1. 
   1
   Amy
   

   wrote on 21 July 2009 at 11:17

   You make me laugh (with you).

   But, as oth­ers have said to you pre­vi­ously, just wait until you get there and you will be just as unbear­able as they are.

   
   
2. 
   2
   queenstuss
   

   wrote on 21 July 2009 at 12:33

   I hate peo­ple say­ing they are excited about tonight, or some­thing sim­i­lar, with­out any other infor­ma­tion. Tell me WHY you’re excited! Or maybe that’s just the Eng­lish teacher in me com­ing out?

   
   
3. 
   3
   Amy
   

   wrote on 21 July 2009 at 13:35

   The enig­matic com­ment is a good con­ver­sa­tion starter, which is pos­si­bly why peo­ple do it.

   
   
4. 
   4
   Mark
   

   wrote on 21 July 2009 at 13:44

   FB is intended for peo­ple to share what’s going on in their lives — as is twit­ter et al — if you’re not inter­ested what’s impor­tant to your FB “friends”, don’t tune in.

   As for Chris­t­ian sta­tuses — If that’s how the per­son is in RL, their RL friends (C or non-C) know this and can cope with it, why shouldn’t they do the same with FB?

   While I in part agree with your reac­tion, does “effec­tive wit­ness” have to be con­strained to “non-cringy to the evan­gel­i­cal philo­soph­i­cal logician”?

   I try not to over-share/over-spiritualise but I can still acknowl­edge God in the mun­dan­ity of daily life with those who wish to. I’m not every­one, and accord­ing to var­i­ous “per­son­al­ity” type tests, I’m not that com­mon, so I’m will­ing to tol­er­ate a bit of over-sharing over-spirituality (than what I would express) for the sake of the rest.

   
   
5. 
   5
   Nathan
   

   wrote on 21 July 2009 at 14:21

   Oh well then,

   I am thank­ful that God made bananas and hope to eat bananas with Jesus in heaven one day…

   I think my objec­tion is more “cringy to the guy on the street/school friend/colleague” thing than the “evan­gel­i­cal philo­soph­i­cal logi­cian” thing that both­ers me. Though per­haps it’s both.

   
   
6. 
   6
   queenstuss
   

   wrote on 21 July 2009 at 15:46

   I’m back here to have a rant.

   I am a mother. I am proud that I am a mother. I am proud that I have given birth, and breast­fed for a full 18 months, and am incred­i­bly proud of my child. Incred­i­bly proud.

   I try not to talk about him too much, but I spend, on aver­age, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, with my child, whether he is with me doing the gro­cery shop­ping, going to play­group, or I’m keep­ing an ear out for him in the next room while he plays. And did I men­tion, I’m incred­i­bly proud of him, and really like him.

   If I’m not allowed to talk about things in your list, then I think that starts to devalue my role as a mother. If I’m not allowed to talk about my job, but it’s okay for you to talk about yours, then that sug­gests that a mother is not as impor­tant, or inter­est­ing, as a jour­nal­ist. And that’s crap. Preg­nancy, breast­feed­ing, and toi­let train­ing, how­ever repul­sive you find them, are impor­tant and essen­tial. Far more essen­tial than cricket, or even, dare I say, coffee.

   I like to hear about the funny things my friend’s kids did, and they like to hear about mine. Just because you’re not inter­ested doesn’t mean that oth­ers aren’t. Guess what, I don’t give a rats about the cricket. Really, I don’t. You can say what­ever you like about the cricket and I will just skip over your sta­tus update. You can do the same with mine.

   I don’t get what is dif­fer­ent about you pub­licly com­plain­ing you have a cold, and me pub­licly com­plain­ing about morn­ing sick­ness or heart­burn. I don’t get what is dif­fer­ent about you get­ting pub­licly excited over roast­ing cof­fee, and me get­ting pub­licly excited about feel­ing my baby move. I don’t get what is dif­fer­ent about you ask­ing about appro­pri­ate daily banana intake, and me ask­ing about how to con­vince my child to eat meat.

   
   
7. 
   7
   queenstuss
   

   wrote on 21 July 2009 at 16:09

   And just one more thing, why is it okay to talk about your spouse, and not your child? Both my son and my hus­band are mem­bers of my family.

   
   
8. 
   8
   Nathan
   

   wrote on 21 July 2009 at 17:32

   Wow. That’s a long rant.

   Let me start my response by acknowl­edg­ing the tra­di­tional own­ers of this blog.

   Firstly, address­ing the voca­tional point — most employ­ers require their employ­ees to sign con­fi­den­tial­ity agree­ments, these agree­ments pre­clude dis­cussing specifics about their jobs. You’ll find that I will very rarely specif­i­cally talk about my work. I might pro­vide some gen­eral insight into life as a com­mu­ni­ca­tor but I don’t talk about the intri­cate details.

   Sec­ondly, the prob­lem with sta­tus updates is the blur­ring of pub­lic and pri­vate. You’re not tak­ing into account the fact that some peo­ple find these things offen­sive. It’s like swear­ing it’s a food sac­ri­ficed to idols issue.
   More to come when I get home.

   
   
9. 
   9
   Mark
   

   wrote on 21 July 2009 at 18:07

   “It’s like swear­ing it’s a food sac­ri­ficed to idols issue.”

   I’d like to see that argument…

   “Let me start my response by acknowl­edg­ing the tra­di­tional own­ers of this blog.”

   Acknowl­edged — but why men­tion it? If you’re not inter­ested in dif­fer­ent points of view turn off the comments.

   
   
10. 
    10
    Phoebe
    

    wrote on 21 July 2009 at 19:40

    Hmmmm… I’m sorry Nathan, but I can’t wait for all the cringy ‘thank the Lord for lit­tle baby x’ sta­tus updates and corny photo albums con­tain­ing 19 dif­fer­ent ‘proud dad’ shots of you and your future child in pre­dictable poses (and their asso­ci­ated cutsie-pie com­ments).… when that day comes, I will gladly remind you of this moment — and prob­a­bly com­ment on one of your corny pictures.

    
    
11. 
    11
    Tim
    

    wrote on 21 July 2009 at 19:49

    I can wait for it.… but I’m with Mark if it annoys you don’t go there. Hence there are cer­tain blogs I don’t visit because they annoy me– espe­cially ones with music on auto­play. Espe­cially when it is U2, the Fray or Coldplay

    
    
12. 
    12
    simone
    

    wrote on 21 July 2009 at 20:22

    Go Stuss, go!

    
    
13. 
    13
    simone
    

    wrote on 21 July 2009 at 20:29

    I could han­dle any amount of kiddy or per­sonal over­shar­ing if only we could bypass self pro­mot­ing spir­i­tual stuff. Don’t tell me how much you love Jesus. Don’t quote bible verses at me. Don’t post stu­pid cliched xn phrases. They cause this weak sis­ter to stum­ble. I think all sorts of hor­ri­ble thoughts about you that I shouldn’t think.

    
    
14. 
    14
    Mark
    

    wrote on 21 July 2009 at 20:57

    They cause this weak sis­ter to stum­ble. I think all sorts of hor­ri­ble thoughts about you that I shouldn’t think.
    Thanks for bring­ing that up Simone — on the same basis, many giys could say “all women, please wear burqhas (sp?) as any­thing else you wear or don’t wear causes me to have lust­ful thoughts”.

    
    
15. 
    15
    Nathan
    

    wrote on 21 July 2009 at 21:15

    Wow. Fun discussion.

    Let me pick and choose the points to address now that I’m not fol­low­ing it all on my iphone…

    Let me start first by address­ing the “tra­di­tional own­ers” thing — that was more a ref­er­ence to the fact that ever pre­sen­ta­tion I go to these days open with that acknowl­edge­ment. And I thought part of Stuss’s post was talk­ing about my blog (not just my sta­tus updates).

    Shar­ing is fine. That’s the point of social net­work­ing. Over­shar­ing, by def­i­n­i­tion, involves pro­vid­ing too much infor­ma­tion. Infor­ma­tion that the whole world should not be privy to — nor be con­fronted with. I don’t want to know about the intri­cate details of your breast­feed­ing rit­u­als, or in fact any pri­vate rit­u­als. I just don’t. Hav­ing the abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate with every­body you know doesn’t mean you have to com­mu­ni­cate every detail.

    Also, I think it’s fair enough to “over­share” on a blog because it’s opt out. Over­shar­ing on Face­book is a dif­fer­ent mat­ter. I can’t opt out of things peo­ple write on mutual friends walls (eas­ily — I can, I can block sta­tus updates or wall posts, or unfriend peo­ple…). I see them, and they make me nau­seous. At times.

    “If I’m not allowed to talk about my job, but it’s okay for you to talk about yours, then that sug­gests that a mother is not as impor­tant, or inter­est­ing, as a jour­nal­ist. And that’s crap.”

    I don’t think the impli­ca­tion that I’m anti voca­tional par­ent­ing because I’m anti hear­ing about par­ent­ing is fine. That’s a fal­la­cious syl­lo­gism. The logic is wrong. I care that you’re proud of your child — I just am not as proud of your child as you are. Nobody loves your child as much as you do. That’s fine. Nobody spends as much time with your child as you do. Shar­ing your par­ent­ing expe­ri­ences and insights via Face­book is great — that’s also what I think it’s for. But telling me that you’ve changed a stinky nappy is not fine.

    “Preg­nancy, breast­feed­ing, and toi­let train­ing, how­ever repul­sive you find them, are impor­tant and essen­tial. Far more essen­tial than cricket, or even, dare I say, coffee.”

    Impor­tant and essen­tial for you and your child — yes. Impor­tant and essen­tial for the world to know about — no.

    Now let me get to Stuss’s well made point. There is a line here. I think the line is crossed when you post any­thing your child would one day be embar­rassed by.

    “I don’t get what is dif­fer­ent about you pub­licly com­plain­ing you have a cold, and me pub­licly com­plain­ing about morn­ing sick­ness or heart­burn. I don’t get what is dif­fer­ent about you get­ting pub­licly excited over roast­ing cof­fee, and me get­ting pub­licly excited about feel­ing my baby move. I don’t get what is dif­fer­ent about you ask­ing about appro­pri­ate daily banana intake, and me ask­ing about how to con­vince my child to eat meat.”

    Now, I don’t have a prob­lem with par­ent­ing advice. Point b in my list is prob­a­bly harsh. But I stand by the rest. I don’t think “social net­work­ing” comes with a caveat that you must be pre­pared to put up with descrip­tions of chil­dren soil­ing them­selves. Nor do I think it should come with a proud announce­ment of the fact that yes, lit­tle Johnny can now use the toi­let like a big boy and no longer releases his bow­els on his par­ents. I just don’t need to hear that.

    I have no inter­est hear­ing about in point a — the mar­tyr com­plex part of giv­ing birth. Mar­tyr. Inter­est­ing word. Sounds like Mather. I am sure I will be inter­ested when my wife is going through the process. But there’s a line where some­things, inti­mate things, should be kept to an inti­mate group of peo­ple. Gen­er­ally speak­ing this is not the pur­pose of Facebook.

    Now, onto the “sac­ri­ficed to idols” bit, I made that point poorly, but I think there’s a point to be made here. I don’t talk about how much I love my wife online, or express mar­i­tal inti­macy, partly because I see that as some­thing that is sacred to our mar­riage — and partly because I’m aware that doing so does noth­ing pos­i­tive for my read­ers — it alien­ates the sin­gle, it dis­turbs those who don’t deal well with over­shar­ing and it’s not the place for that sort of communication.

    I find over­shar­ing offen­sive. More offen­sive than swear­ing. Over­shar­ing is not loving.

    I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. But my cru­sade against over­shar­ing will con­tinue. Just as my cam­paign against overt spir­i­tu­al­ity will con­tinue (with Simone’s help).

    
    
16. 
    16
    Mark
    

    wrote on 21 July 2009 at 21:55

    I agree that some things are pri­vate — I don’t pro­vide pho­tos or sta­tus updates of my kids for pub­lic con­sump­tion — friend lists are great for let­ting extended fam­ily know about photo updates.

    How­ever, I think “over­shar­ing” is a very sub­jec­tive and vari­able term, you’ll have to come up with a bet­ter def­i­n­i­tion than it might embar­rass or dis­gust some­one. As you said with swear­ing there are occa­sions where it’s appro­pri­ate & there­fore is not “over” shar­ing. Those who are uncom­fort­able should work through why it makes them feel that way and is that feel­ing justified?

    And cam­paign against hypocrisy, heresy, fal­lacy all you like, I have no argument.

    It just seems funny to me you’re tar­get­ing overt Chris­tian­ity (we’re talk­ing spir­i­tu­al­ity in a Chris­t­ian con­text after all)

    Peter stands up to give the Pen­te­cost speech and Andrew says “shh — they might not be ready to hear this… have you thought about what your work mates will think about you say­ing that Jesus is the Christ and they killed him?”

    Or Tim­o­thy back to Paul — “Paul, I don’t like what you’ve said about God’s grace to you and to the church, on a daily basis, and what you say about me in your let­ters, it’s a bit too emo­tional — what if my friends see this?”

    
    
17. 
    17
    Nathan
    

    wrote on 21 July 2009 at 22:24

    I’m sorry — did you just com­pare Face­book sta­tus updates with the apos­tles preach­ing at Pentecost?

    There are thou­sands of more effec­tive, less cringy meth­ods of shar­ing the gospel with peo­ple than try­ing to do it with your Face­book sta­tus — and every time I such an update I won­der if the per­son is try­ing to reach their non-Christian friends or rein­force their per­sonal holi­ness to their friends.

    It’s like pray­ing loudly in the synagogue.

    
    
18. 
    18
    Nathan
    

    wrote on 21 July 2009 at 22:26

    If you can sug­gest a way to evan­ge­lise via sta­tus updates that doesn’t invoke a mas­sive cul­tural cringe and actu­ally harm the cause then I’m all ears — I think social net­work­ing can be har­nessed for the ben­e­fit of the king­dom, just not that way.

    It’s a great avenue for main­tain­ing rela­tion­ships over dis­tance, encour­ag­ing one another and organ­is­ing hos­pi­tal­ity — but I don’t think it’s the place for preach­ing and teaching.

    
    
19. 
    19
    Mark
    

    wrote on 21 July 2009 at 23:05

    I’m sorry – did you just com­pare Face­book sta­tus updates with the apos­tles preach­ing at Pentecost?

    Yes I did… and you’re right to call me on it as highly inap­pro­pri­ate. I stand corrected.

    I agree that FB sta­tuses are a poor evan­ge­lis­tic forum. Yet when peo­ple express their Chris­tian­ity there do they intend it to be evan­ge­lis­tic, or stat­ing what is going on in their lives that may be of encour­age­ment to their largely Chris­t­ian friend groups.

    
    
20. 
    20
    Mark
    

    wrote on 21 July 2009 at 23:06

    and you’re right to call me on it as highly inap­pro­pri­ate — or just a stu­pid argu­ment — it’s too late and I’m pro­cras­ti­nat­ing on assignment.

    
    
21. 
    21
    Mark
    

    wrote on 21 July 2009 at 23:15

    and every time I such an update I won­der if the per­son is try­ing to reach their non-Christian friends or rein­force their per­sonal holi­ness to their friends That’s a fair point, and I can under­stand the cyn­i­cism, but my ques­tion is should that be the default posi­tion and is it for us to judge the heart of the per­son doing so?

    
    
22. 
    22
    Amy
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 6:27

    There is a point to made her about lock­ing your face­book pro­files. Then you are rea­son­ably sure that the peo­ple who are read­ing your updates care/like you enough not to be dis­turbed by the dirty nappy story.

    If you have filled up your face­book ‘friends’ list with peo­ple you barely know for what­ever rea­son (just so you can have more pos­si­bly), and you don’t want them to know this stuff, it’s your own fault!

    Hope­fully face­book one day will intro­duce lev­els to face­book per­mis­sions so only your fam­ily gets the update about bub’s toi­let train­ing (and they DO care), and not any­one else. Espe­cially not the boys, obviously.

    
    
23. 
    23
    Mark
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 6:59

    it alien­ates the sin­gle, it dis­turbs those who don’t deal well with over­shar­ing and it’s not the place for that sort of com­mu­ni­ca­tion… Over­shar­ing is not loving.

    Nor is it lov­ing to fur­ther alien­ate new par­ents, who are often already iso­lated by lack of time, sleep depri­va­tion and new responsibilities.

    I think it’s a case of both sides need to be lov­ing. Par­ents need to acknowl­edge that their “gross meter” is nec­es­sar­ily skewed from that of non-parents, and to fil­ter where they know it does offend. On the other side, non-parents give the par­ents oppor­tu­nity to debrief and share their tri­als and suc­cesses (and even help out — wash­ing, cook­ing, giv­ing the par­ents a break) and not just leav­ing it to other par­ents. On all sides of the fence it can be very lonely when there are only one or two peo­ple in your friend­ship cir­cle in the same life stage and every­one else is not inter­ested in where you’re at.

    
    
24. 
    24
    Nathan
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 7:12

    Yes. That hits the nail on the head. I’m only really rail­ing against over­shar­ing. Which implies a lack of filter.

    I’m actu­ally happy to hear that your child is walk­ing, happy to hear that you’re preg­nant, happy to hear that he/she did some­thing funny… unless it involves too much infor­ma­tion. I don’t want to know that your preg­nancy caused you to vomit up chunks of last night’s din­ner. I don’t want to know that the funny thing was wee­ing on dad’s face while he changed the nappy. I don’t want to know that your child is walk­ing around car­ry­ing his dirty nappy…

    Just be aware of the line. Give gen­er­al­i­ties, not specifics. The same is expected of every worker every­where. You’re not unique.

    
    
25. 
    25
    Nathan
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 7:14

    “Yet when peo­ple express their Chris­tian­ity there do they intend it to be evan­ge­lis­tic, or stat­ing what is going on in their lives that may be of encour­age­ment to their largely Chris­t­ian friend groups.”

    I don’t think that’s inap­pro­pri­ate — I guess my answer to peo­ple who have “largely Chris­t­ian friend groups” — where that sort of sta­tus is entirely appro­pri­ate — is “get out more”…

    
    
26. 
    26
    queenstuss
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 11:28

    For the record, I was talk­ing only about Face­book, because that’s what you were talk­ing about. Peo­ple can say what they like on their blogs, to some extent. I don’t go into too much per­sonal detail on my blog.

    You’ve changed from ‘don’t talk about your kids’, to ‘don’t tell poo sto­ries’. I agree with you there. When I write sta­tus updates, I know that my sta­tus is vis­i­ble to every­one, and so I only write things that I’m happy with ex-students read­ing. The gory details of my preg­nan­cies, and my breast­feed­ing tri­als, and my toi­let train­ing adven­tures, I’m only going to share with a very select group of peo­ple any­way because some of those things I’d rather oth­ers didn’t know about me. Really. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an par­ent­ing over­share. Maybe I have more sen­si­ble friends than you?

    But, just a quick point on breast­feed­ing. I have never actu­ally seen a breast­feed­ing sta­tus update. But I want to say that there is noth­ing gross or dis­gust­ing about breast­feed­ing, and it is that atti­tude that means that too many women don’t breast­feed for as long as they could. Breast­feed­ing is really, really valu­able, and no mother should have to hide it. (Though there are a few dis­com­forts that you don’t want to know about at this point in your life.)

    
    
27. 
    27
    Nathan
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 12:13

    “But, just a quick point on breast­feed­ing. I have never actu­ally seen a breast­feed­ing sta­tus update. But I want to say that there is noth­ing gross or dis­gust­ing about breast­feed­ing, and it is that atti­tude that means that too many women don’t breast­feed for as long as they could. Breast­feed­ing is really, really valu­able, and no mother should have to hide it. (Though there are a few dis­com­forts that you don’t want to know about at this point in your life.)”

    Per­fect exam­ple. Nobody said there was any­thing wrong with breast­feed­ing. You shar­ing this piece of infor­ma­tion about moth­ers not breast­feed­ing enough because of social stigma is more than this con­ver­sa­tion requires. It is oversharing.

    But the one that prompted this whole post was some­one rejoic­ing in the nappy they’d just changed that led to bod­ily flu­ids being splashed on their face.

    
    
28. 
    28
    queenstuss
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 13:06

    I think the word your look­ing for is ‘irrel­e­vant’, or maybe ‘off-topic’.

    
    
29. 
    29
    Nathan
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 13:07

    No, like it or not, if you use the word breast­feed­ing more than once in a para­graph it’s oversharing.

    No guy needs to be con­fronted with the word “breast­feed­ing” more than once per paragraph.

    
    
30. 
    30
    Nathan
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 13:09

    Lat­est exam­ple — in my news­feed right now — of some­one oversharing:

    Per­son: “has a baby with thun­der poo.”

    
    
31. 
    31
    queenstuss
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 13:20

    See, that makes me laugh, and then think ‘poor baby and poor mummy.’

    
    
32. 
    32
    Leah
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 15:04

    I think it’s a bit rich to expect par­ents to not share about being par­ents yet teach­ers are allowed to share about being teach­ers, engi­neers are allowed to share about being engi­neers, spin doc­tors are allowed to share about being spin doc­tors, pho­tog­ra­phers are allowed to share about being pho­tog­ra­phers… etc. As for “Peo­ple who aren’t par­ents (not just mar­ried peo­ple who aren’t par­ents…) don’t want to hear about…milestones/the funny thing he/she did” etc… actu­ally kids do some pretty damn funny things. I like hear­ing about it.

    
    
33. 
    33
    Nathan
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 15:06

    Leah,

    I believe I already answered your objec­tion earlier…

    “Firstly, address­ing the voca­tional point – most employ­ers require their employ­ees to sign con­fi­den­tial­ity agree­ments, these agree­ments pre­clude dis­cussing specifics about their jobs. You’ll find that I will very rarely specif­i­cally talk about my work. I might pro­vide some gen­eral insight into life as a com­mu­ni­ca­tor but I don’t talk about the intri­cate details.”

    
    
34. 
    34
    Amy
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 15:22

    I think ‘thun­der poo’ is actu­ally quite a bril­liant piece of description…

    
    
35. 
    35
    Amy
    

    wrote on 22 July 2009 at 15:26

    “Peo­ple who aren’t par­ents (not just mar­ried peo­ple who aren’t par­ents…) don’t want to hear about… [etc]“
    On this, per­haps it is a good thing to hear about some of the tri­als and dra­mas, so when it comes to your turn you don’t think it is all going to be a Hug­gies com­mer­cial.
    BUT, say­ing that, prob­a­bly not in detail on face­book. And not any sen­tence that ends in ‘burst blood ves­sels in my eyes’ (I am still try­ing to erad­i­cate that one from my mind).

    
    
36. 
    36
    Ben McLaughlin
    

    wrote on 23 July 2009 at 13:21

    I’m chim­ing in late on this one. Sorry, I was too busy clean­ing my daugh­ters’ pro­jec­tile vommy off my chin.

    My one point would be, it’s not so much what you say, as how you say it. If you are going to talk about some­thing mun­dane (or let’s face it, of no real inter­est to any­one but your­self), at least try to find a funny angle or some­thing so your read­ers can get some­thing out of it. It’s the hor­ri­ble po-faced ‘I’m eat­ing a honey sand­wich’ updates that slaugh­ter me.

    
    
37. 
    37
    Nathan
    

    wrote on 23 July 2009 at 15:04

    I’m reassess­ing my views on this whole post.

    I’m still anti-oversharing, but I think I assume every­one sees Face­book as I do — a con­tact book for casual acquain­tances mixed with gen­uine deep relationships.

    If you’ve only got Face­book friends who you are in deep rela­tion­ship with — then by all means, over­share. Just make sure your pri­vacy set­tings aren’t pub­lish­ing your thoughts to the world.

    If your updates are suit­ably amus­ing — like the thun­der­poo one, or Ben’s com­ment — then by all means, share away.

    But I don’t go to Face­book to main­tain deep rela­tion­ships, there are far bet­ter ways to do that. I go there to keep in touch with peo­ple, to adver­tise events, to plug my blog and to organ­ise social activities.

    
    
38. 
    38
    Amy
    

    wrote on 24 July 2009 at 11:17

    Nathan, on Simone’s blog you wrote (and I think here is the bet­ter place to respond):
    And now I am left fight­ing a rear guard action while other peo­ple who think the same way but didn’t say any­thing slink off into the shad­ows.
    ..
    I guess you con­sider me one of the slink­ers, so here’s my two cents.
    It’s true, most of the time I really don’t want to know about your child’s pooey nappy, or that they said some­thing cute, and some stuff is really not appro­pri­ate (in my opin­ion) to share in a pub­lic forum. Pretty much all our friends got preg­nant this year, so there hasn’t been much con­ver­sa­tion for us that hasn’t been baby related, and it does get try­ing.
    BUT, say­ing that, I am happy that they are happy and proud and unbear­ably smug new par­ents, and I am happy that they care about us enough to share their life with us. And because I don’t friend every sin­gle per­son I have ever met on Face­book I only get updates from peo­ple that I care about, it is okay. I can skim past if I don’t want to know.
    And some­times, Face­book can be an absolute bless­ing.
    So when our friends lost their baby they could let every­one know by an update, and not ring every sin­gle one of their friends and have to say it over and over and over.
    So my work col­league, who has just moved here and has left all of her friends back in Eng­land, can see the pho­tos of her friends and their chil­dren, because those lit­tle updates mean she is still a part of their every­day lives.
    So a my sister-in-law, a new mum, left alone in a new city far away from her fam­ily and friends, with a hus­band who has started a new job involv­ing 10 hours days and week­end work, can have some con­tact with the out­side word and not feel so alone.
    So despite the gross updates, and the too-much-information, I am not going to say that over­shar­ing is a prob­lem. I’ll take the good with the bad. Just don’t send me 57 mil­lion requests to join your poo-throwing fight, or find out what hair­style I am. THAT is over­shar­ing.
    …
    Annnnd, rant over.

    
    
39. 
    39
    Amy
    

    wrote on 24 July 2009 at 11:41

    I’ll add as well that with this post you made the mis­take of get­ting in the mid­dle of the whole women’s role/mother guilt issue which a lot of women (par­tic­u­larly, may I say, Chris­t­ian women) deal with every day where soci­ety assumes:
    – If you don’t have chil­dren, you are selfish/child-hater/only inter­ested in career or money
    – You have chil­dren and stay at home with them — you’re a bur­den on soci­ety
    – You have chil­dren and go to work — you are a bad mother AND worker
    …
    50 years ago being a mother wasn’t con­sid­ered impor­tant because it was ‘women’s work’. Now it isn’t val­ued because you aren’t con­tribut­ing to soci­ety. It’s stu­pid and frus­trat­ing, and trust me Nathan, you don’t want to start mak­ing moth­ers feel guilty about what they post on face­book and what they are proud of. They have quite enough guilt already.
    …
    (And to Queen Stuss / Simone / Mothers/Readers, yes this is a bit hyper­bolic but I was try­ing to make a point. I don’t think I am the only one who feels this, even hav­ing not had children).

    
    
40. 
    40
    Amy
    

    wrote on 24 July 2009 at 11:48

    And, I should add — father guilt is just as bad. Didn’t mean to exclude all those dads.
    Proud par­ents every­where, update those statuses!

    
    

The comments are closed.