Facebook Sensitivity vs. Oversensitivity

I'm friends with my daughter's a-mom, and for the most part, it's not awkward between she and I. She comments on my posts frequently, mostly about my parented DD (ie: She's so cute!") I stick to "liking" her pics and stuff, tho I'll comment once in a while, I usually don't because DD is her friend, but not mine, and I don't want her to feel uncomfortable. Mostly tho, we IM and inbox eachother. There is nothing that she's ever posted on her page that has made me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes people will comment about DD's looks ("She's so beautiful", "what a gorgeous girl" etc) but she never addresses it either way. Her mom is open about adoption when appropriate, but it doesn't underscore everything, which I understand. What DOES bother me is being an outsider, especially when DD graduated, so many people commented on how proud they were and they were planning on going to the festivities. I know they are probably family and community friends, but I was a little jealous of the fact that I couldn't go if I wanted to. The other thing that's becoming slightly uncomfortable is that her mom is friends with DD and I, so I can see conversations between them and pictures that DD tags her mom in come up in my news feed. Sometimes it makes me smile seeing how close they are, and sometimes it makes me think that DD may never be interested in knowing me.

I think it is different when the kids still live at home...there are boundaries that have to be respected and based on the individuals and relationships involved it may or may not be okay to reference looks like X but instead like Caths said looks like someone they remember or something discreet like that. For me at my age - if someone got upset then they need to have the gumption (how is that for an old word) to talk to me about it, not go off and have a hissy fit. I have always been an adoptee and always will be an adoptee and that means I have two families and there is no competition they are each unique to the other - thankfully that was how I was raised. OT but relevant. My sister got married this weekend and both mom and her mother were there and sat at the same table happily chatting with each other...its all about ego's and if you are not secure in your relationship then that should be something you work on - not take out on someone else. Kind regards,Dickons

Hugs Brown. I too missed out on my daughter's High School graduation a few years ago. I was never invited (of course!!!) but I saw the photos. Interestingly My daughter looked sooooo different from her afamily that I am sure comments must have been made during the night. So although I wasn't invited I must have been thought about or even discussed perhaps. I'd have been the first mother ghost...

It can be awkward. My bfamily has me listed as daughter/sister etc... and I'm fine with that. My abrother is having issues with my reunion, so I have blocked him from seeing that info, more out of respect for his feelings than anything else. Yesterday was my bday, and my bmom was here, our first bday together. I did post a picture of us on FB, and didn't care who saw it. I'm sure some of my arelatives are dying to comment on things, but they don't, and I don't make personal comments on FB as it is. I would have loved to put how special my bday was, but it seemed like it would have been a slap in the face to others, and I would never want that. I agree, FB can be a pain!

I was thinking today about how my FB relationship with DS's first mom (S) has changed. At the beginning she posted tons of pictures of him. She listed "hanging out with my son" as a favorite past time. When he was about 2 and a half she stopped posting pics and she removed references to him from her page. It actually made me sad for her, although at the very beginning it's what I thought I would have wanted. She comments on photos of DS and says things like "he has my dimples" and I like it when she does. It reassures me that she knows I encourage her connection to him. She has told me that she only looks at pics when she is in the right mood. I still tag her in photos. I am also friends with her boyfriend, her mom and dad, grandma and sister and brother. But not with my own step-mom. I sometimes feel more connected to DS's bfamily than I do to my own. But I think we are unusual that way. It makes me think that S made a very good choice in knowing that we would have a good connection, and that hopefully DS will feel equally at home with his birth and adoptive families.

Kiddo's mom and dad probably don't know what facebook is so that isn't an issue at all. I seriously doubt that my first mom is on facebook either, although the only pictures I ever get to see of her are on my SIL's page. I treasure that and I'm pretty sure that B & T know that. I talk with T just like I talk with my other brothers' gfs/fiances. I'm always careful about what I write and stuff.... I tend not to get too bent out of shape about stuff on the computer anymore though. I learned working on the phone that people don't realize what they are saying when there isn't a face attached to it. The computer is just the same. Even emails are different than a handwritten letter to me.

Just had to re-read this today, as I've been squinching down my own "thing" about this the past week. Dickons words are a good smack in the face to read if my head is getting out of line. Wcurry, I love how you handle things. :) I can do that with my own page, but on someone else's page, well...it's not my page. I've concluded that bparent-aparent-adoptee interaction on FB is just a sticky, complicated thing. It is just is. I'm reminding myself that just because I've made a decision for myself or set a standard for myself, or do things a certain way, doesn't mean that if others don't do the same they are "wrong." It just means they don't have the same thought processes as me, and there's no sin in that. Accepting cyber-slaps.

Gah, apparently I got up on the wrong side of spelling and grammar today. Apologies. Still accepting cyber slaps.

Umm, luckily the proof reader doesn't take points from us! (If only I typed what I was thinking!) BTW, D's mom has recently joined FB. I don't think my posts will bother her nearly as much as her son & DIL's language.

Heidi - you are one of the most level headed people I know so you would never get a cyber-slap from me...I hope you did not get that feeling from my post... Kind regards,Dickons

Ya think? ;) I have recently added my DD's a-mom to a restricted access list. Part of me think's it's not necessary, she'll have to deal with the fact that the 3 of us are all friends with one another. Part of me feels like if I want to put something on my status that reflects how I'm feeling about reunion, I shouldn't have to watch myself because she's hovering (and she is, as you've seen, lol!) But it's hard. I don't interact with DD on FB because aside from overwhelming her, I don't want her mom overreacting. Her mom has not answered my last e-mail nor has she been on chat since reunion started. I see her mom making more comments on DD's page asserting her role in DD's life. I don't know how DD is feeling, since we are still beginning our own journey. I'm starting to think that it would be sooo much easier if we weren't connected through FB, because even though I think we are all entitled to how we feel, no matter how restrained or private we are on FB, there's always too much room for misinterpretation. So even tho we are on the other side of the fence so to speak, I hear ya!

I didn't think you were trying to slap me, Dickons :)...your words just made me smack myself. :arrow: J is an adult and what is posted on his page is not my concern. It's just that I hold myself accountable not just for my actions, but also for my thoughts. So even though my actions have been fine (as in, not my business, keeping my mouth -and my fingers- to myself), I still don't like struggling with my thoughts. And your words help give me that straightening around- which is honestly the WHOLE reason I came to this site in the first place-- because I knew my head needed straightening and I needed other people's perspectives to help me do it. J and M and I are all friends with each other on facebook. Mostly, it's fine and every now and then, M even "chats" me and it's always friendly and sweet. It's just the undercurrents that are sticky. For one, M tends to copy me, on all sorts of random things, and I don't want to get into why I think that, it's been a lot of things and it took several of them before I saw the pattern and it's just a regular thing. 99% of the time, it doesn't bother me at all, because I honestly see it as a compliment and I think she is trying to emulate what she sees in me because J sees me as his mom (because I am:eyebrows: ). The ONE thing that bothers me with the copying, is that she copies my pet names and terms of endearment for J. That, honestly, gets to me. Because I choose them thoughtfully, or they come from some situation or moment that is a memory and it feels like something that's between us. Until she starts calling him the same thing, and then it just feels awkward and weird for me to keep saying it- like it's not our little thing anymore. The other thing is the posting "etiquette" that I've established for myself, and she doesn't operate the same way and I have to remember that's okay. My struggle is, it does bother me. And I wish it didn't. I don't want it to bother me. I guess when it gets right down to it, it's the things that are wrong with the relationship itself that really bother me. And what's causing the strain here, is that via facebook those "things" have become public because she makes them so. And then the internal struggle is that I know there's no possibility of simply addressing it or fixing it. I do not wish this to sound like an insult because I don't mean it to be, but the fact is that she is not capable of seeing outside her own feelings and her own viewpoint, for a number of reasons, so there is no discussing anything here. I just need to learn to live with it. And I do live with it peacefully outwardly- completely. I just want to be able to live with it peacefully inside myself as well. Because as much as it's important that J can live in peace with all of us, it's equally important to me to live at peace inside myself, with myself. And that's where I'm struggling. Not a huge struggle. Just a little one. That's why I'm accepting cyber-slaps. :)

Yes. Yes. I think my "irkedness" is because I do particularly constrain my posting so as not to cause misunderstanding or hurt feeling or any interpretation of malice. So then, when I see her not only not acting with constraint but seemingly being deliberately public with things, I see it in the light of the whole relationship, which as you know, even though imminently civilized and polite as our surface interactions are- the undercurrent of the ongoing conflict of viewpoints and all the past hurts (on both sides) shades my view of it all. I wish it didn't. But it does.

Ok, heidi, I'll give you a cyber slap....but only because you are being too hard on yourself. Having the feelings you have are "normal" and nothing to feel bad about it. As you say, it's your actions that could cause a concern and it sounds to me like you are handling a sometimes difficult situation well. That's what a good mom does! I'm not on fb so I honestly don't know how it works!!

I thought of this thread today when I logged on to my "second" facebook account and saw that my girls biological mother had tagged herself in every single picture of the girls I had posted. I have the settings restricted so that even though she tags herself her friends cant see the pictures ... (for very good reasons sadly :() and I thought of how I would feel if I didnt have my "own" account where I dont have to restrict myself from calling the girls my daughters etc. Its a tough spot honestly. She tags and comments on pictures as if she spends time with them ... but its been months. And I know, no matter what -- she is their mother.