Friend Me?

It’s a brave new world.

When my kids were growing up, I did not want to be their friend. They had friends. They needed a parent, someone who knew where they were and what they were doing, someone who worried about their behavior, goals and values, not whether they “liked” me at the moment.

Now, though, as they bridge from adolescence to adulthood, I have a whole new world to navigate. I am evolving from the parent of children to the parent of adults, and I must find a balance between, on one hand, being available and supportive, and on the other, knowing too much. In this age of constant contact and living online, it’s hard to stay in the dark. But I’ve tried. That is why I have stayed away from Facebook.

I am not averse to technology. I’ve been a telecommuter and user of email and the web for decades. Now, social networking is the dominant trend. A recent Nielsen survey concluded that time spent on social media sites has grown 883 percent since 2003. Until recently, I restricted myself to professional networks like LinkedIn, where I have built a network of professional contacts. It is fun to see where former colleagues and long-ago friends work, and to see who knows whom. I recently learned I am only three degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, that is, I know someone who knows someone who knows Kevin.

Soon, one of my daughters will graduate from college; the other is at the halfway mark. To help their respective searches for an entry-level job and an internship, they’ve joined LinkedIn. While my parents gave me resume-writing tips, I give my kids tips on an appropriate profile and how to leverage network connections in a job search.

Meanwhile, Facebook, the premier site for “connecting and sharing with the people in your life,” has gone mainstream. Co-workers tell me they’ve “discovered” this cool new site; Facebook groups for business networking have formed; and gray-haired users view the latest pictures of grandchildren there. So I finally joined. I am not alone; since membership expanded from college students to the public in 2006, it has grown 500 percent. Still, my kids raised their eyebrows—and warned me about http://www.myparentsjoinedfacebook.com/, where young users share their shame and post parents’ most embarrassing entries. Here, you can find parents who correct grammar and spelling, publicly question Facebook vernacular and share comments that should be made in private. One user found out her father and stepmother were divorcing when the latter’s status changed to “single.”

At 20 and 22, my children can hardly make an argument for “no adults”on Facebook. However, they can hope that, as in real life, discretion on their part will be rewarded by distance on mine. I am keeping a low profile, staying away from putting embarrassing messages on their walls and learning the etiquette of the virtual world they inhabit. In this brave new world, it’s their turn to decide whether they want to friend me.

What Would Connie Do?

Every year, Americans spend $13.8 billion on Mother’s Day cards, flowers and dinners—an amount that is at once exorbitant and wholly inadequate as acknowledgment for the endless gifts most of us received from our mothers.

On Mother’s Day 1986, I was a mother’s daughter—pregnant and sharing with my mother hopes and dreams for my first child. A year later, I was a daughter’s mother—selecting stories for my child that I would share about the grandmother she would never know.

My mother Connie, dying of cancer, feared she would be too unhealthy to hold my baby. As it turned out, Caileigh was the one unexpectedly and critically ill at birth. For two months, as Caileigh battled first for her life and then for her health, my mother rallied, sitting by my side in the hospital, running my errands, praying for Caileigh and organizing others to pray for her as well. As Caileigh’s prospects and strength grew, my mother’s faded. Weeks after my baby finally came home and my mother got to hold her just once in her own home, my mother slipped away. Her final gift to us was her precious remaining time, energy, companionship and faith.

I’ve missed having my mother here to share her advice, guidance and memories with me as I’ve raised my children. But most of the time when I need advice large or small, I realize I actually know exactly what she would say. In fact, I joke about having a bumper sticker made: What would Connie do?

She taught me the practical things no one had thought to teach her—what to spend on a wedding gift, always send thank you notes, forks on the left and knives and spoons on the right. More importantly, she taught, through both words and actions, the importance of having a moral compass. She thought about right and wrong and about what she believed—and she lived by those beliefs. I have not reached all the same conclusions she did about right and wrong—but I have developed a belief system that I try to live by. And I like to believe that my children, who will reach their own different-yet-again conclusions, have learned that lesson too.

She taught me that parenthood is a responsibility to be taken very seriously. But just as importantly, she taught me that it is a joy to be fully appreciated. My wonderful memories of times with my mother include shopping for shoes we didn’t need, laughing until we cried over who-knows-what, and her beating me at tennis and shamelessly gloating. I count those memories among her priceless gifts to me.

This Mother’s Day, Caileigh is 22 and an adult now, one who is healthy, beautiful and smart. One who is grounded with her own moral compass, and one who enjoys playing tennis, shopping and laughing over who-knows-what with her mother. My own mother has been gone for a long time, but the gifts she gave me are lasting. For that, I am thankful this Mother's Day.