MN mom goes viral for paying son $1,800 for staying off social media until he turned 18
A Minnesota mom is going viral for a deal she made with her son when he was 12 to stay off social media for six years until he turned 18.
And last week, when Sivert Klefsaas celebrated his 18th birthday on Feb. 19, his mom Lorna Klefsaas wrote him a check for $1,800.
"It's some of the best money I have ever spent," Klefsaas wrote on Facebook on Feb. 18, admitting that $1,800 is a lot more to a 12-year-old than an 18-year-old, but he "stuck to our deal."
Sivert is $1,800 richer and already has an Instagram account. His bio reads, "I'm new here, be nice to me."
Lorna's deal to keep her son off social media during his teenage years has gone viral.
KARE 11 did a story on it after seeing the social media post, and since then news organizations around the world have featured the family from Motley, including People Magazine, TODAY, BBC, CNN and ABC News.
Lorna said she knows how teens can struggle with social media — his older sisters became obsessed with it and it was affecting their mood — so she wanted to save her youngest child from going through the same thing, she told KARE and CNN.
Sivert told KARE that when he was 12, he didn't really have a great concept of money, "I was like, 'Oh sick, yeah, absolutely.'" His mom told the news station he had plans to use the money to buy a car.
Sivert told CNN it wasn't too difficult to live without social media and he didn't think about it much over the past six years. When he made the deal, he wasn't on social media — he did try Snapchat for a day but deleted it.
Plus, he said he got to avoid unnecessary drama, while his friends kept him informed of anything important.
Sivert says he'll likely use the money to buy something for his dorm at the University of Northwestern St. Paul, where he'll be going in the fall, CNN said.
