Getting an unexpected friend request on Facebook can be as exciting as tearing and opening birthday presents when you were a kid. Before you click to find out who it is, the potential candidates such as that cute girl you partnered with in chemistry lab, or that smart boy from your history class, race through your head and mind.

But all that anticipation takes a turn for the worse when you find out that your new friend request came from none other than one of your parents. Eek! My parents have joined Facebook? What to do? Not to mention the philosophical dilemmas that result : What should I do? Do I accept? What will happen if I accept? Do they go on limited profile? What do they get to see if they're on limited profile? Will they bug me as well as my friends?

A teen's biggest fear is... parents joining Facebook and knowing your secrets and personal life. So, just to bail on Facebook entirely is the easier solution for many. The latest study shows that, with parents joining Facebook en masse, it's becoming uncool for children to be there. I don't know how accurate the study is, but if it's true, it raises an interesting question – is there any way to avoid such an “uncoolness”?

There are certain ways to avoid such “uncoolness”. First of all, you have to decide whether you want to accept your parent's friend request or not. Many students spend a lot of time on Facebook, so it's important to be honest with yourself about how comfortable you are with your parents as Facebook friends. It may seem totally lame to be friend with a parent on Facebook, but, honestly, a lot of people are. With more and more adults getting to know social networking, it's not so unusual to see parents on a Facebook's friends list.

Personally, I wouldn't care if my parents joined Facebook because I've nothing to hide and worry about. I also have friends having their grandparents as Facebook friends. One friend of mine just set some grandmother-friendly restrictions on her privacy settings – and her grandmother loves it too as she gets consistent updates about her granddaughter’s life.

There is yet another way that you'll need to build in certain features to separate out groups easily, so that you could quickly duck friends into a certain bucket, and parents into a different one, to make sure that lives are “kept separate”. But don't reject your parent's friend request just because of fear of social stigma. It can even be fun to have parents on Facebook when they make random comments on your friend's Facebook walls. So, what do you think guys? Would you like to see your parents on Facebook? I'm all for it.