when your parents leave cutesy comments on your LinkedIn profile

by Alison Green on July 11, 2013

A reader writes:

I am a fervent reader of your blog, and I just encountered something unusual and would like to pick your brain about it.

A friend of mine recently updated his LinkedIn profile with his new title. Then his mother commented on it: “Congrats my boy! Moving up fast in this world! Very proud of you! Your mum.”

I exchanged emails with a couple of friends about it and the reactions varied greatly, ranging from “big NO NO!” to “why not, it’s cute.”

I would definitely not be pleased if my mother decided to post this type of comment on such a public forum where possible network contacts, colleagues, and bosses may see it but would love to hear your take on this.

Yeah, that’s a little too cutesy for LinkedIn — which is a professional network, not a social one. It would be like your mom stopping into a staff meeting at your office to hug you and give you a big “congratulations!” balloon after your promotion.

(It would be perfectly appropriate on Facebook though, since that’s a social network rather than a professional one — just like it would be appropriate for her to throw you a celebratory dinner with family and bring the balloons to that.)

That said, it’s not a disaster. I don’t think anyone is going to see the comment on LinkedIn and be horrified. We all have parents, after all, and know that their actions don’t reflect on us, particularly with something like this.

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  1. EngineerGirl*

    I dunno. I’m hearing helicopter blades whirring. As a prospective employer it might make me just a teensy bit nervous.

    1. Meg*

      Wait, seriously? You’d be nervous because someone’s MOTHER congratulated them on a new job? I thought the whole point of parents was to support their child.

      1. TBoT*

        I would not be nervous because a parent congratulated her son on a new job. But I might be nervous because that parent seemed a little unaware of the difference between professional interactions and personal interactions, and I might wonder if that would carry over to over-sharing, personal intrusions, or whatever at work.

        Or I might write it off as “not the most tech savvy.”

        1. Anonymous*

          I would always assume not-tech-savvy first. “This is the site where you talk about jobs, I’ll congratulate her on her new job!”

          1. Jamie*

            That’s what I would assume, too. And I wouldn’t make any judgement of the candidate based on the statement mentioned by the OP. As parental support goes that’s not all that bad.

            Mine passed long before Linkedin but I could absolutely see my mom posting something like that, if she were still alive. Although it would probably start with “congratulations punkin’…”

            I didn’t hear any helicopters from this.

      2. Ask a Manager* Post author

        I think it’s more because the parent is demonstrating that she’s not fully clear on generally accepted professional boundaries. It wouldn’t freak me out myself, but I can see why EG has that take.

        1. Meg*

          I guess. My own mother is not always that good with boundaries, so I guess I see it as “mothers are just like that” instead of “maybe this employee will be an over-sharer.” I’m having a hard time viewing it as anything but an amusing anecdote.

          1. fposte*

            While I’d shrug at this, the concern I imagined wasn’t that the employee was like her mother but that her mother’s problems with boundaries would extend to the hiring process. People, make sure your parents understand that they shouldn’t talk to your prospective employers!

            1. Meg*

              I have heard horror stories about parents showing up to interviews, calling the hiring manager, etc. I don’t know whether this is true or an urban legend, though.

              1. MarieK*

                Definitely not urban legend. Once during an interview, I asked the candidate if she could hang out a little longer because once we were done talking, I wanted her to meet with another manager. She said no because her parent had driven her to the interview and was waiting outside! My HR rep has also told me about parents calling to follow up about their kids’ interviews.

                1. Tax Nerd*

                  I’ve heard of someone’e mother calling the partner of a large accounting firm to dispute her son’s first year performance evaluation. He was more or less laughed out of the job shortly thereafter.

            2. EngineerGirl*

              This is exactly the thing. You can’t pre-judge someone on this but I sure would be alert to other signals. Boundary crossing from the mother. Entitlement from the child. I’m not extrapolating from one data point but I would be on alert for others.

          2. Jessa*

            I’d take it as older person, possibly not tech savvy and possibly not completely checked in any more and just have a quiet chat to ma or da and explain LinkedIn isn’t quite the place to be all gushy fun fun about how you phrase things.

            If I had helicopter ma, I’d be working on that separately and probably well, block her from LinkedIn, if I were on there.

        2. Sarah G*

          I don’t think my mom would do that on LinkedIn, but I almost could imagine it happening (minus the “my boy” part, which adds a cutesiness to the message that wouldn’t otherwise be quite so cutesy), but my mom would never otherwise cross professional boundaries in any way whatsoever, not in a million years. She’s just a proud, gushing mom who would want to say “Congratulations,” maybe even on LinkedIn. IMO, it’s unreasonable to let something like this reflect on your perception of an employee or job candidate.

  2. Meg*

    I would really like to start a thread on all the embarrassing things parents do to their kids. Not that I don’t love my parents, because I do, but sometimes they are just too much for me to handle.

    1. J*

      “I would really like to start a thread on all the embarrassing things parents do to their kids.”

      From what I hear that’s the best part about being a parent.

      2. RB*

        Oh it is! I have a teenager who thinks I’m adorkable with a capital DORK. I live to mortify him.

      3. Contessa*

        Our baby is going to be born within the next week (in theory), and my husband and I are looking forward to embarrassing her :) We’re both huge geeks, so it might even be more fun if she is not. “Mom! Dad! Stop arguing about comic books in front of my frieeeeeeeeeeends!” I can only hope…

      4. EM*

        “From what I hear that’s the best part about being a parent.”

        It’s payback for all the embarrassment the parents had to endure from tantrums in public during the toddler and preschool years.

      1. Meg*

        Really? I didn’t want to get dinged for being off-topic! SO ANYWAY. I have so many stories to share. Most recently, I went to my parent’s house to do free laundry (because I am that child), and I caught my dad doing yardwork while wearing day-glo orange biker shorts, combined with a socks-and-sandals combination. The socks were, of course, pulled up to his knees. And they live on a busy street, so there is no possible way no one saw that.

        There’s also the time I posted a status on Facebook announcing my new job, and a guy (I’ll call him John) from my part-time waitressing gig posted a comment saying “Great! Now you can take me on a cruise!.” My mother immediately posted a comemnt saying “I don’t know who this John is or why you’re going on a cruise with him. Please call me.” I nearly died.

          1. Meg*

            I DID call my mom actually, and was like “YOU CAN’T DO THAT ON FACEBOOK.” And she genuinely did not get it. Luckily, John fell over laughing when he read the comment, and now it’s an inside joke.

            1. Jessa*

              Now you have an in thing you get to post “you can’t DO that on FB,” when your Ma does something whackadoodle.

        2. Cat*

          Recently, a colleague sent around a picture of his new baby; another colleague replied with a picture of his college age daughter. My co-worker said to me “thank God my dad never did that when I was in college.” I was like, yeah, unfortunately, I can’t guarantee that my dad didn’t; every time I met one of his co-workers they knew enough about me that I imagined him sending around braggy e-mails while they rolled their eyes.

          1. businesslady*

            here’s some synergy between parental-embarrassment & the usual AAM topics:

            my mom used to be a professional resume writer, & one of their standard tips was to caution against using language like “was responsible for” in resumes. her go-to example for why this was a bad idea was, “my teenage daughter *is responsible for* cleaning her room every day. but right now, her room is a MESS.” effective & accurate! :)

              1. businesslady*

                yes, she used it with clients all the time…& I think still uses it in her freelance work (although now, it’s thankfully in the past tense).

              2. Anonymous*

                Ha! I’m an academic advisor at a well known university, where I met my husband. I was impressed that he was a materials science/mechanical engineering double major. But when I asked him why he choose those majors, his response was, “I don’t know.” He ended up graduating in political science…

                I share this story with all of my students who are undeclared or haven’t found the right major yet…

            2. myswtghst*

              My uncle writes FB posts which look like freeform poetry. It’s simultaneously cringe-worthy, kind of cute, and really hilarious.

              Oh, and he’s also started using YOLO.

          4. Nicole*

            My father-in-law “likes” every single post I make and he doesn’t go on the computer every day so sometimes I’ll have a bunch of notifications and it’s just him liking everything. It’s more cute than annoying, really. :)

            1. EM*

              My younger sister says my mother and I both like every single one of her status updates. :)

        6. Anonymously Anonymous*

          I took my friend (same one mentioned downthread) to *pick up* her daughter’s bed since I have a suv. Her daughter was like 3 or 4 at the time. She wrote on my wall and said something like “thank you, Maddy loves you so much for buying her the bed…lol” She had told her daughter that poppy had bought the bed, but I had taken them there to pick up the bed. So kind of confusing for a 3 year old.
          My friend’s mom posted, “Oh no, make sure she knows poppy bought her that bed!!!”

          It was too cute…

        7. anon*

          Oh I love embarrassing parent stories!

          I grew up in a small town (~4000 people) where pretty much every knew one another and embarrassing parent stories were commonly shared. The best one happened to my friend’s older sister, when she’d just turned 18 and went to a bar with a strict curfew of 1:00 am. Well, 1:00 am came and went – and keep in mind this was a time before cell phones – so her dad went to the bar in his pyjamas to personally collect her and take her home for missing curfew.

        8. LMW*

          My mother (who I love dearly) signs her Facebook like letters. “Love Mom” or “Love Aunt J.” Also, she will take a zillion pictures of things and email them one at a time to me, my sister, all her sisters, and select nieces. She refuses to just post them to Facebook. Such small things, but they drive me nuts because I think they make her look technically un-savvy.
          I, on the other hand, can not figure out how to work her Direct TV, and I’m pretty sure both my parents find that embarrassing (I’m technically incompetent!).

      2. Jesicka309*

        My Mum was a special kind of embarrassing/awesome while I was a teenager. She likes to ‘fix’ things.
        Like when I was 15 and wanted to break up with my first boyfriend, she drove me to his house. She sat in the kitchen with his mum, while I was breaking up with him in the other room – she thought I wouldn’t do it if she didn’t physically take me there.
        Or the time I was fighting with a guy friend on and off, and at my 16th birthday party she told him off.
        Or the time she told off a guy that had dated me, dumped me, and dated mums best friends daughter in front of all of his footy mates… And me.
        I finally learnt to stop telling mum everything or she would ‘fix’ my problems, bless her.

    3. Anonymously Anonymous*

      my son has banned my existence on his facebook page– not really, It’s just that he won’t allow me to tag him in really cute pics I find when he was a younger. I think I was the reason he turned the tag feature off…I couldn’t help it!

      My mom has no idea what facebook is….

      I had to privately pm a close friend because her mom was cracking me up. My friend posted something about “shutterfly messed up her album she made for Christmas” her mom’s reply was something like “what the f*** is a shutterfly, a restaurant?”

      1. Tina Career Counselor*

        I not only untag most of the pictures my mother posts of me as a child, I promptly scold her for it. It drives me up a wall when people post photos of me on FB without talking to me first, no matter how innocent. It’s just a pet peeve of mine, I’m not ready to give over everything to social media. I don’t feel the need for my mother’s random friends/coworkers to know everything about my life. (And I show the same courtesy in return.)

        My mom frequently makes random comments that are completely out of context, and completely confuse people. Which she did at my bridal shower a few months ago, where she met some of my friends for the first time, including the hostess. I was still on my way home when the hostess called me to tell me that “your mother is a f***ing trip” at least half a dozen times!

        1. LMW*

          That photo posting and tagging thing is pet peeve of mine. My sister had a friend who scanned a bunch of pre-Facebook photos from my sister’s 21st birthday and posted them. I have a strict no pictures of me with alcohol policy. Plus, she’ll do weird photoshop things to pictures, like stretch out the smile or make them look goofy and alien, then post and tag them.
          The absolute worst though, is that they did a pole dancing class for her bachelorette party, and everyone agreed not to post the photos online, and then she went and did it anyway. Multiple people had to ask her to take them down. And she was puzzled and angry. Sigh.

          1. some1*

            I got that beat…one of my closest friends from high school died last winter from cancer. A former friend and classmate of ours came to the funeral, took a pic of the urn when no one was watching and posted the pic of FB.

              1. Ruffingit*

                Oh wow. That is tacky and so incredibly rude and unfeeling toward the relatives/loved ones of the deceased.

            2. SarahBot*

              When we scattered my father’s ashes, a family friend took pictures of the entire thing (including and especially pictures of my brother and me crying) and posted them on Facebook – it took me 12 hours to collect myself enough to calmly reach out to her and ask her to take them down.

              1. Tina Career Counselor*

                That is unbelievably insensitive. I’m sorry to hear that they did that to you. (And also to the others who mentioned similar behaviors.)

            3. Frenchie*

              The family of a close friend of mine kept her FB page opened after her death as a shrine to her and Facebook now reminds me every so often that it’s her birthday and urge me to post something on her page. I find it sad. I wish they would just close the page.

              1. Rana*

                Yeah, I have a friend – not so close, thankfully – who died, and her partner did the same thing. I can’t quite bring myself to “unfriend” her account, but whenever I see something of hers show up in my feed or notifications, it makes me uncomfortable.

              2. Natalie*

                There is some way to switch them to a memorial account – I had a friend in college who committed suicide and his FB is in memorial status. Not sure if you know the family well enough to bring that up.

            4. littlemoose*

              That is so rude. I was at a wake recently and saw a couple of people taking pictures, and I was appalled. I mean, I guess if you haven’t seen these people in a while, you could take a picture, but do it outside of the room of the deceased person and his family, OK? I am not facebook friends with these people but I would not be surprised if those pictures were promptly posted online.

          2. Ruffingit*

            That is terribly rude for her to post those on Facebook when it had been agreed not to do so. I agree with Tina Career Counselor about people who post photos of me on Facebook. I dislike it if they don’t ask me first. I enjoy Facebook, but I refuse to live my life as though it needs to be open to everyone.

          3. Anonymously Anonymous*

            “The absolute worst though, is that they did a pole dancing class for her bachelorette party, and everyone agreed not to post the photos online, and then she went and did it anyway. Multiple people had to ask her to take them down. And she was puzzled and angry. Sigh.”

            I would never do that. When a couple of friends and I went on vacation, we made an agreement about seeking approval before group photos be would be shared on facebook.

        2. Anonymously Anonymous*

          I’m on the fence, while somethings drive me insane that I’m tagged in (not so flattering pics, those fb games –‘Jane help me escaped the mental hospital and Suzie drove the car’, and work related information that I care not to discuss on fb) and sometimes I don’t mind being tagged (flattering pic). I do not tag people without their *permission
          *except for my children, at least the ones that still love me and leave their tag feature on…:)* I’m trying hard to restrain myself from doing the embarrassing mom stuff. Unfortunately, it comes with the territory…

      2. AnotherAlison*

        MY mom asked me how she could set up an email account. (You know, one in addition to the Outlook email from work). She thought she had a hotmail account once, but she wasn’t sure. . .

        She doesn’t do anything online, but she did used to log into my sisters FB account when she lived at home, not to see what my sister was up to but to see what everyone else was doing. Totally rude.

        I also have an aunt who writes on my cousin’s wall like she is writing a private letter directly to my cousin and like the whole world can’t see it. She also shares my photos, which is totally weird because she’s one of those distant relatives who has only met my kids a couple times.

  3. Nicole*

    Don’t you have to be linked to that person in order for them to leave a comment on your profile? If so, why have your parents on your LinkedIn at all? Leave that to Facebook or Google+.

    1. Kou*

      I don’t see why you *shouldn’t* connect to your parents as a rule, though. Networks include families.

      1. Nicole*

        But it’s a professional network. It doesn’t really serve a useful purpose to have family on there, and at worst can potentially embarrass you.

        1. Cat*

          It serves the purpose of not having to explain to your mother why you can’t connect with her on LinkedIn, which is not nothing. :-)

          1. the gold digger*

            Can you block people on LinkedIn like you can with facebook? Because that is a very useful function – but you have to do it before they try connect so you can just say, “No, I’m not really on that.”

            1. Lindsay J*

              My parents are both on Facebook, but they decided they didn’t want to friend me and my little brother because they didn’t want to know what we are up to sometimes.

              I almost wish they would, though, because now my aunt is friends with me on Facebook, and she misrepresents my posts to my mom which makes her worry. (Nothing bad, my aunt just seems to think I am a lot more depressed than I really am).

        2. MK*

          I feel mixed about connecting to family members on Linkedin. I wouldn’t want to connect with my college-aged cousin who’s currently working part-time. But, on the other hand, I have other cousins who work in pretty prestigious fields and organizations. So, I think one should use their own judgment when deciding whether or not they’ll connect with someone, including relatives.

          1. Kimberlee, Esq.*

            But you’re college-aged cousin working part-time is a great person to connect with on LinkedIn! You never know how useful your network will be to them, and networking is a two way street.

            2. MK*

              Kimberlee, I think you make an interesting point and may influence me to change my mind. :)

        3. Evan (now graduated)*

          Really? I’m connected to my dad; if anyone else in my immediate family had a Linked In profile, I’d connect to them too. I view it as leveraging that personal connection to connect with other people, just like asking them to let their friends know when I’m job-hunting. (And, it might make a little more sense in my situation: my dad is in a career remotely related to mine.)

          1. Chinook*

            I would absolutely connect with family on LinkedIn in order to leverage their connections. I got my first job through a family friend and know many of my parents’ friends and colleagues. But, then again, I am from a small town and accept the fact that my Mom was on town council with a Mayor who was once my elementary school teacher and then evaluated me during my practicum in university while I was teaching under a woman whose daughter I went to school with and who helped the high school teacher I had who was so bad that my class voted me to ask him if he knew what he was doing who ended up being the best teacher my little sister ever had. When you have intertwined connections like that, why would you want to limit the possibilities?

          2. Nicole*

            I think the reason why it seems strange to me is that neither of my parents work (mom is a homemaker and dad is retired) so they aren’t on LinkedIn anyway. But you do have a good point for those of us who have relatives in fields where we might want to make connections.

          3. Anonymous*

            For sure. I convinced my parents to be on LinkedIn mostly so I could mine their professional networks!

          4. Nancypie*

            A relative of mine, with whom I share a last name and have never worked with, has endorsed me for my professional skills. I appreciate the vote of confidence, but think it’s a credibility issue. Does anyone know how to remove a particular endorsement

        4. KellyK*

          Yeah, but one of the main points of LinkedIn, as I understand it, is expanding your network. So if one of your dad’s golf buddies works at a company you’re interested in working for, or you’re hiring for a position that your cousin’s college roommate would be a great fit for, you find that stuff out by having family members on LinkedIn. Though if your family leans toward inappropriate or oversharing, I can see the risks outweighing the benefits.

        5. KC*

          I happen to work in the same profession as my mom, we make use of each other as professional contacts often. For that reason you might benefit from having family connections. It’s really a just personal choice on how you utilize LinkedIn as a tool.

        6. Anonymous*

          Not that it always make sense to connect to your parents on LinkedIn, but it might make sense in some cases. For me, I am the advisor for an early childhood education master’s program and my mom is a pre-school teacher/administrator with 20 years experience. She is an asset to have in my professional network! But… I certainly cringed when my my endorsed my skills in academic advising!

        7. Kou*

          I’m sure it wouldn’t be useful for everyone, but my parents at least (and I’m sure many other people’s family members, juding from the comments) do have connections that could be useful to me and vise versa. My mom’s husband and my aunt are both in the same sort of work as I am, as many of my friends and other connections are, and that’s exactly what a professional network is. It’s not particularly relevant how you know them.

          1. Jamie*

            My dad had a very prestigious highly positioned job in a multi-billion dollar company – in IT. Hell yeah if he were still alive I’d have connected with him and I would pout and stomp my feet until he accepted the connection.

            I wouldn’t with my mom because what the heck am I going to with nursing connections?

            It’s all about what makes sense for networking, not about the personal relationships.

            1. Jessa*

              Ruling someone out because they’re not in your field? I dunno. Ruling them out because they’re your ma and your ma is a flake maybe? People know people. Your ma may be a nurse, but one of HER connections for all you know could be huge in your field or connected to someone who is.

    2. Lexy*

      Nope… I’m connected to my mom and several of her connections that I’ve known growing up including business owners who may have need of my services (or my company’s).

      I’m also connected to my father-in-law, sister-in-law and husband. And some of my husband’s connections.

      Linked In is a professional network… but that doesn’t mean it should only be people you *work with* just that you’re interacting/presenting yourself professionally.

      Though, TBH, if my mom were the sort to leave a cutesy reply on my Linked In job change I would probably be disinclined to remain linked to her. I do think she “liked” the job change when I got my last one… but that’s pretty innocuous.

      My mom and I also have different last names so if you don’t know me it’s not evident that she is my mother.

    3. Calibrachoa*

      My parents are not on linkedin (my mother is retired and was never a professional and my father is deceased) But I received my original LI invite from my sister :D

    4. Rana*

      I’m connected to several family members on LinkedIn, but I can trust them all to act like professionals in that environment. I don’t see the point of linking them if it’s just for social interactions; there are better social media sites (and things like email and phone) for doing that sort of thing.

  4. Yup*

    Eh. It’s not like she was posting his baby pictures on his LI profile. Or writing, “Great job, Michael! We never dreamed you’d succeed after all those bedwetting years!”

    As long she doesn’t make cutesy comments on every single update, I think most reasonable people will see it as one of those mildly-embarrassing-to-the-recipient-but-amusing-to-bystanders things that proud parents sometimes do out of love.

  5. Sutter*

    I’ve got an aunt who endorses everything in the Skills and Expertise section of my LinkedIn profile, despite having never worked with me. Furthermore, my network is small enough that she’s often the *only* endorser on a lot of these. I’m not sure whether to be embarrassed, or if nobody browsing my profile would even care.

    1. Nicole*

      I believe Allison has written about how useless those endorsements are anyway so it properly doesn’t matter. I do wish people would take them more seriously, however, because then perhaps potential employers would as well. I make it a point not to endorse skills for anyone unless I know they have that skill but many people aren’t as careful about it.

      1. Frenchie*

        I hve had friends endorse every single one of the skills I listed and expecting me to return the favor. I hate those skills. Itis just too easy to click on a button and claim that this person you know have that skill.

        1. Rana*

          Heh, yeah. I will endorse people for skills I know they have, but, really… most of them I have no direct – or even indirect – knowledge of, so I don’t see the point of it.

          1. Rana*

            And then I worry I’m being a “bad friend” for not endorsing them for everything. Bleah.

    3. Lexy*

      literally no one who has worked with me has ever endorsed me. Like… I appreciate, college friend, that you’re super confident in my auditing abilities… but I could be the worst auditor of all time for all you know. hahaha.

      1. Tina Career Counselor*

        Endorsements are pretty much useless, thanks to the way people use (and abuse) them. As others have already mentioned, the endorsements aren’t particularly meaningful when the person endorsing has never observed the skill in question.

        1. Tax Nerd*

          My friends endorse me on LinkedIn for things that they couldn’t possibly know my skill level. I take it as “Tax Nerd sounds knowledgeable when she talks about ______”, and no more than that.

    4. Karen*

      You can turn off the option to show the endorsements for skills in your LinkedIn profile. So people can endorse away, but when someone views your profile it just shows up as a list of skills.

  7. AdAgencyChick*

    Ugh, this is (one of many reasons) why I’m so glad my parents haven’t figured out Facebook or LinkedIn.

    If I saw that on a candidate’s LinkedIn page I’d probably roll my eyes and think, “parents,” but I wouldn’t immediately think “Helicopter parent!” It would make me think the candidate should have deleted the post, but I wouldn’t consider that a huge black mark.

    Now let’s talk about the not-very-good graphic designer I used to know who got her mother to write a detailed LinkedIn recommendation of her — how she did a project, met her deadlines, came in under budget, blah blah blah. No hint of their familial relationship.

    Because she was using her married name at the time, the last names didn’t match, so it wasn’t obvious that they were related…except that you could see her email address in her profile, and her email address had her maiden name in it. Ooooops.

    1. Nicole*

      Same here. Well, my dad is on FB, but he never says anything. My mom isn’t computer savvy and is just happy if she can do email and solitaire. :)

  8. IronMaiden*

    Haha, my school age sons won’t even be my friend on Facebook for fear I’ll embarrass them.

    2. Claire*

      I’m not friends with my mom on FB, though she really never uses it so no big deal. I guess I can probably friend her now…anything scandalous I do goes on Twitter anyway ;)

    3. littlemoose*

      Personally I think it is a marvelous idea to be Facebook friends with your parents. If you wouldn’t want your parents to see it, then you probably shouldn’t put it on the Internet at all.

      1. Rana*

        Eh, I don’t know about that. Some people have pretty creepy parents.

        And my parents are great, good at respecting boundaries, and I have a solid relationship with them, and I have a fairly boring life… but do they need to know my opinions on everything and anything? Or that I have a penchant for sharing goofy cat videos? No, just as I don’t expect to live in their hip pockets, either.

        I mean, heck, I have good friends I love and will share all kinds of things with in person… but on Facebook they get kind of dire to deal with – they have no sense of what’s acceptable etiquette in group internet spaces – so I won’t share with them. It’s not about hiding salacious stuff; it’s about not wanting to deal with their inability to handle comments threads that include people other than me.

      2. Calla*

        Agree with Rana. My mom is a massive racist who’s not shy about it and also makes innuendo-type comments on comments I leave for *my friends*, and when I tried to not be FB friends with her anymore because of that, she threw a massive fit and dragged in the whole family. Not wanting to be FB friends with her has nothing to do with what *I* post.

        So, I appreciate IronMaiden seems to be cool with her kids not currently wanting to be friends. (Not because I think her kids are doing so for the reason I did, but that being cool with it is probably exactly a sign that she’s *not* like my mom!)

        1. Trish*

          Make her an acquaintance. Then she can see your stuff but not comment. Profess ignorance of how that happened.

  10. Juni*

    Does anyone else get family members endorsing them on LinkedIn for things that they don’t do, aren’t a specialty, etc.? I have an aunt who keeps endorsing me, and she doesn’t even know my work! It is driving me bonkers, and we have the same unusual last name so it’s obvious we are related. I wish I’d never connected with her. If I un-connect, will all those endorsements disappear? Please say yes.

  12. tangoecho5*

    Acck, my step dad used to talk to the mannequins at the department store. Act like he was having a very in depth conversation with them. Asking about their day, commenting on their new clothes, etc. People would stop and stare. And then he’d go around whistling and calling “here marbles, I think I’ve lost my marbles”. And then the times we went to Burger King and he asked to speak to the Queen or some other royal member of the family and always did so with the most awful accents. We were teenagers and horrified to see someone we knew from school manning the drive through window (we lived in a small town) who would then ask us later “was that your dad”? Now this was years and years ago before YouTube and social media so it’s not like he got these ideas from some joke video or blog or FB post he saw. He just had the most fun trying to embarass us kids in public.

  14. Interviewer*

    LinkedIn has prompted me a few times over the past year to congratulate one of my connections on a new job. Maybe that’s why her mom posted that on her feed?

    I’m connected to both of my parents on LinkedIn. One is in engineering and the other works at the Apple Store. My company has an office in their town, and I wish both of them were more active with LinkedIn – I could really use their connections, too!

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