Who Put Grandma on Facebook (First published Weekend, November 6-8, 2009)<\/p>\n
For years my parents have yearned to know every little thing about their grandkids lives. However, phone calls were unproductive. \u201cYes, yes, no. Bye grandma.\u201d Emails were even shorter. \u201cLuv u 2.\u201d So recently, I suggested my mom (not allowed to reveal age) get a Facebook account. Sooner than you can say, \u201cGrandma would like to add you as a friend on Facebook,\u201d grandkids were actually leaving their rooms and asking, \u201cDo I have to add grandma on Facebook?\u201d My siblings and I shrugged. The kids reluctantly added grandma.
\nBriefly, the thought fluttered through their minds that all those pictures showing 14 year olds hanging out in the park and getting into \u201cmischief,\u201d 17-year-old band members
\nperforming in their underwear and university students attending thousands of beer-soaked parties might be unwise. However, that was soon forgotten because grandma didn\u2019t download a picture, so she seemed and, in fact, was faceless. But she lurked.
\nI instructed her early on not to post on anyone\u2019swall (Stuff like \u2014Shouldn\u2019t you be doing your homework instead of posing with those scantily clad girls?) And she\u2019s been taking my advice. \u201cI love it honey \u2014 it\u2019s like being a fly on the wall. What is a hook-up, anyway?\u201d Of course, it\u2019s taken over her life. My dad emails me, \u201cWell, this Facebook is really something \u2014 your mother loves it.\u201d I imagine him bravely pacing around the house wondering where his next meal is coming from. It won\u2019t be from grandma, whose eyes are bugged out as she scans through pictures of her granddaughter\u2019s 20th birthday party. (\u201cI should be doing the dishes, but I\u2019d rather come in and check Facebook to see what\u2019s going on.\u201d) It certainly provides a different view of her grandkids, but rather than tut-tutting she\u2019s keeping (grand) mum. Instead of being sucked in by those cherubic faces smiling in fake innocence across the Christmas dinner table, her new Facebook X-ray vision shows them to be the hellions they really are. Christmas stockings are more likely to be stuffed with hookah pipes, fake ID and gift certificates to rehab (for the older ones) this year rather than the traditional gloves and scarves. But she\u2019s not complaining.
\nThat\u2019s because she\u2019s hit the (grand) motherlode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Who Put Grandma on Facebook (First published Weekend, November 6-8, 2009) For years my parents have yearned to know every little thing about their grandkids lives. However, phone calls were unproductive. \u201cYes, yes, no. Bye grandma.\u201d Emails were even shorter. \u201cLuv u 2.\u201d So recently, I suggested my mom (not allowed to reveal age) get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":44,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-77","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77\/revisions\/80"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}