Mom Facebook Damage Control

A Guide on How to Avoid a Mom-Induced Social Media Catastrophe

By: Max Pritchard

Social media has plenty of flaws. From spreading misinformation to causing FOMO, it’s hard to ignore the number of ways that social media platforms can do us harm. Some of these threats are so severe that they make us forget another danger hiding in plain sight: Facebook moms. 

No matter your age, if you have a mother using Facebook, you know what I’m talking about. There’s a certain fear that goes with seeing that your mom has posted on the site—very often, her posts will be related to you, and they are generally as embarrassing as possible. Fortunately, I have written a handy little guide on how to perform damage control on Facebook posts from your mom or a mother figure. You’re welcome! 

The first step, and the most important thing you can do to combat this threat, is to turn on notifications for your mother’s account. This will allow you to respond to any incident in a timely and efficient manner before a Mom Post spreads and can no longer be contained. 

The second step depends entirely on the nature of the post, but I have some recommendations for the most common varieties. 

A common variety is the embarrassing childhood picture. However, I would argue that there are no negative consequences for a picture taken up to a certain age, generally before the teenage years. There’s no need to worry about looks—you’ll either receive compliments for being a good-looking young child or for your development, “glow-up,” or “how much you’ve changed.” Either way, you’ll get a nice ego boost. The same goes for images of you performing certain activities—you will either be praised for your talents as a remarkable young prodigy or for your ability to develop previously nonexistent skills. In this case, there’s no such thing as bad press.

What you really need to be concerned about are recent embarrassing photos. Moms love to take pictures and record as many moments of their family’s lives as possible. In doing so, it’s likely that they will, at some point, capture you either looking your worst, in an unflattering pose, or partaking in some activity that you’d rather the rest of the world didn’t know about. In this case, I find that recontextualization can be very helpful. If a picture of you in a grimy and unkempt outfit is shared, for example, you can comment about how much you enjoyed the family’s hike through a local swamp. By reframing the context of the image, you can make it seem far less humiliating. If you’re good enough, you can even make it seem cool. 

Another variety of the Mom Post is the extremely specific rant. Many mothers are not afraid to hold back their feelings about their family’s personal lives. This is great, except for when they decide to bash your band instructor, decry your basketball coach as an incompetent fraud, or reveal the family’s latest conflict. The first two can be especially problematic, as they could damage important relationships that may never again be healed. For these, I advise utilizing a specific form of an aforementioned strategy: Pop Culture Recontextualization. 

Here’s an example: if your mom posts something akin to: 

Basketball has really gone downhill these days. For Nick to not even realize that my girl is good enough to get into the starting team… just shows how little he knows!

You can respond with: 

You’re right, mom, the television program “Big Shot” really is in decline. Nick should be starting your girl (your nickname for Louise, your favorite character, of course).

With this method, you carefully imply that your mom is actually mad about something happening in a television show, book, or film. The more obscure the better, as this will ensure that nobody reading the post will know that you’re making everything up. Of course, if the post does match with an actual media property (complaining about a soccer coach called “Ted,” for example), then you’ll have a home-run damage control success on your hands. 

The third variety is the political post—sharing an article (or, worse, an original political thought) that doesn’t quite belong in the 21st century. This category is least directly tied to the mom’s children, yet it does have a number of potentially damaging consequences. Chief among these is the fear that others will begin to assume your entire family shares these beliefs. To prevent this, it is handy to have a template rebuttal on hand, possibly written in the style of a Head of Communications at some large corporation whose CEO has just tweeted something insane. Feel free to use the following if you don’t wish to write your own:

The (insert last name) family acknowledges the remarks made by (insert mom’s first name) and would like to assure all (insert last name) acquaintances that her opinions do not reflect the views of the family. Thank you for your patience and understanding. 

If the post is so unbelievably unjustifiable that you absolutely cannot allow your mother to be associated with it, I recommend adding the following comment to the post:

Apologies, everyone, my mom’s Facebook account has been hacked. Sorry for anything that you see posted in the next few hours, hopefully we’ll have it fixed soon! 

That strategy brings me nicely to my final piece of political post advice—the eleventh-hour strategy, the last resort, the Hail Mary throw. 

If in doubt, you can always create a fake account where you pretend to be your mom. You should have enough photos of her to accurately create a profile that could feasibly have been made by her (and you can always take more photos if you don’t have enough). You can copy all of the biographical information from her existing account. “Friend” as many of her friends as possible, and the job should be done. At best, you’ll convince people that you’re the real deal, and at worst, you’ll confuse everyone so much that neither of the profiles will be taken seriously, which is still a win. 

The third step in dealing with these posts is as follows: you can remember that while some Mom Posts are created to generate clout (for lack of a better word) among fellow moms, and others are an excuse for moms to live vicariously through their children, most Mom Posts are created out of love. They’re created because moms are proud of their children and want to share their accomplishments or because they take such delight in their offspring’s existence that they post about ordinary moments in their lives. Keep in mind that there are many people who don’t have Mom Posts to worry about. As stressful as they can be, it’s important to remember that they can also be something worth treasuring.