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Hi all,
Im not a big poster, just a big reader. But need some feedback on my discovery.
I have a face book account and every once in a while i search the names of my chidlrens birth parents name.
My children were abused and neglected by them, however, there come a day that they want to know everything and even search and I want to support them with that. As this is their lives and they have a right to know who they are.
I went on facebook and decided to search their names again, just to see.
well, i found birth dad. He apparently joined facebook to look for his boys.
He even has pictures of them!!!!!!!!!!!
on his comments, he talks about how DCF stole his kids and blah blah blah.
My 16 older son, is on facebook though i monitor it, he also has a low IQ so i dont think he can really figure facebook out.
my 14 yr old son wants facebook, but i dont think its time for him, but now that i saw their birth dad, im freaking out.
I am not against reunions at all, but this is not the time for them to unite with him.
my 14 yr old son is just plan angry all the time and my 16 yr old son just has so many problems.
The truth is, DCF did not steal his children, the paperwork stated that birth mom lost rights but birth father tried but stated he couldnt handle them and he just split never to be seen again.
They even put those 'court ads' in the paper looking for him.
I am planning on doing nothing, i have no pictures of them on my facebook account, never did.
any thoughts on this? social media is such a big thing.
the sad thing, he seemed like a nice guy, he was still a teen when he had both boys.
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I don't think setting up a second facebook is dishonest.
I think that if you reach out to him you may be in a position to control and facilitate. He may be happy to know his boys are loved and you may find out things about him that you can later tell your boys.
I can understand that you may not like him posting their pictures. Maybe that is something you can communicate with him.
If it is purely a seperate facebook account this will not give him access to the boys, your home or your number or any information you don't want him to have.
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If and/or when you allow them to ahve Facebook, you should have their passwords. You can log in as your child and then find and completely block the people you do not want your child to find and make your childrens pages private so that others can not find them. You can check occassionaly to make sure the settings are the way you set them.
My daughter's birth family is all over facebook. Mom is always posting things like "remember Sept. 11th" and talking about cleaning the house and fixing dinner. She sounds really normal and reasonable. Then I remember the government removed her child by force and she did nothing about it. All she had to do was get a job and do some drug test.
So my point is if your kid was taken away you had multiple chances. Kids aren't taken away for nothing. People on facebook can put their best face forward. Probably we can't prevent our kids from contacting them on facebook but I sure wouldn't encourage it or do it myself. Sometimes you have to have faith that the social workers knew what they were doing.
Monitor your kids' facebook accounts and set their privacy settings so that they can't be searched.
Remember that FB is a place for people to share their thoughts and views - no matter if those are truth or not. I think that partly it may be a matter of bravado on the birthfather's part. Who wants to say that they didn't bother to step up and take care of their kids? Easier to say that the horrible, mean, unfair government snatched them away.
In the meanwhile, download any pictures you can and save them for your boys!
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Thanks all, i do understand everyone's opinion on this situation.
But I think I will figure out how to do the private thing on my 16 yr olds facebook and then my 14 yr old when the time is right. I did not know you can do that.
Im alright with them searching when the time is right, but the time is not now.
both kids are having a difficult time and I cant honestly tell this guy that his kids are safe and happy when they are not. The trauma they experienced is deep rooted and my kids were not as 'resiliant' as people thought.
I think I would be opening a can of worms.
But we trudge on and we do the best we can.
Thanks all for your input.
minibus, i did download the pics to save for them. They really dont have many pictures of the birth family just all the foster homes they were in. So in an odd way, im grateful i found them.
Sloane,Your decision sounds like a wise one. FB can be such a dangerous, (yet helpful for searching), program.I, too, found birthfather (by setting up a 2nd fake account--screw FB's rules--this is for my family's safety!). But he has only pics of himself and friends contacts public. But I've been able to go to the friends with same last names and I'm creating a birth family tree with their photos. Except for the excessive drinking, foul language, and young-age parenting (they all started having kids around 16 or 17), they seem very family-oriented.Unfortunately, birthmom has a FB and Myspace but both are private with no photos. She doesn't want to be found. And I've got to respect that. She's not the healthiest person to contact eventually, anyway. (Drugs, alcohol, suicide attempts--eek!) And those related to her are thugs--multiple arrests for armed robbery, homicide, drug dealing. P.S. FB is closing the extra accts (or accts that don't have real names) because it hurts their advertising #s. So get your research done fast! With all of the privacy breaches, I'm thinking of killing my real FB anyway. :mad:
waited2long
Really whoownsthis?
I don't use my real name on FaceBook for privacy readings. How are they going to prove who is real and who isn't?
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It's very easy to do on their end -- your IP address is shown every time you log in...
I think if they shut down more then one account on an IP address will be mutiny...lol
I think there are a lot of families like mine where not every adult and kid have their own computer.
we share ours. Our emails are different but our IP address is the same.
sloane39
It's very easy to do on their end -- your IP address is shown every time you log in...
I think if they shut down more then one account on an IP address will be mutiny...lol
I think there are a lot of families like mine where not every adult and kid have their own computer.
we share ours. Our emails are different but our IP address is the same.
Yeah, I was thinking that about the ip address, as in many families, it is shared.
I don't think FaceBook will enforce this policy except in cases where they receive complaints.
You could always open one of those "fan" pages, using a name like The Kids or something else non-descript. I do not know how those work, but I would imagine they aren't too difficult.
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Laugh all you want, but from what I've read on Zuckerberg's page, FB is getting serious about closing down multiple accounts for individuals. It's all tied into their stock shares losing value. It's also tied in with the game companies...like Zynga...that pretty much force gamers to create second and third accounts in order to play the games. I'm not making this stuff up -- I've had several gamer friends lose their secondary accounts just this past week alone.
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