One curious outgrowth of the "graying of Facebook" is the real-time interaction among generations -- children, parents and grandparents.
A common question among the younger set is, "Should I 'friend' my parents?" And for the older generation, it's "Should I 'friend' my kids?"
Fifty-year-old Bruce Headrick and his wife, Lisa, have four children, spanning from ages 12 to 18. He said the whole family sees the Facebook connection as a positive thing.
"It does allow me an opportunity to potentially talk to them if they bring a subject up," said Headrick of Montgomery. "While it can't take the place of sitting down to dinner and discussing what happened during the day at school or the challenges I may have faced at work, it does offer an extra tool to assist in and growing my children into productive citizens."
The Headricks' 16-year-old son attends the Alabama School of Math and Science in Mobile. Facebooking -- along with text-messaging and the live video service SKYPE -- has allowed the couple to interact with him daily.
"We can post ideas or comment on his wall, and then, when he gets a chance, he can read the notes or the postings," he said. "It also ensures we keep contact with him daily and lets him know how much he is missed at home and that we love and care for him."
He added it has come in handy even when his 14-year-old daughter is at home. "It's been a great tool in knowing before I open her door if she is in a good or other mood," he joked. Lzennie Clemons, 53, got on Facebook with the help of her 21-year-old daughter, a senior at Auburn. They became Face book friends, but Clemons soon learned there were boundaries. The first status update her daughter typed after Clemons opened her account was, "It feels weird talking to my mom on Facebook." In a later conversation, Clemons told her daughter that she did occasionally visit her Facebook page. Her daughter's response? "Please don't stalk me." Early jitters have calmed, and the two laugh about it now. Carolyn Wright of Montgomery, Alabama, has joined a Facebook group with a name like "We're Too Old for Facebook," or something like that, she said. One common topic among members is that children often threaten to disown parents if they ever send them a Facebook friend request. The kids are joking, of course. Or are they? Wright, 59, said her son and daughter-and-law are her Facebook friends, but there was a single warning from her son. "He said, 'Don't just tag a picture of me -- let me approve it first.'"
Thus far, she reports, there has been no unlawful tagging, and things are fine. Radio personality Kevin Elkins of Montgomery said there can be a stealth element to becoming your kid's Facebook friend. "As a matter of fact, because kids are kids, they forget us parents are watching after a time, and we find out many things we otherwise would not," said Elkins, 52. Seventy-two-year-old Montgomerian Betty Cook sees Facebook as a gift when it comes to keeping in touch with her three children and five grandchildren. "I am friends with all of them," Cook said. "I have two (grandchildren) in college, so I get to talk to them on Facebook. When you're on Facebook, you can see who's online, so we can have a private chat -- not for very long, but I feel like I keep up with them now more than they when they were home." Has anything on her grandchildren's Facebook walls ever surprised her? "Surprised? No," Cook said. "I'm confused more than anything else. They'll put song lyrics up, and I'll have no idea what they're talking about."
