Co-ed dorm room: one girl, two guys and one very angry mother
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Momlogic reports on a recent National Review article by a mother who, irate to discover that her daughter was living in a co-ed dorm room at Stanford University with two male students, went into a tailspin, called the university president and threatened to withhold tuition payments. Then she took her grievances public and wrote about the university’s pilot “gender-neutral” housing program in the National Review, stating that her daughter was unaware of the program and was assigned to it because she missed an important housing meeting.
This all sounds like a terrible situation, right? Not so fast. This isn’t a story about a school disregarding a student’s needs. This is a story about a mother losing control over her child’s life. Her daughter, it turns out, was perfectly happy with the housing arrangement. Daisy Morin, a 22-year-old senior, was fully aware of the school’s housing policies and saw no problem with them. via Co-Ed Crazy | Momlogic.
After the story was picked up by the New York Times college admissions blog, one of those who responded in the comments section was daughter Daisy herself, who wrote:
“This conflict has very little to do with Stanford and gender-neutral housing. Is has everything to do with my parents having a hard time adjusting to the fact that I’m out of the house (I’m the oldest), I’m 3,000 miles away, and — especially — that I’m a liberal agnostic while they are conservative Catholics.”
Clearly, this family needs to step up their communications skills and start talking to each other in person, or at least via personal email instead of public blogs. But what about the issue at hand: is the mother’s meddling yet another example of helicopter parents who won’t let their children grow up and make their own decisions (don’t forget, the daughter is 22) or should the mother, who is footing the bill for tuition and room and board, have the right to determine what kind of dorm her daughter can live in?
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I think the biggest challenge we all face as parents is finding the right balance between 1)raising them in a way that reflects our values and 2)allowing them to fully express who they are as individuals. The bottom line is the younger they are, the more we get to lean towards #1. Somehow, we need to transition into #2 by the time they are adults. Especially if we want to have adult relationships with them. But, when is adulthood? Probably not at 22 in someone still financially dependent. But, what can we really control at this age? Religious beliefs? Social mores? Roommate selections? Drinking? Drugs? Sorry mom – too late on all of the above. By 22, your input is processed and either accepted or rejected. However, you still get to control the purse strings in ways that are relevant. Not making the grades at Stanford in a timely manner? Then, pull the plug. But, at some point we all need to accept the fact that our kids our not going to come out as our clones (lucky them!)
Well put. Being a parent of an adult, or even emerging adult, is a totally different thing from parenting a child. The people with the best relationships with their adult children are usually those who know when to pull back and go with the game change.
In response to another comment. See in context »The thing is, the mother is paying for her daughter’s tuition. So, I would say, if this woman really disapproves of the daughter’s living arrangement–not just kind of doesn’t like it, but really objects to it–she has the right to demand the young woman live somewhere else. This isn’t being a helicopter parent.
However, it sounds like the communication between these two is pretty awful. It’s possible that, had the mother talked to her daughter, she would have discovered her child was just fine with the arrangement, didn’t want to move and possibly mom would have backed off.
The real issue here is a mother who can’t accept her child is full fledged adult and can’t be told how to live her life decides to take her family squabble public.
The issue of paying the tuition is irrelevant, a parent’s obligation to a child is not contingent on the parent getting her way. She is obligated in my opinion to educate her child within the bounds of her finical resources. It sounds like from this story that real adult here is in fact the child and it’s the parent throwing a hissy fit!