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Original poster

<sigh> My Mother and Facebook

110 replies

BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 21/12/2021 13:14

I'm being all calm and explanatory in real life, but honestly my DM just doesn't get the peripheral nature of Facebook. She seems to feel that someone posting things that she isn't interested in is the equivalent of someone constantly engaging her in conversation about a subject that she's not interested in and not shutting up. So she complains about other people's behaviour, like my cousin posts too many photos apparently. Hmm

I deliberately didn't add her as a FB friend. She sent me a friend request, which I accepted to keep the peace. The she complained that she was seeing too many posts that were nothing to do with her. I'm pretty active on various special interest FB groups so she was seeing things that I had put up about quilting or crochet or Strictly. So I restricted what she could see.

Then today one managed to slip through my restrictions and she phoned me in a huff to ask why I hadn't told her that I'd had a three-day stomach bug. Hmm I hadn't and told her so, so she asked why I was lying on FB. Hmm Eventually, after a lot of searching, it turned out that one of my FB friends had posted about not being sure a quilt would be finished in time because he'd had a stomach bug and I had commented underneath. So I explained that, but apparently it was definitely me that said it and not someone else and she's going to take a photo of it to prove it to me.

So I've double checked the exclusions and made them stronger. I'm thinking about unfriending her and claiming it was a FB glitch if she notices.

No advice needed (and I'm pretty sure that IANBU), I just feel better for having off-loaded that.

OP posts:
piney07 · 21/12/2021 20:32

@LonginesPrime

She seems to feel that someone posting things that she isn't interested in is the equivalent of someone constantly engaging her in conversation about a subject that she's not interested in and not shutting up.

This reminds me of the Q&A section on product pages on Amazon, etc, where people post questions like "does this product come with the USB charger?" and the replies are "sorry, I don't know as I bought it as a present!" and "I'm not sure as it's for Christmas and it hasn't been opened yet", and "sorry, I don't know, but maybe you can call the company and check?".

This made me howl 🤣
NorthSouthcatlady · 21/12/2021 21:40

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll l hate those kind of posts. Clearly demonstrates the person has a negative mindset and thinks it’s all about them. It’s not

NorthSouthcatlady · 21/12/2021 21:49

After reading all of this lm massively relieved my mum doesn’t see the appeal of Facebook. She’s a little technologically limited so it would trigger all kinds of stuff with her Shock. I’m still cringing about when she got a new PC and she rang me to ask where her email account one. The question was so random, that l had to ask a number of questions to understand what she meant. Turns out she thought it was like when you have a work laptop or PC, you click on the outlook icon and your own email address and emails are magically there (in reality IT usually do it but anyway). I then blew her mind by telling her about Hotmail, gmail etc

The irony is my brother has a doctorate in computer science

Lavanderrose · 21/12/2021 22:25

My mum in her 50’s knows how to use Facebook but she’s extremely negative with it. It got to the point where she threatened to cut off one of her brothers as she was convinced his posts and lack of likes on her own meant he was being mean to her. The reason I know this isn’t true is because she complained about everyone, “they didn’t like my post, they didn’t respond to my comment” etr. Very tiresome. She’s like this off of Facebook to and thinks everyone has ulterior motives and are purposely trying to hurt her.

was convinced that the things people posted were about her, or

Els1e · 21/12/2021 22:49

As a 58 year old who steers clear of FB, just remember your mum taught you how to use the potty. 😁 Bet, there was a few “misses” there too

SparklingLime · 21/12/2021 22:59

@Shedmistress

Mine also posts 'Happy Birthday' on her own wall and then when people say 'whos that for' she replies 'my friend on facebook'. Smile
I love this so much.
AntiHop · 21/12/2021 23:14

One of my older relatives got very offended by Facebook without even being on Facebook...
After I had my baby, I posted some photos on fb. A younger relative was visiting the older relative, and showed her the photos on her phone. The older relative was very offended as she thought I'd sent the photos directly to them, and felt snubbed as she hadn't received any. She sent me an angry letter.

NaturalBlondeYeahRight · 21/12/2021 23:16

Oh some of these are very true. Bless my mum, she’s not too bad but she does ‘like’ everything I ever post or comment on even if she would have no clue what it was about.
She also has the cheek to say after telling me some family gossip/news ‘don’t post this on facebook’ Like I’ve ever done anything like that!

SylviasMotherSaid · 21/12/2021 23:45

There was quite a sombre post re Remembrance Day on one of our local pages a few years ago with people writing comments as you would expect about marking the occasion my aunt popped up on them saying that she was having a candle party and where and when it was . None of us have any idea how she managed to get everything so wrong !

Frazzled50yrold · 22/12/2021 00:22

My mother gets confused between the search function and her posts so she constantly posts people's names or really bizarre search criteria. My brother keeps her log in details so he can delete the posts.

TonyThreePies · 22/12/2021 00:36

FIL also thought anything coming up in his news feed was a direct message to him and found it very confusing. He thought FB was a global address book and was constantly asking us to look up Derek who lived in Clapham in 1947 or Marjorie from Crouch End and didn't understand why we couldn't find them.

Booklover3 · 22/12/2021 00:37

My dad keeps complaining about all the weird friend requests he gets… I’ve tried to explain that they aren’t requests, they are suggestions but he just doesn’t get it. He deletes them and then gets even more bizarre suggestions Grin

onlychildhamster · 22/12/2021 00:42

I am sorry but this thread made me laugh.

Booklover3 · 22/12/2021 00:58

@MulticatHouse

My Mum has no filter and says/writes what is in her head.

My lovely SIL posted some pics of a night out with her pals. My Mum wrote in the comments 'Out spending Jim's money again?' (My bro, not his real name).

I had to ask her to delete it. At the time my SIL was working two jobs and studying for a career change. She had her own money!
Christ on a bike Mother!

That’s killed me Grin properly crying
DartmoorChef · 22/12/2021 01:00

Mine also tags herself as "safe" in posts about various wildfires or storms in parts of America/Africa. She lives in Kent

🤣🤣🤣

Booklover3 · 22/12/2021 01:05

Does anyone else wonder what our children will write about us when we are older? Smile

petridishmystery · 22/12/2021 09:18

Quite relieved my mum isn’t like this! She resisted joining FB for years and years and the only reason she has is because she wanted to join the groups showing our town in the 60s etc. She has no profile picture, no friends, and she actually had me set up a fake account at first so she could “practice”, now she has one with her real name. She doesn’t interact at all, she just looks at posts.
When she joins groups that make you answer questions before you can join, I’ve started adding a little note saying she is deffo real, as the lack of friends and profile photo meant she kept getting rejected from groups as she looked like a bot Grin

Rainartist · 22/12/2021 09:51

@MulticatHouse

My Mum has no filter and says/writes what is in her head.

My lovely SIL posted some pics of a night out with her pals. My Mum wrote in the comments 'Out spending Jim's money again?' (My bro, not his real name).

I had to ask her to delete it. At the time my SIL was working two jobs and studying for a career change. She had her own money!
Christ on a bike Mother!

Makes you wonder what goes through their heads doesn't it? Sort of bizarre brain filter drop...

Mine did similar and wondered why my SIL unfriended her!

EishetChayil · 22/12/2021 09:55

@Booklover3

Does anyone else wonder what our children will write about us when we are older? Smile
"Omg - my mum has absolutely no idea how to drive the space-car. She's so embarrassing!" Grin
JustJustWhy · 22/12/2021 10:06

I also have a family member I have unfollowed as she's a lovely, gentle person in RL but only shares the most ghoulish articles about child and animal abuse and she's always first with the celebrity death posts.

Original poster
BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 22/12/2021 10:26

EishetChayil Grin Although I'm hoping that the space cars will be self-driving by the time I get to my Mum's age.

I have teenagers so have to keep asking stupid questions about how SnapChat and TikTok work, which is often met with open derision. At least I pretend not to be frustrated with my Mum. Grin

OP posts:
Snow1n · 22/12/2021 10:35

My mum is on IG and uses it really well. My mil however is on facebook and anytime I comment on a random post, of a page she doesnt follow herself, she will like my comment. I feel a bit like Im being stalked so I very rarely comment on anything now on there. I'll stick to tagging my mum in things on insta instead!!

CounsellorTroi · 22/12/2021 10:44

@KurtWildesChristmasNamechange

My mum doesn't understand social media and I don't have Facebook anymore but I have Instagram. I have an elderly relative who made an account just to stalk my photos and told my mum I 'post things for all the world to see' when in actual fact it's about 300 followers who see it and none of it is exciting. They also made snarky comments to my mum about certain photos and my mum then took it up with me.. 'why did you post that picture of you in the restaurant? It shows your cleavage..' That kind of thing. I'm 45 Confused

I had to put my account on private because it was doing my nut!

This is exactly the sort of thing my late mother would have done had she been on Facebook.
KurtWildesChristmasNamechange · 22/12/2021 11:01

@CounsellorTroi it was bad enough my relative reporting back to her, I dread to think what it would be like if my mum did actually get it! Luckily she's a complete technophobe!

When I had FB, I shared a scan photo as a pregnancy announcement and I got an angry call from my ex-mil saying I'd 'shown it to the world before showing it to her'. Erm no, it's the same as the framed one we made a special trip to the other end of the country to surprise you with, I just put a quick pic on FB too to announce to friends afterwards. Apparently that made hers 'less special' because now 'everyone can see it..' Confused

Snow1n · 22/12/2021 11:14

Oh the competitiveness between them on who has seen what is maddening!