爸爸妈妈，别再关注我朋友圈了

文◎Katherine Goldstein 译◎周颖 绘◎也圆

有的小伙伴可能觉得，被父母看到朋友圈有些不自在，仿佛自己还要被家长时刻监督一般。但其实，父母们如此不甘落后地“赶时髦”，并非是要对我们这些已长大离家的孩子“指手画脚”，他们只是想离我们的生活更近一点，想要给我们更多的关心和爱。

I've never had any illusions①illusion 英 [ɪ'l(j)uːʒ(ə)n] 美 [ɪ'luʒn]n. 幻觉，错觉；错误的观念或信仰that Twitter was private,and I've always been acutely aware that I should never tweet something unprofessional②unprofessional 英 [ʌnprə'feʃ(ə)n(ə)l] 美 [,ʌnprə'fɛʃənl]adj. 非职业性的，非专业的；外行的. But all of a sudden Twitter felt a little less fun: Anything I tweeted I'd likely have to discuss with my dad later, even if it was as harmless as going to a gallery. If I wanted to tell him about it, I would. Living in a city hundreds of miles away provides a grown daughter with the privacy to selectively③selectively 美 [sə'lɛktɪvli] adv. 有选择地edit your weekend plans.Anything that I hinted at on Twitter I had to be prepared to answer for later. I couldn't block him. I didn't have the heart to do so. Instead I applied the test "Will I want to talk to Dad about this later?" to anything I tweeted.

Even as I became more aware of the degree of my dad's Twitter stalking④stalk 英 [stɔːk] 美 [stɔk] n. （植物的）茎，秆；（支持叶子、果实和花的）梗，柄；追踪；高视阔步vt. 追踪，潜近；高视阔步vi. 高视阔步地走；潜近，偷偷接近and started gently teasing him about it, he was not deterred⑤deter 英 [dɪ'tɜː] 美 [dɪ'tɝ] vt. 制止，阻止；使打消念头. When I saw him in person, he'd make a point to ask me in front of other people, "So how many Twitter followers do you have now, Katherine? Is it over 1,500? She has OVER 1,500 followers!" He'd brag to anyone in earshot. "I only have 200!” he would add.Isn’t the dream of every father for his children to be more successful than himself?

I think the pinnacle⑥pinnacle 英 ['pɪnək(ə)l] 美 ['pɪnəkl] n. 高峰；小尖塔；尖峰；极点vt. 造小尖塔；置于尖顶上；置于高处of my dad's Twitter mania came when Slate launched our newsblog, "The Slatest", which I oversee. Since he'd sort of gotten the hang of the retweeting thing, anything I tweeted related to the launch he'd retweet within minutes.

He was in such a flurry⑦f l urry 英 ['f l ʌrɪ] 美 ['f l ɝi] n. 慌张；疾风；飓风；骚动vt. 使恐慌；使激动vi. 慌张；激动about "The Slatest" that he even called me during the middle of the workday to discuss it. Calling me during off i ce hours was the sort of thing I thought he'd only consider if someone had died. But Twitter also changed that. "I saw your tweet and I was just so excited that I wanted to say congratulations again! How's everything going?"

我从未幻想过推特是私密的，也总是十分清醒地知道我决不该发布不专业的推文。但突然之间，推特变得不那么好玩了：我所发布的任何内容以后都可能得和老爸一起讨论，哪怕是去看画展这样无关痛痒的小事。如果我想要告诉他的话，我会告诉他的。生活在千里之外的城市里，一个成年的女儿就有了一份隐私，可以有选择地制订自己的周末计划。我在推特上不管提到些什么，都必须做好以后和老爸谈论的准备。我又不能把他拉黑。我不忍心这么做。相反，我采取的办法是不管我发布什么，我都要先问自己：“你以后想和老爸谈论这个吗？”

虽然我越来越清楚老爸在推特上对我的跟踪程度，并且也开始就此事和他开一些小玩笑，可他依然如故。见到他本人时，他常常会当着别人的面特意问我：“凯瑟琳，你的推特上现在有多少粉丝了？超过1500个了吗？她的粉丝都超过1500个了！”他会对能听到此话的所有人都夸耀一番。“而我只有200个！”他会补充说。孩子比自己更成功，这不是每个父亲的梦想吗？

当《Slate》杂志推出由我监管的新闻博客“The Slatest”时，我觉得老爸对推特的狂热也达到了登峰造极的地步。由于他已经差不多掌握了转发的方法，我所发布的任何关于推出新闻博客的推文，他都会在几分钟内进行转发。

他对“The Slatest”如此紧张，甚至在上班时间他也会打电话来跟我讨论。我本以为，只有当有人去世的时候，他才会考虑在上班时间给我打电话 。 但推特连这一点都改变了。“我看到你的推文了，我太激动了，我要再次向你表示祝贺！一切还顺利吗？”

I found myself using the service less and less, keeping it mostly to news links that caught my interest. I started relegating my increasingly fewer updates about my life to Facebook. Dad seemed less into Facebook,and there wasn't any easy option for him to get real-time updates sent to his phone. While he still brings up things he sees me tweet, over time he started to tone it down since there was less fodder⑧fodder 英 ['fɒdə] 美 ['fɑdɚ] n. 饲料；素材 vt. 喂. Maybe a bit of the novelty wore off. Maybe he started following more people so it became harder to focus solely on me.

Recently, I tweeted out to my followers that I was taking suggestions of possible topics for a fourweek project. I immediately got an email about it, but it wasn't from my dad. It was from my mom. "I just saw your tweet, and I wanted and I wanted to tell you..."

我发现自己使用推特的次数越来越少，大多只是发布一些我感兴趣的新闻链接。关于我个人生活的更新越来越少，而且我开始将它们转移到Facebook上。老爸对Facebook似乎不那么入迷，而且也没有什么简便的方式将实时更新发送到他的手机上。虽然他还会提起他看到的我的推文，但渐渐地，他开始说得少了，因为已没有多少谈资。也许是他的新鲜感已慢慢消失。也许是他开始关注更多的人，所以只盯着我一个变得不那么容易了。

最近，我对粉丝们发布了一条推文，说我在为一个为期四周的项目征求话题建议。我立刻就收到了一封关于此事的邮件，但那不是老爸发的。发信的人是老妈：“我刚刚看到你的推文，我想告诉你……”