My mom has this way of making me think about things.

Like any college student would, I felt my heart drop a little bit when I got the notification on my iPhone: my mom had just added me as a friend on Facebook. Fortunately, I’m not stupid enough to advertise every minute detail of my life for the consumption of the Internet, so it wasn’t a matter of “oh no, mom’s going to see pictures of me from that school girl-themed frat party in freshmen year.” It was more of a, “what social life do my parents actually have that they’d need to interact on a social-networking site?” Of course, I couldn’t deny the friendship of my own mother, so I waited a couple hours and eventually confirmed the request.

I actually surprised myself with how not-embarrassing it was to see my mom in a domain that I’d typically reserved for college kids seeking a distraction. She’s always been a pretty cool mom, in her own right. I smiled looking at her pictures — shots of my dad, brother and dog (and of course, a few less-than-glamorous ones of me) — memories I haven’t visited in the bustle of my busy collegiate life.

From: http://myparentsjoinedfacebook.com/

I’ve never been one to truly accept the idea of the generation gap, until today. In my nightly phone call to my parents, my mom made a point that piqued my interest. “You go on Facebook and talk to all these people you just met. When I go on there, I’m coming across all these people from the past.” No huge breakthrough, I suppose. I guess it’s just something I’d never thought about. Of course, my stupid reporter instincts were like “Ma, you need to write a column about that or something.” I just find it so interesting to think about the way social media affects the 20-somethings compared to our 50-something parents. She told me that she’d found a few of my grandma’s cousins’ children. No one has heard from them in years. Talk about shrinking the size of the world through the Internet. I might take back those horrible things I said about that stupid series of tubes in my last post. Even I’ll admit, that’s pretty cool how connected we can be to each other (until it gets creepy, of course).

Oh, and of course, a few hours later, I get the friend request from my dad. My brother refuses to add him, but how could I say no? These people changed my diapers and helped me through every single life crisis of the last 22 years. I couldn’t possibly reject that.

So here’s to the people who love us the most, regardless of what our “Jobs/Education” and “Relationship Status” sections say.

[Via http://jencalantone.wordpress.com]