Wednesday, December 2, 2009

*sigh*

Eldest has joined up on Facebook. It was not without a lot of hesitation and thinking on my part allowing her to go on there.

Her other biological parent has, as expected, gotten in touch. Course he has his profile set to "don't let me be found in searches", so I can't look at it. Sent her a friend request yesterday. She ignored it. Did it again today with the note "I would love to be your friend only if you want to if not when your ready ill be here (sic)". Nice that he wants to be 'here' for her now. Nice that he wants to be a part of her life now. Nice that he doesn't mention any faults, why should he, in his mind there are none.

She's leaving it go for now. I'm not happy about her being in contact with him, why should I be, but I'm not going to fight it. I have, over the past 12-24 months, encouraged her to get in touch with him and go meet up with him. I can't keep her wrapped in cotton wool forever, and she does have to learn some things for herself. But I'm never going to be happy about it. And I'm not apologising for that.

We'll see how things go. I have her gmail and her FB logins and much as you may disagree, I will continue to keep watch on both. It's not all about him. She is 13. She is not the worldly adult she may think. And she still trusts too easily.

5 comments:

Daniel said...

You might want to jump in and ensure her privacy settings are set up correctly, and that she's aware of the dangers of putting personal information such as an address online.

Anonymous said...

Must be a real dilemma about teenagers and parental access to their accounts. I know very well that if I was that age, I would very strongly object to not having my privacy. I wonder at what age should they have their privacy?

Star said...

I know you are watching out for her. This is not a situation I had to deal with. It is still a new frontier as far as teens and parents go. Good luck navigating it.

frog ponds rock... said...

My 15 year old son uses facebook and I do what you do.It is a Mother thing.

I also used to read my teen daughter's diary. I didn't read it word for word I just skimmed it looking for key words like suicide, etc. and also to see what she was angry with me about so that I could fix it if need be. My daughter is now 21 and a mother herself and knows that I read her diary as my mother read mine.

Cazzie!!! said...

Weird? Never...I am the same with my Tomas, and I keep tabs on who he adds and who invites him. He is smart, and yeah, at 12 years old he is no adult, but I am happy so far with his decisions, we have been discussing alot of things, especially this past few days.
I think it is good we have their trust, and good they are willing to be open to us. The minute we do not keep an open mind, they may just as well cut us off at the pass.