325552764_c869c40ee2_m My friend Heidi just remarked on Facebook: “You know you’re old when you don’t mind “friending” your own mother.” Tru dat.

Could you ever have imagined, back when you were smuggling Pink Champale into your bedroom in your schoolbag and doing Lord knows what in the bathroom at Danceteria (or your local version thereof), that you would someday have so piss little left to hide? That someone’s mother might be granted access to a forum that wasn’t carefully edited and sanitized for her consumption, one in which she could not only see what you’re up to but also what your “friends”–including that guy in college who was known campus-wide for spitting into his tumbler after brushing his teeth and drinking it–were up to? (For those of you not on Facebook, a “friend” of yours can see many of your interactions with others of your friends, even if she doesn’t know them.)

Some would call that a sign of maturity. I think it means you’re a straight-up Formerly.

One of the inestimable benefits of being a Formerly is that you are less beholden to others’ standards of comportment. Clearly, if you are still doing anything your mom would take issue with, and you’re  posting about it on Facebook, you’re either subconsciously hoping she’ll stroke out on reading it or you’re long past worrying about what she thinks.

But I think most of us “friending” our moms are doing it because at some point they stopped being  quite the Other they once were. Just as my young nephews and nieces have recently started to clam up when I enter a room (I’m cool for a grown-up and all, but I’m still “one of them,” with all the narc potential that implies), inviting one’s mom to join the conversation doesn’t seem that insane anymore.

My mom was my friend on Facebook until she had trouble logging on, declared the whole thing a ridiculous, frustrating waste of time, and closed her account. She obviously didn’t appreciate the bonding opportunity inherent in learning that her beloved daughter is Courtney Love in the “Which Crazy Bitch Are You?” quiz, or to discover which five albums I found most life-altering. That’s OK. I’m not hurt. I don’t need to be her friend, either. I have my mother-in-law, after all.

(Meanwhile, I’m hiding all kinds of stuff from my children because I don’t want them to know I eat more candy than I would ever allow them to have, watch way more TV and secretly take their gummy vitamins. I’m allowed. I’m the grown-up.)

What do you think? Sadie, a writer on Jezebel, an incredibly on-it blog aimed at not-yet-Formerlies, said in her posting on oldsters on Facebook that younger adults don’t want their moms on Facebook because they have a one version that they show their parents, and another for the Internet universe. I guess you go from young adult to adult–or Formerly–when you’ve got just one version, and it’s rated P for Parent?

So here’s my question: Do any of you still have anything you are hiding from your parents? Not something they simply don’t happen to know about, but something that you are deliberately keeping from her? If you can, TELL!

Photo by Christopher Angell CC