Virtually every Teen has that “Secret social media account”

It’s so heartbreaking to let millennial and teenagers go. I’ve just read an article that so aptly described both my teengirls’-Mum angst.

Social media has been blamed for ruining our democracy, shortening our children’s attention spans and undermining the fabric of society. But through it, I was able to be with my daughters out in the world again, to see what they see, to virtually stand beside them and witness the people and places they move through, in nearly real-time. Not in a parent-policing role, but in a wonderful-world sort of way, before they blocked me.

I am now 50 and I don’t remember shutting my mother out. I don’t remember being mad at her. All mothers want to do is love their children equally.

That piece couldn’t have come at a better time and she could have been describing me. It seemed as if every year, starting at 13 both of them became more and more remote, and I have become more and more anxious and sad. Where did my adorable little girls, who once told me “I was their favorite person,” go? It became with enormous effort that I stopped following them on Instagram, and stopped interrogating them with intrusive questions, you know, 3rd degree questions like,”did you have a nice time?’ and “would you like a cup of tea?” The article made me feel less alone, and trust that if I accept my daughter as she is now, the thaw will come.

Miss G was as remote as any teenager could be. And then I saw her photography.

Recognition of my daughter’s photographic and ICT related talents helped bridge the communication chasm. She happens to be a gamer who is well-known in that community .

She rarely lets me see her regular Instagram and Snapchat, but I’m blocked from those. I never really got the hang of snapchat, so I cherish all the time we have together

Virtually every kid has that “secret social media account”

Few things are more painful than loving teenagers, particularly when they are your children. Ask any mother who has been through a daughter’s adolescence and she will nod in sympathy, maybe even give you the hug you have been missing.

It will pass, friends tell me. You know it in your head, but your heart is a torn punching bag with the stuffing falling out.

After more than a decade of nurturing and feeding and picking up and dropping off and helping with homework and braiding hair and supervising play dates and fighting battles and holding hands to cross the street, you are suddenly shut out. The bedroom door is firmly closed. Every now and then I knock and go in, but I always feel like an intruder.

I yearn for those nights when my daughter, couldn’t sleep and I spooned her tiny body in the recesses of mine, her warmth commingling with mine, putting us both into a coma.

These days, I barely see or talk to her. She’s busy with school, and when she has free time she would rather be out with friends. I get it. I hear snippets of her life ringing from her upstairs room, conversations and laughter, favorite songs occasionally played in the car from her iPad .When I try to connect with her, it backfires.

I know. I know. I remember how I treated my mother at that age. Not wanting to talk to her, much less walk near her on the sidewalk. I became enraged when she secretly looked in my diary, obviously snooping for information.

But now that I have my own teenage girl, I realized for the first time that my mother wasn’t even looking for anything incriminating. She was simply looking for me. Trying to catch a glimpse of the girl she had given birth to, the full-grown person she had nurtured who was now walking swiftly away from her.

From this vantage point, a new, sadder realization struck me: I no longer saw G in her natural habitat, telling jokes or even crying with those she was close to. I was losing her to the world. Which is the point of your children growing up. If you do a good job, they go out into that world and make a life.

A few years ago, I bumped into a friend

Then with eyes wide, asked, “Have you seen her Instagram feed?”

I started to panic. All I could think of were other parents I had spoken to whose daughters’ feeds were filled with revealing photos. Parents who had to take their children’s phones and computers away because of inappropriate posts or texts. Oh God, I thought. Here it comes.

“No,” I said. “Why?”

“It’s amazing,” She said. “She’s a great photographer. She has over a thousand followers.”

Remember that if she/he is really into you on social media they’re probably not hitting the “like’ button on most of your posts, they’re clicking “View all comments” .

Instagram and Facebook shows you who views “Your story” It didn’t take rocket science to figure out who the random person who is always first and keeps viewing all your stories, and I mean ALL , and when they comment , all the have to say is why are you always Online ( I am guilty if not logging off so I always appear to be online 24/7 even when I am just listening to music ) but then again how would they know if they themselves unless they are also online 24/7.

“View tweet activity” is such a useful icon and only YOU can see it. Have you ever Tweeted, then look at that icon and realize everyone hit ‘detail expand’ but nobody liked it? Is like having a whole crowd look at you, look again and then back away slowly muttering “No thanx”. Thank God she never joined Twirra.

I had never asked to see G’s feed. I didn’t even know the name she used. She looks like a rabbit in all her profile pictures, But a thousand followers? She receives over 100 “likes” a minute after posting literally anything.

That night, I got up the nerve to ask G if I could follow her on Instagram. Miraculously, she said yes, shrugging as she walked up the stairs to her room. I grabbed my phone, and suddenly, there it was: G’s life. In black-and-white and full color.

I encourage her to take as many photos with friends, memories captured that she will cherish forever when they are physically forever gone.

You can always make money , but you cannot always make memories.

I’m glad I recorded miles and miles of old VHS footage of my children growing up and converted the tapes into digital files before uploading them online, mostly you tube, I could watch them for days, besides being therapeutic I save a lot from visiting a therapist as many wish i could prescribe, I am doing just fine thank you very much.

Live the life you love or love the life that you live, the choice is always yours. I cannot shut up and i cannot help it, I’m a chronic oversharer.

There were photos of her, goofing around , on rare occasions she is the subject, very rare. Not just photos, but beautifully framed photos. Taken by my daughter.

There were gorgeous landscapes, flowers, buildings, from where we’ve spent part of every holiday, lovingly captured with the title “ The happy place” And photos of a trip we took, It was the same view I had,with her thoughts, but perfectly archived for eternity.

Then there was the photo she posted of herself as a little girl dancing with her now late father.

“Wish I was still a little kid,” the caption read.

So I wasn’t the only one.