Relatives on Twitter/Facebook - Friend of Follow?

So the inevitable day that anyone involved in social media eventually crosses came today...my dad is now following me on Twitter.

You can follow him if you want he's @architectomunde for anyone interested in following him. I figured it was coming sooner than later for the last three months or so I have been getting relative requests, save-a-whale messages and all around whackiness from my aunt on Facebook.

Having your folks on twitter adds some interesting questions...Is that tweet a simple reminder...was that one guilt. Does the tweet "I am making Beef Stew" just mean I am cooking stew or is it really"How come you never come over for dinner since you got a puppy?"

Opening up all these streams of communications make navigating familial relationships tricky. It's not all new to me though.

My aunt jumped the ƒacebook shark about three months ago....when the friend request came in I really thought nothing of it. I expected quick updates on the family...you know...short streams of "Christmas Letter" type banality...but I got something totally different.

Now I love my Aunt/Uncle/Cousins to death and I had no problems whatsoever friending them. The thing is the sheer amount of "spam" that ƒacebook allows people to send each other is deafening. So much noise that I can hardly pick up the signal. Sure it's great to get birthday reminder,heads up about family parties or notified that my cousin is having another baby, but I also feel bad every time I ignore a request for a relative application or a kitten in a sweater picture app.

I am jewish after all so feeling guilty sort of comes with the territory, just keep your fingers crossed that my grandmother doesn't board this ship. Imagine the kind of guilt an old Jewish Grandmother could toss around with a tool like facebook of twitter?