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Facebook Privacy Changes and Adoption

Sep 212011

Oh, Facebook.

I love you, I hate you, all in the same breath.

There are some great reasons to love you. I mean, I’m friends with my daughter’s Mom on Facebook. I got to see photos and video of her awesome guitar performance this past weekend. That was such a thrill, and I thank you for providing the technology that made it easy to share that information in one place. (Of course, uploading photos and video to multiple places isn’t all that hard nor is viewing them in different places. But, still, I’m grateful.)

But today your privacy chances made me a bit upset, Facebook. Here’s why.

While I am always a grand proponent of openness and honesty regarding adoption, not all people feel this way, agree with my chosen path or understand what an open adoption is, should or could be. Some of these people are in my family, sadly. All of my cousins have friended me on Facebook. As I am 8-15 years older than those with accounts currently, there are some things I would rather them not see. They don’t need to read some of the links I share about adult issues just yet. And, when you factor in the point that their parents have never told them about my daughter, well, I found it best to leave them on my “Limited Profile.”

With Facebook’s previous settings, I was able to make sure that my “Limited Profile” people didn’t have access to my wall. At all. Ever. It was just safer, until my aunts and uncles realized that there is nothing to be ashamed of and/or recognized that secrecy in families and in adoption is detrimental. I was going to leave it in their hands. Today, Facebook, you totally blew that plan out of the water. Your privacy changes deleted the ability to restrict your wall under previous settings. It took me 30 minutes to find out that you have a “new” security function, meaning that if I select people to be “Restricted,” they can’t see my wall. But wouldn’t it have been great if you would have just told me about the new feature without removing previous security measures and gave me time to move people over to how you want to work things now?

So, hey, Facebook, I don’t know whether to thank you or hate you. You either just outed me to my cousins and thus caused an interesting meal discussion with their parents tonight that may involve angry phone calls about how I need to be more careful or helped enlighten a few members of my family without the drama of sitting down and “talking about it.”

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But really, it was somewhat frustrating for me today. I acknowledge that my aunts and uncles are allowed to parent their children in the way that they see best fit. (Though, after each cousin has turned 18, I have removed them from the Limited Profile. They’re 18. They can handle the truth.) And it’s not Facebook’s fault that some of my aunts and uncles seem to feel ashamed of me, even though the claim that’s not the reason they have never told their children. It’s just further proof that secrecy has no place in adoption anymore. You can try. You can think it will be for the best of everyone involved. But all it takes is a security change on a website service that the large majority of people happen to use, and everything is out in the open.

Let’s ditch the secrets, shall we? They do us no good. Because, at the very least, it gives me a headache while I try to figure out how to respect the wishes of aunts and uncles who do me disrespect by refusing to acknowledge my whole family.

Oh, Facebook.

(Speaking of, I created a Facebook page for this blog just yesterday. Ha.)

Facebook Made Me Anxious

Adoption, in General 8 Responses »

Mar 042010

I logged into Facebook, read a few posts in my Live Feed and read the following status update from no less than three people:

This week is First Child appreciation Week: Post a photo of your oldest child as your profile picture. Let’s show how much we appreciate the first born kids in our families for all they go through and all they do! Copy this and comment with name and age

Sounds easy enough.

Unless you’re me. Or the many other birth parents who relinquished their firstborn I know on Facebook. (I made a clarification there because not all birth parents relinquish their firstborn.)

It’s so weird to live this open life that I do, to leave it all hanging out there and still get all anxious about Facebook memes. I’m not going to change my profile picture to a shot of the gorgeous Munchkin. Why? It’s not my right. It’s not my space. It’s not my story. That’s D’s place, should she so choose to get on with her meme-self. Even if she said, “Hey, it’s cool, I don’t mind,” I don’t think I’d do it. It’s complicated even though the vast majority of, well, the world, knows that I’m a birth mother. It’s just confusing for some.

And I’m not putting my oldest son’s picture up there either. He may be the firstborn son. He may be the oldest child in this house. He may have a lot of typical firstborn qualities (hi, stubborn). He is not my firstborn. I struggle to find the balance of letting him be the oldest with reminding him that he has an older sister. It’s hard. Most days he doesn’t want to be the oldest as of late anyway. He wants to be the youngest. That’s a discussion for another time.

I hate the little reminders of this issue. They’re just little things. They mean nothing in the grand scheme of my life, our family or, really, anything. But I get to feeling sad anytime someone has a firstborn meme of this nature (as there was another one in the past that was a survey about your firstborn). I know I could participate. I know she’s still part of my life, that I’m still part of hers. But there’s so many lines in the sand there.

In short: I won’t be participating in First Child Appreciation Week on Facebook. Not that I ever participate in these memes… ahem.