I Never Thought I Would…

Yesterday I did something I never thought I would do.  I deleted a wall post someone left on my Facebook Wall. As someone who has been Internet savvy for a long time (I won’t tell you just how long) and someone who remembers that Facebook was once the stronghold for college students to connect and share (long before Farmville, thank you very much), I’m pretty strong in my belief of using these social media tools for open communication.  I say this, because I want to impress just how difficult my decision yesterday was.

I guess, finally, after all of these years, yesterday was the first time I’ve encountered what so many others have.  And what was that? People who don’t see a need to show common courtesy or common sense because it’s online.  It’s not that I wasn’t aware this existed, it just hadn’t touched me personally.  And the really sad thing is that the person who chose to cross that line is ‘family’.

My ex sister in law to be exact.  For some reason she chose to question a personal decision that my daughter made by attacking her on my Facebook Wall beneath a lighthearted comment my daughter made on my status.  Then this same woman…who by the way knows all about the past ugliness in my children’s lives…proceeded to leave a very similar comment to my daughter on my son’s Facebook Wall.

Do any of the millions of ‘adults’ that have joined Facebook over the past few years know about ‘private messages’?  Honestly, I think I’m starting to understand what the kids mean when they say that grown ups ruin everything.  How many embarrassing things have been inadvertently revealed because a grown up didn’t get the public venue of the Facebook Wall?

Sorry about the rant, but this woman’s unfeeling and unthinking post not only could have opened some barely healed wounds , but done so in the most public of venues.  So I deleted the post.  But for some reason it still makes me angry to think that I needed to.