Letting Go

Our oldest turns sixteen next week. For months she has been driving me all around town, expressing an unprecedented interest in running errands with me, as long as I am willing to flip her the car keys. She is fielding correspondence regarding SAT prep courses and fretting about community service hours. Clearly, we are in a period of real transition. Her world is getting bigger and the stakes are getting higher. And now she is making noises about creating a Facebook page. How funny that the thought of this should make me as uncomfortable as imagining her merging onto the Interstate, solo.

This discomfort has caused me to ask myself just what it is about Facebook that feels like such a big deal to me. Almost every kid my daughter knows has a Facebook page. A good number of my friends have one. For heavens sake, I have one. The fact that mine was inadvertently established by unwittingly responding to someone who had “friended” me, and that it sits fallow most all the time, does not diminish the fact that Facebook has become a ubiquitous part of our culture.

My daughter is a thoughtful and generally cautious kid, the kind who actually listens at the school assemblies where experts are trotted out to discuss the perils of social networking websites. She gets that this is, in large part, a medium over which one has very limited control. But she is not so much concerned about her own ability to navigate her Facebook page responsibly as she is concerned about others who might not. She knows the stupid stuff kids post to each other. She’s heard the cautionary tales. She’s seen a great number of ridiculous and ill-advised photos.

But the reality is that much of my daughter’s social world is played out on Facebook. She has been left out of the loop on more than one occasion simply because she was not privy to plans made and relayed there. And to really muddy the waters, her school (the one that has been bringing in experts to caution students about social networking sites) regularly posts photos from school sponsored social events on Facebook to share with its students. It has even created an official school Facebook page in an effort to encourage young alumni to remain connected and, dare I say, contribute to their alma mater.

My concerns about Facebook mirror my daughter’s concerns. They center on the issue of control. There is something inherently out of control about a vehicle for communication that leaves you wide open to all manner of unsolicited input that can never be effectively eradicated, no matter how carefully you navigate it.

But to be honest, my concern centers not so much on out-of-control, as it does on self-control. I wonder if my daughter will get too caught up in a virtual world. Facebook can be a wonderfully effective communication tool, but when you talk to many users about their Facebook experience the word “addicted” often comes to mind. Finding a healthy balance where one uses Facebook, rather than becomes consumed by it, seems somewhat elusive for many.

I do not want my daughter to default to surfing Facebook just because it offers an easy way for her to zone out. I do not want her to become one dimensional and unimaginative. A real issue I see looming is one of self-regulation. I have observed this problem with little boys glued to their joy sticks, with teens so fixated on texting that they blow right through stop signs, and with kids who find that instead of having a Facebook page, Facebook has them.

But I also know that the season of autocratic parenting is gone for my husband and me. Life used to be so much more straight forward when the issues were clear cut and the answers were supplied by us. “Look both ways before crossing the street.” “Never get into a car with a stranger.” “Always remember to say please and thank you.” “Don’t speak with your mouth full.” These were the edicts of responsible parenting. Rules meant to protect and to guide. They were the building blocks of values and expectations that formed the foundation of my children’s young lives.

But I can almost count the time in months that we have left with our daughter under our roof and in our daily care. For better or worse we are well beyond the foundation laying stage. The day that she will be on her own, responsible for the full array of choices that will define the life she constructs for herself, is right around the corner. We have slowly but surely moved from laying down the law to coming along side our daughter, as consultants and collaborators. And while this may seem like a watered down version of parenting, I am keenly aware that it most definitely is not. It looms as the most challenging of seasons, requiring us to be our most thoughtful, sensitive and discerning selves in order to help our daughter take over the reigns of her own life. We know this child. We know the world in which she lives and the world into which she will find herself unleashed. We are in countdown mode as parents. She is just ramping up.

So when I reflect upon my big Facebook concerns, those of self-regulation, self-control and good judgment, I guess that I am able to see the opportunity a dip into uncharted waters affords. If I truly believe that my job as a parent is to work myself out of a day job, then I am obliged to help my daughter move along the continuum to self-sufficiency in healthy ways. To have a shot at growing into a solid, self-sufficient adult she will need to become increasingly skilled at making good choices and using good judgment. Soon it will be incumbent upon her to filter through the overwhelming amount of information that will assault her daily and to manage the vast array of choices she will have to inform her walk and her talk.

So, as much as it pushes me out of my comfort zone to allow my daughter unfettered access to Facebook (I have attended the cautionary assemblies, too, you know), I can see that this is just one more step along the path of trusting and of letting go. Facebook, it seems to me, is neither good nor bad. Facebook is a tool. It is the way in which my daughter will choose to use Facebook that will determine whether it becomes a curse or a blessing in her life.

And so, while there is no right answer as to whether to Facebook or not, I believe that my husband and I will give our daughter the go ahead for now. We have talked to her about our Facebook concerns and have asked her to come up with some guidelines for usage that she thinks are reasonable and responsible. We have found that this really puts the focus where it should be. We want our children to own their own choices, to think them through, to take responsibility for them. Together we will go through the guidelines she has developed to ensure that we are all on the same page. And then my husband and I will take another baby step in letting go. After making sure that she friends us first, of course.

This chapter of parenting requires infinitely more flexibility and finesse than we have had to employ to date. There is nothing passive about letting go when the letting go is done with real thoughtfulness and intention. Racing headlong into the future seems to come pretty naturally to our kids. For us it is an acquired skill. Which just goes to show you that they are not the only ones who are being called to continually grow. We are growing up right along with them. My husband and I have been pretty good at making and monitoring the rules we hope will guide and safeguard their journey into adulthood. But letting go? This is the hard part.