I am 28 and almost everyone in my family is on facebook and myspace (with the exception of my mother she’s not tech savvy). All my aunts and most of my uncles, their children (my cousins obviously) and my brothers have accounts. We are all friends with each other and its a great way to keep in touch in this fast paced world. My aunts and uncles are either in or near their 50’s and cousins are in their last years of high school or early 20’s (I’m the oldest child of the oldest child so I have a few years on the rest of the clan). My cousins in high school show off their parent’s myspace pages to their friends and have them send friend requests. Even if you don’t visit your daughter’s page ever, just knowing that you could will be a HUGE deterrent to a lot of things that could go on. Doing it in an open, honest, loving way way, is much better than doing it behind her back.

On the other side of the coin. My step-sister has a 16 year-old daughter with a myspace. My sis never bothered to get a myspace page. Her daughter used it to set up late night rendezvouses and is now 4 months pregnant.

facebook is not as teenage oriented as myspace, and has more adult professionals on it than teenagers. You would probably enjoy it. Keep in mind, it started as a social networking site strictly for college students with valid college email address. It’s only been open to the public for 2 years. the average age of FB users is around 30, and most of them are college educated! There’s lots of interactive games, and it’s mostly college students and bored office workers trying to amuse themselves. You’d probably enjoy it if you gave it an honest shot. I have about 300 “friends” on FB, know 50 of them in real life before FB, talk to 100 of them regularly but only know them on-line (we play FB games together and became friends, talk on skype and yahoo now too), became good enough on-line friends with about 10 people to meet them in real life and now we take annual vacations together to different places as a group (we’ve done Virginia Beach and Vegas and will be going to San Diego in Feb). It’s all platonic and no one has ever “hooked up.” To put it in perspective, I have a MA in Psych and work at a HS, one is in his 3rd year at law school, one is a VP of a medium sized national insurance agency, one own’s a horse ranch in PA, one is an officer in the Canadian Military, another is a stay at home mom who lives only 3 hours away from me (her husband goes on the trips too). They’re all great people and none of us would have met otherwise. I didn’t join FB looking to meet people, but we all played the same game that requires interaction and we just became friends. I accept friend requests from most everyone and at least say hi once…you never know who you might meet :)

And, yeah, your daughter’s on it. Stay away. Stick with Iheartsingleparents.com – much better.

Maybe MySpace though? Oh – and whether you’re on Facebook or MySpace you can set your profile to private so your daughter and her friends could never get in there.

So, if you feel like just doing facebook for the networking & cheesy quizzes, but not so much for blog promotion – then it’s definitely fun.

My boyfriend’s daughter (22) told me that if I try to friend her she will ignore me. I informed her that I actually do NOT want to friend her… as I don’t really want/need to know that much about her life. (Along the same lines as the shower/sh*t/shave scenario…)

Liz – as for me spreading details about first date sex and booty calls, not exactly what I like telling people about me. But, I’m not shy about saying this is what modern dating is like. It’s really frustrating. I think part of the reason I’m blogging is to share the twisted state of modern relationships. It’s so tech-focused, instant gratification based, nothing permanent. Kind of like blog posts… maybe it’s all part of the same social phenomenon.

As for high schoolers and sex – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Laura Stepp wrote a great book called “Unhooked” that discusses the hookup culture permeating high school and college campuses today. I let her know it’s not just the teen and young-20s crowd – it’s everywhere in modern dating, and she said she was hearing a similar message from other “older” people on the dating scene.

Stepp’s book is a must read for any parent who has a kid in high school or college, and anyone dating these days.

I blogged about all of this here: http://dadshouseblog.com/2008/02/29/hooking-up-i-just-want-to-be-your-lover/

Thanks for your great comment!

But I think if you are careful about what you put on there it could be alright. And given the kind of traffic it receives you would certainly meet some new people.

Do your kids’ friends know about the blog? Although your kids avoid it, will their friends? With tags like first date sex and booty call, these maybe not the details of your life you want spreading about the jr. high.

I think you’re right for now…so I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong.