The Facebook Fraud

If you were to visit Lilith's Facebook page two things might become apparent. One if you don't actually go looking for him you wouldn't know that she is Seth's mother. She has almost no pictures of him and rarely ever posts about him. The other would be that on the rare occasion that she does post about Seth she takes credit for all the positive activities in his life.

Now Facebook isn't a real representation of any of us. It is only what we want and allow people to see. Sometimes it is surprising the things that people will allow you to see about themselves on Facebook, I saw someone post that they pulled a broken tooth out of their mouth with a pair of needle nosed pliers, that seemed gross, since they didn't manage to get the roots of the tooth out and it also seemed like a complete over share to me but I chose to keep my oral hygiene private for the most part. I also don't post pictures of rashes, abscesses, cysts, pimples or discharge of any kind. Call me old fashioned.

I don't post pictures of myself drinking or drunk. I don't post pictures of myself that could be interpreted as distasteful or controversial. I work very hard to keep my public internet image as something I feel is authentic and something I can be proud of. I am aware that the things I post publicly (and even "privately") don't ever go away and that in theory silly, thoughtless, things I may post today could effect my future. That doesn't stop me from posting random humor and posting about things that I believe in whether political or faith based. I am just careful to think before I post but I also try to live an authentic life that I am not ashamed of people knowing.

I stopped caring a long time ago what Lilith may think about my Facebook profile. I believe that strong fences make good neighbors and because of that I have Lilith blocked from seeing my Facebook account directly. I really don't care about Lilith's Facebook profile, I don't spy on her or use it to check up on her, in fact I rarely ever have any reason to remember that Lilith has an online presence. The only reason I ever run across Lilith online is because Seth got an iPad last year. Part of the agreement allowing Seth to have an iPad was that Adam, Lilith and I would have access to his accounts, passwords and devices at any time.

When Seth is at our house I am mainly the one monitoring his Internet usage. I check his call logs and text messages on his phone, his video game accounts on his PS3, DS and the household Wii. I also I check his email account, browser history, Facebook account and other apps on his iPad and on the home computers. Seth is not allowed to be friends with people we don't know in real life on Facebook, he is friends with family members, family friends, a couple of neighbors and a handful of friends from school and sports. Mostly he uses his Facebook to play all the various "Ville" games; FarmVille, PetVille, CastleVille, CityVille, FishVille. I swear if they made "CleanYourBedroomVille" or a "DoYourHomeworkVille" or a "TakeAShowerVille" he would play those even though we fight almost daily to get him to do those things in real life.

Adam and I have been considering altering our guest WiFi password so it would change every day, so Seth can't get online until his homework and chores are completed. It has been a series of trial and error for me this weekend to attempt to set this up and I am still not sure it is going to work. While working on trying this I needed to get on Seth's iPad, amongst other devices. Seth is at Lilith's and we don't always allow him to take his iPad back and forth with him. Adam and I believe that since Seth has such limited time with Lilith currently we don't want his iPad to be a further distraction and point of contention between them.

So I have been back and forth all morning from my laptop, to the household desktop, to Adam's iPhone, to Seth's iPad, checking the Wii and the PS3, checking my phone and back down the list again. In a few minutes of frustration at things not going as easily as I wanted them too, I decided to check up on Seth's Facebook since I was already on his iPad. I hadn't looked at his account in a while, I saw that I needed to hide one of Adam's stepbrothers and one of Seth's cousins out of his newsfeed because they have been posting things Adam and I both feel are inappropriate for Seth to be seeing at his age (provocative pictures of women and their breasts, suggestive pictures of drugs and alcohol, and argumentative, politicized, glorified pictures of guns) I deleted a message Seth received from some beautiful woman in Russia who "wants to be friends" and invited Seth to check out some of her pictures on her website (I also report things like this) and I blocked the account. I scrolled through the many pictures of kittens that Seth's maternal grandmother posts, hid a few political stories, a couple of drunken pictures and then ran into a couple of posts from Lilith.

Now I would love to act like I just scrolled by and didn't care what she had written but I would be lying to you and myself if I didn't admit my curiosity was piqued. I clicked onto Lilith's page where I saw nothing of concern or even gossip. I did however see an overwhelming amount pictures of Seth's sister Leah. Pictures of Leah sleeping, Leah making goofy faces, Leah playing dress up, Leah getting ready for bed, Leah sitting on the couch, Leah at Christmas, Leah getting her haircut, Leah playing with friends. There were status updates about missing Leah, hanging out with Leah, cuddling with Leah and Leah being sick. I saw one blurry picture of Seth from a few weeks ago when Lilith had taken him ice skating.

Now maybe you are thinking that this lack of Seth's presence has to do with Adam having primary placement and Lilith only having visitation on the weekends but Lilith doesn't have primary placement of Leah either, currently Lilith has 50/50 joint custody of Leah with her ex-husband, Sam. As for The situation that caused Adam to have primary placement; that happened just a few weeks ago, until that point Lilith shared 50/50 custody of Seth with Adam.

So then I noticed Seth mentioned in her last status update, which was about Leah. Lilith's maternal grandmother asked how Seth was doing in school. Lilith replied how she keeps him involved in various athletic activities, how Seth is getting so tall and school is good.

On the surface this is all fine and mostly true. Seth is doing very well in school since the custody change, he also has an amazing teacher this year who has sparked a love of learning and writing in him. I love to get to read his stories, Seth is an amazing storyteller. Seth is getting tall, he is almost as tall as me and soon I will be wearing his hand-me downs. Seth is very, very athletic and has been involved in sports since he was young. Adam was never a "team sports" athlete but is very physically active, he has had Seth riding a bike, climbing a rope or rock and hiking a trail for as long as I can remember.

When Lilith married Sam he got Seth involved in baseball, when Seth expressed an interest in football Adam talked with Lilith before he signed him up. When Seth decided football wasn't his thing and he wanted to play basketball Adam became a coach on his team, even though he had never played more then a scrimmage with friends himself. When Sam was around he was involved in helping Seth play baseball, he coached his team a couple of times over the years, he would bring Seth to some of the practices and some of the games. Sam helped purchase some of the needed equipment or gave Seth some of his old equipment and helped pay for some of the enrollment costs. Adam has always been the main parent to make sure that Seth got to all the practices, even when Lilith and Sam signed Seth up for weekly private coaching in addition to regular weekly baseball practice and twice weekly games, without consulting Adam. Adam has always contributed financially to Seth playing sports, but more then that, Adam has always taken the time to drive Seth to practices, coaching, games, wherever Seth needed to be, Adam has always made sure he was there.

I was frustrated at Lilith's comment that she has always had Seth involved in sports because if there is one person in this whole equation that was the least involved, it was Lilith. Sure she shows up to some of the games with her "team mom" shirt on and yells and cheers for Seth but she has never driven him to a practice, she has never bought him a pair of cleats or basketball shoes, she has never paid for anything. She hasn't even once ever brought the team snack. Those things fall to those of us behind the scenes, while she claims the public glory on Facebook, when she even admits she has a son that is.