws are not having digs they just like what you post. I bet a lot of people wouldn't feel the same if it was their own family. If you don't like it either restrict what they see or remove them as friends.

I really loathe this MN war on MILs, like a DILs default setting is to hate her and everything she does. Imagine your own sons wife speaking about you like this, it's so unnecessary.

Chippy

Reading your post was like cuddling up in front of the fire with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate!

It's my mum I have a problem with. She likes or comments on everything, and normally puts some embarrassing gushy comment that makes me cringe. I'd like to limit her but would then have to do the same to my dad and sister otherwise she'd notice.

It's so annoying though!

I have a couple of aunts and some ok most of my posts are set to friends except auntie xx and auntie xx.

For those that ask what the problem is...for me personally, it's the fact that I have quite a black soh and share things that I worry they will find offensive or disturbing, as they are rather prim.

Btw - nothing I'm sharing is offensive or disturbing, but we're a generation apart and their soh is complete mismatch for mine. I can well imagine them tutting and grimacing at one of my little Cyanide and Happiness cartoons.

I think you all forget your DCs will grow up one day and you will become the dreaded MILs. Then you will bemoan the fact that your DIL, SIL, even Your own DCs are secretive, leave you out, talk to you as if you don't know anything because they know better etc etc. it comes to us all

For my own part, as a DM to two DCs in their twenties and one teen DC, I am also a DMIL and a DGM, my FB is full of family, my friends, their DCs, my DCs, their partners, their friends, I have never sent a friend request and I accept very few friend requests, because basically, I don't want everyone knowing my business and seeing what I'm up to. I get annoyed that my 20 yo DD sees everything I'm doing and that she comments on everything. Plus she tags me in all her photos. Sheesh!

I do draw the line at accepting my youngest DDs friends. Who wants all that teenage drivel on their news feed. And why they want to see mine I have no idea.

Change her to an aquantance instead of a friend then set your page to friends except aquaintance That at she will still see she us a friend but not know that you are using it the same. Just tell her you don't use it as much now :)

Oh, and by the way, I had FB before any of my DCs. I'm told FB is over now and Instagram and Twitter are the thing. Neither of which I can really get to grips with. I am in my early 40s.

Downton Trout see what I said to Chippy

It applies to you too!

Yanbu OP - It's nothing to do with MILs, it's to do with family members (on either side) not understand the social etiquette of posting on Facebook / the internet.

My most cringeworthy moment was in my first job out of uni. I'd only just accepted family members as friends and had been tagged in a photo with new workmates & friends from the area I'd just moved to. Within an hour they were commenting "Ooh he looks like a nice chap" "Have you got eyes for one of them?" "I like that one" "No, I like the other one". It was awful and there was nothing I could do because it wasn't my photo (and this was before privacy settings were more detailed)

Going into work on the Monday was utterly humiliating - people thought it was hilarious and I'd not been there very long (and I'm not exactly gregarious anyway). I had to put up with it for months with people in work thinking it was fun to quiz me on who I "had eyes for" - even a year later it still came up occassionally and new people to the office were told all about it. It never really died out and yet my family members didn't realise how much trouble their thoughtlessness had caused me.

I think people who have "come to the internet" rather than growing up with it don't really understand that social conventions continue online - but I bet sure as anything they'd be annoyed if you replicated their behaviour offline!

you CAN set your Instagram to private if you wish, and then you approve followers or not as the case may be.

pretty sure you can limit/privacy protect yourself retrospectively too, but only for new folks so you'd have to block/delete your MIL first I think if she is already following you

...and yes...we'll all be MILs one day. 3)

Yeah , change her to an acquaintance .
I'm pretty sure that's what my son has done with me

I understand that someone posting to harangue you about stuff or to comment on your friends posts must be annoying so change it.
But to be honest there is a bit of a tone of embarrassment on here, akin to teenagers bring embarrassed when their parents make a joke.
Some of it should just be stuff people roll their eyes at and ignore rather than all the 'omg, it's so awful' comments

I would also agree with PPs that it's not just older family members - younger ones can be just as bad too (also friends, but I feel less obliged to keep friends that I find annoying)

I've had to speak to a couple of younger cousins about some posts that have come up in my newsfeed and tell them that maybe they want to restrict their privacy settings so I don't get bombarded by their drivel. I've hidden a couple as well!

The problem with older family members is that it's harder to broach the subject without seeming rude or offensive. The mere hint of it has sent some family members into tears (when I mentioned that I wished I hadn't found out my dog had died on facebook!)

This is why I don't FB at all, because I dread the idea of people I don't really like or share values with having access to and being able to comment on things I want to say, and I also dread the idea of refusing or deleting people for that reason. It's just a rudeness minefeld.

IF I had an account and had my mum on it she would definitely do this. Inappropriate, racist or clueless comments and excessive gushing and liking. I can guarantee it because she's like that in RL.

You don't have to like or respect someone and their behaviour just because they are older, just because they are your MIL or whatever. Social media is really just another avenue for controlling/difficult/embarrassing people to have an impact on your life and to use social expectations to make you accept them. The fact that for many women, their mum or MIL falls into that category isn't their fault.

I'm on your side in that I wouldn't want my DP's parents following me on FB etc, but I hate that she feels entitled to comment on my neighbour choosing to pay for chemo for her dog or my dd's friends choice of prom dress. –I'm afraid that if you've allowed her to follow you on social media, then she IS entitled to do these things.

The obvious solution, if you find restricting her FB activities a hassle, is just to block her. And maybe set up new accounts on Twitter etc and don't tell her about them? (although, don't you have to give someone permission to follow you on Twitter anyway?).

But TBH it sounds as though this is a symptom of what you feel to be more general boundary-crossing, like their seven-week surprise visit. Are there other things that you and your DH need to address with them?

Do you live a long way away from her? Maybe it is her attempt to have more of an everyday type relationship with you and your family.

Do yiu send her photos in other ways? A weekly or monthly e-mail but block her from seeing most of your facebook posts?

I think if you didn't want people seeing or commenting on your stuff, then you shouldn't have accepted them as friends in the first place. There's plenty of ways to restrict what people see by changing your settings.

I am the 'MIL'- I am friends with my DIL on FB, and my son is friends with her mum and stepdad - his in laws. I like things she puts on her status because I assume that if someone is posting something they are happy for it to be in the public domain. I don't butt into coversations that are clearly between her and her friends and work colleagues, but I read her posts that come onto my feed because its a way of keeping in touch.

I don't know if she has me as a close friend,a friend or an acquaintance, it doesn't matter to me, but I assume that anything that comes my way I am as entitled to comment on as anyone else who receives it.

I think to 'start to hate' someone because they are trying to be friendly (maybe getting it wrong, but you can simply change friendship status to sort that out) is ridiculous. I can think of about a million things your MIL could be doing that are worse than this. You say she is a nice person - so why would you want to hurt her by telling her that everyone else is allowed to read and comment on your public pronouncements, but she is not?

Thank God for my lovely DIL who treats me like a normal person and a friend.

You too Kurri Kurri

There is nothing wrong with not wanting to engage your MIL in every aspect of your life. and if you are going to start WW3 by not adding her, things get awkward

Previous generations tended to live near family and friends that the grew up with. They could speak to a friend whenever they needed to..since so many people now move away or have friends who do so...FB bridges the gap.

However at no point in time previous to social media was it normal for all these people to have access to each other (friends/school friends/work colleagues/family) unhindered by you. It makes life incredibly embarrassing if you have people who don't get it or are rude. 20 years ago if you were out in town and saw one you vaguely knew through a friend of a friend you didn't stop to tell them you didn't approve of the way they raise their children or their outfit or what they did last week,. Suddenly people think they have the right to do so via their friends FB pages.

And I will be a mil twice over one day. God, I hope to be in no way involved in my dil's lives outside of friendly chit chat and hearing about (the incredibly beautiful) grandchildren I will hopefuly have one day. I have no interest in hearing about Ann Summer's parties they have been to or drunken nights out or randoms they knew in UNi.