<p>I, for one, am not making any assumptions about the sexuality of any of the participants.</p>
<p>I find it unlikely that most women, gay OR straight, would feel comfortable dressing and undressing in front of a male, gay OR straight.</p>
<p>I was finally able to read the entire article. I don’t exactly understand how this situation violates the parents’ “morality.” There is no indication that extramarital sex is involved. (If anything, the reverse, since the D specified no sex in the room.)</p>
<p>I can certainly understand being angry on her D’s behalf if the D was basically forced into a living situation that she finds uncomfortable and that violates Stanford’s written housing policies, and if Stanford refuses to do anything about it. But we don’t know that the D objects, and we don’t know that they won’t do anything about it: we just know that they say they will act if a <em>student</em> complains. I tend to agree with the mother that this burden, which potentially carries the side effect of upsetting everyone else’s applecart and becoming a social pariah as a result, should not be put on an individual student. (Avoiding that kind of situation is presumably one reason why they have the gender neutral option and accompanying policy.)</p>
<p>And I really don’t understand why they would conclude that not paying for the D’s final quarter is an appropriate reaction. They are punishing their D, not Stanford.</p>
<p>Couple of issues here…</p>
<p>The phrase: “not under my roof” is a propos here. Assuming I am paying for my child’s education, I would expect them to respect the culture of our home – culture regarding sexual practices, drugs, assumption of debt, courtesy to others, non-violence, etc.</p>
<p>What confuses this issue is the transitional phase of 18-21 years of age, and the financial support of a child during this transtion living away from home.</p>
<p>I don’t view a person as an independent free agent if they are financially dependent on me. This blurs the lines and makes it a real art to know when to cede, or keep, control.</p>
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<p>We do know those things. The daughter replied on the New York Times Choices blog a few days ago. The friend she sent to the housing meeting knew her desires, she is perfectly happy with her room, and Stanford offered to change it if she wanted. This is a tiff between a conservative Catholic mother and a liberal agnostic daughter, not a problem with Stanford.</p>
<p>Well, I continue to feel that the conservative Catholic mother has a semi-legitimate beef with Stanford because Stanford’s parent guide clearly implied that co-ed rooms were available only within certain dorms (not including the co-ops), and only to students who affirmatively made an election to ask for such a room together in advance of the housing assignments. I don’t think Mom has the right to have the University enforce parental policies on a daughter who doesn’t care about them, but maybe she does have the right to have the University not mislead her about whether there was a risk her daughter might be assigned to a mixed-gender room.</p>
<p>It’s close, because (contrary to the original article) the daughter clearly DID knowingly elect in advance to be in a co-ed room. But it’s fair to say that no one reading the University’s materials would have understood that they didn’t describe the co-op practices at all, and that many or most of the co-op rooms were mixed-gender. This issue doesn’t excite me one whit, but I can understand how parents for whom some notion of respecting tradition is a paramount value might think that was a meaningful oversight.</p>
<p>Well, after I read what the daughter wrote, all I could think of was, “Happy Mothers’ Day!”</p>
<p>I think they both embarrassed themselves. </p>
<p>This could have been avoided had the mom, 4 years ago, sent her D to a college that shares the values that she and her husband have.</p>
<p>I think personal choice is key.</p>
<p>
That’s not the experience I had with my daughter, who has many close gay male friends. I know that’s anecdotal … but at least some straight women are quite comfortable sharing space with gay guys, and undressing in front of them – just as some straight guys are not at all comfortable undressing in front of gay guys. </p>
<p>But I raise the point because somewhere along - either in the article or in a comment – the point was raised about d’s safety in the event of the guy roommate getting drunk, suggesting that a drunk guy might behave inappropriately. (there was reference to one of the guys being a “happy drunk”). Gay guys are unlikely to mess with their female roommates no matter how drunk they get.</p>
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<p>Well, clearly it is an individual thing. I was raised in a “modest” household and it stuck. 
Childhood friends of mine had parents who would appear nude in front of their kids and they felt much more comfortable with nudity than I. I, too, number gay men amongst my closest friends for at least 30 years, and none of us have ever dressed or undressed in front of each other or walked around in the nude, even when we were apartment mates for several years.</p>
<p>But regarding the “drunken room-mate makes unwanted sexual advances” scenario the mother worried about, I think that there she has a point, albeit a weak point. I’d be more worried about drunken D makes advances to tipsy room mate and they have sex and then regret it and the living situation becomes intolerable. There is no doubt that alcohol is a strong factor in many ill-considered couplings…in college or out.</p>
<p>Now I’m going to try to hunt up this blog and read the D’s side of things…having done so, I’ve lost all sympathy for the mother. Stanford obviously DID act. The D clearly was perfectly happy with her rooming situation. Choosing to, as many comments said, air the family’s dirty laundry in public, publicly embarrass her D, and go to the “nuclear option” on funding is crass. I’m actually surprised that the NR didn’t bother to do any research at all or contact the D before publishing the piece. I guess it’s even more of a ideological rag than I thought.</p>
<p>Among my favorite comments is that from a guy saying that if the D puts up a web site with a paypal option, he and many others would be willing to contribute to the cost of the extra loans she took out. :D</p>
<p>Atomom writes: “This could have been avoided had the mom, 4 years ago, sent her D to a college that shares the values that she and her husband have.”</p>
<p>Uh, well, except for Bob Jones and the University of Teheran (wrong religion in both cases), the only real safe options are Catholic schools that do not come close to Stanford in reputation or resources. By which I mean Boston College, Fordham, Georgetown and Notre Dame: although each is trying to shed its doctrinaire history in hopes of being taken seriously as “a university of the first magnitude” (to quote Ezra Cornell), they haven’t done it.</p>
<p>And how did D embarrass herself, please? (Her mother, I grant you. As a contributor on the NYTimes site remarked, “Karen Morin is no helicopter parent. She’s a kamikaze.”)</p>
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<p>I was wondering that, myself.</p>
<p>I think the D’s explanation was very calm and reasonable until this point:</p>
<p>"7. 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 3000 miles away, and -especially- that I’m a liberal agnostic while they are conservative Catholics. The NR really should have looked into this situation a little bit before publishing that article.</p>
<p>I can’t believe I’m having to write this in the NYT blog. This is ridiculous."</p>
<p>She could have left out #7, or worded it more politely–like “My parents and I disagree about the housing policy because we do not share the same values.” Period. This detailed information about their personal conflict is unnecessary and meant to embarrass or get back at her mom.</p>
<p>As it is, it is like sticking her tongue out at her mother in public–IMO the tone here seems bratty and immature. The mother did not personally attack her D, but the D personally and publicly criticized her parents. </p>
<p>The parents paid for at least 3.75 years of this young lady’s Stanford education. In spite of the conflict (and I don’t agree with the mother, because, as I said before, she did allow her D to choose Stanford 4 years ago. . .) the parents still deserve the D’s thanks and respect. (One of my pet peeves–college students saying “I’m an independent adult who can do as I please!” while Mom and Dad are paying their $$$ bills.)</p>
<p>I predict that when this D has kids in college, she will look back at these words and cringe.</p>
<p>atomom, I’m not seeing what’s impolite or immature about #7. It’s not like the daughter said the conflict was because “I’m a liberal agnostic while they’re bigots who are stuck in the stone age.” The daughter’s position was totally misrepresented and twisted in her mom’s article to further a political agenda the daughter doesn’t subscribe to. Clarifying where she actually stands politically and religiously seems like the least she should be entitled to do without being called “bratty.”</p>
<p>The mother didn’t attack her D, but instead lied about how her daughter felt about the situation. Which in some ways seems worse.</p>
<p>The daughter didn’t say anything negative about her parents withdrawing their support, didn’t even imply she thought it was unfair. So where’s the lack of respect?</p>
<p>The mother used the daughter to promote her own political agenda. I think the daughter’s response was appropriate. Is it embarrassing for the mother? Possibly. But she was the one who chose this venue of communication.</p>
<p>You parents do realize your son or daughter can have plutonic friends of opposite sex. Many of us just freak out but your son or daughter is so far from home that not rooming with opposite sex does not guarentee they will not engage in sexual behavior if they already haven’t. Loosen up some, stanford mom is horrible if I was the kid I’d never speak to her again.</p>
<p>I’d say the disrespect came from the mother. The daughter had no issues: she ended up with roommates she liked, and when her mother withdrew her funding, the daughter went out and got a loan. This is the mother’s problem and she shouldn’t have dragged her daughter and her daughter’s housemates into the public eye.</p>
<p>I think the aim of the author was very simple – to warn other parents, hence the title Caveat Parens. I think most of us, myself included, when we contemplate sending off our first child to college have an idea that their experience on campus will be like ours. We don’t realize how much things have changed in the 20 - 30 years since we graduated, and we don’t often know what questions to ask.</p>
<p>In navigating the college selection process with my son this past year and touring several campuses, mixed-gender rooms were never brought up. I didn’t know this was an option. Now I know what questions to ask since I personally don’t think this living arrangement is a good idea. Since my dh & I will be paying most of the college bill for our ds, I feel we have a right to understand what we are paying for.</p>
<p>If my ds were paying his own way, then I agree that it would be up to him how/where he wants to live.</p>
<p>Personally, I am thankful to the author’s article for bringing this issue to light.</p>
<p>Except that in this case, nothing has changed. Stanford had self-governed housing thirty years ago.</p>
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<p>Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus…and “just friends” are from Pluto? :D</p>
<p>All I can say is that when I was 18 my roommate would boot me out almost every weekend so her boyfriend could stay in our room. There were more than a few times where I ended up sleeping on the guys floor in a room of a friend (just a friend) because HIS roommate often went home for the weekends to visit his girlfriend. Therefore, I’m not sure how much has truly changed in the last 30 years.</p>