The morning started like any other. I was reading my Facebook news feed, minding my own business and the business of 240 of my closest friends, when a picture mid-scroll quit me cold. Stunned, I squeezed my mouse so hard it screamed for PETA. The moment had come: Facebook, this town ain’t big enough for the both of us anymore.

I am the aunt of four small children: Jesse 30, Frank 25, Caitlin and Annie ages 24 and 23. Three of them have Facebook profiles. The offending photo was of Frankie at a party with three girls draped seductively around him. They were staring at the camera triumphantly, like they’d just tracked and taken down the king of the forest. I’m not implying they had bedroom eyes, but these girls didn’t have “let’s go study calculus at the library” eyes either. I sent the picture to my friends with the detached, unemotional question: “What do you make of this pornography?”

“Those girls are beautiful!” they replied: an unacceptable response. I posed the same question to my husband Graham only to have it earn an “All right, Frank!” What was wrong with these people? “Doesn’t it look like he’s trying to push them away?” I asked. Who was I kidding? Frankie was not being held against his will, and if he were, Stockholm Syndrome had clearly set in.

I joined Facebook at the urging of my best friend because our college crowd was having an impromptu virtual reunion. I thought Facebook was for kids, but she assured me our generation was taking over. I’m always up for a coup, so I aligned myself with the ranks of the connected. It was wonderful.

Soon I was in touch with high school and grade school classmates as well, some of whom I hadn’t talked to in 20 years. Distant cousins were suddenly daily correspondents. What I didn’t bargain for was the generational overlap, the occasional glance into the adult lives of Frankie, Caitlin and Annie who my memory preserved as mere children.

My nieces leave a large Facebook footprint. Hundreds of pictures are posted of them in acts of debauchery like socializing and talking to boys. Many nights would find me at the computer shrieking: “She’s holding a beer!” “Does that boy look shifty to you?” “Would it kill her to put on a sweater?” “That skirt could be let down a few inches!”

After the flop sweats and chest pains started, Graham forbade me to look at the pictures. “Stop grimacing!” he ordered. “This Facebook is going to send you to an early plastic surgeon!”

I still spied on the status updates though. Annie recently moved to Washington, D.C. Her first D.C. update read: “Celebrating my first night in the new apartment with cupcakes and champagne.” I wanted scream: “Put down the cupcake and reinforce the locks on your doors! Bar your windows! SECURE THE PERIMETER!” but cooler heads prevailed, and then Cool Head Graham took my laptop away.

Not only does Facebook showcase my girls’ personal lives, it advertises where they’re poised on the cultural landscape. Caitlin has had Lady Gaga as her profile picture for two months. I wouldn’t mind if the moniker slightly reflected the image. Is it really setting the bar so high to want my niece’s idol to wear pants? I’ve offered to Photoshop some nice capris on Lady, but Caitlin’s not having it. In the current picture, she is wearing an outfit comprised entirely of strategically placed police line, and I don’t think the message she’s sending is “do not cross.”

Facebook allows me to keep an eye on the kids in a way that is immediate and convenient, yet it can be distubingly voyeuristic. It makes me wonder if the reason our kids move away is because we aren’t supposed to watch them spread their wings; maybe they have a right to do that in private.

Later, we can celebrate when they fly. No profile or pantless pop star is going to keep them from soaring if they’re meant to soar. In the meantime, I take comfort in knowing that no matter how old my two boys get, they’ll always be pure and innocent. The vet made sure of that years ago.

St. Paul resident Alexandra Kloster appears every other Friday. She may be reached at alikloster@yahoo.comand her blog is Radishes at Dawn at alexandrakloster.com.