<p>My mother is extremely straight-laced. She made me walk out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in the scene in which Katharine Ross’s character is “forced” to undress at gunpoint by the Sundance Kid, and then it becomes apparent that he is her lover and she was never “at risk.” She was deeply offended that a situation in which she was suffering for the woman turned out to be a joke. </p>
<p>Yet she always assumed that if one went to visit a friend of the opposite sex and staying in a dorm was a matter of mutual convenience, that it would NEVER be assumed that one was having sex. She told me as a teenager that if I were out late and it would be safer to stay where I was rather than drive home late at night, that I should call and say so, and no questions would be asked.</p>
<p>It strikes me that this mother has a very dirty mind, and a complete lack of respect for her D. She revolts me.</p>
<p>I’m actually really surprised at the mother’s reaction to her daughter’s decision - not funding her daughter’s last semester because of what the college did. She made an odd comment that she wasn’t going to sacrifice her daughter’s happiness to get a Stanford education, but it seems to me that her daughter is pretty happy (at least from the article); it’s the mother who isn’t thrilled. While I agree that parents should be informed that their children could potentially room with the opposite sex, I think that this woman took it to an extreme.</p>
<p>Where the D may have had <em>some</em> of the responsibility for how all this played out (and I’m not saying this was the case - just speculating) is in her early conversations with the mother. My real question would be - when did the mother first become aware that the D was fine with the housing assignment and was from the very beginning? I can see a conversation between the D and the mother where the D may have initially led the mother to believe that this was out of her control as a done deal and not what she would have chosen. When it became clear to the mom at some point that the D was fine with it, the mom said that if that was the case it would be on the D’s own dime. What is less clear is whether the mom was initially led to believe, from what the D told her, that the D would not have chosen this option if it was up to her but did not feel comfortable making waves. I wouldn’t be surprised if the D, in order to placate the mom, could have spun things this way in the beginning, leaving the mom feeling as if the D was not telling the full truth on the other side (even if she was).</p>
<p>Even if true, however, IMO nothing justified going to the press with this - though I think Stanford’s website was clearly misleading to parents.</p>
<p>This happens to be a topic I know a bit about and have strong feelings on. Many schools have this as a housing choice now and I think it is poor move. I am by no means any sort of strict anything, and encourage my daughter to make healthy choices. I believe she would not choose this as a housing option on her own, however, any school that does not have stringent requirements in place to deal with the circumstances which may arise with this living arrangement is a no go as far as our applications and hence our dollars and daughter will go.</p>
<p>My alma mater (Clark University in Worcester) instituted this 3 or 4 years ago and I resigned out of protest as an alumni ambassador. My daughter will be 17 when she leaves home and even though she may not make this choice for herself, being surrounded by that sort of lack of foresight is alarming to me as a mother. The only school on her list which has gender nuetral housing is Dartmouth and there are only 8 rooms and you have to write an essay on why you wish to live there. To me, there was some forthought given when deciding to institute this policy. The other schools we looked at did not have any criterion at all. We have asked specifically at all tours since it is definitely not advertised to the parents – which I think is reason enough to be suspect.</p>
<p>Poor social engineering choice in my opinion. Take my advice and ask about it on tours. They will not volunteer the info.</p>
<p>What *lack of foresight *do you mean, Harvardmum? According to the daughter, she joined the coop knowing that she might end up in a mixed gender room, and then when she did end up in a mixed gender room she was happy with the situation.</p>
<p>When I refer to foresight, I mean a plan. It appears that Stanford had such a plan (by forming these housing coops) My point is that the schools I have seen which have this policy (with the exception of Dartmouth) have no criteria. I have to agree with many of the other posters, that as long as I am the payer for the services I will have a say, and our daughter is crystal clear on this. I would have no problem with her in an off campus apt with male roomates. Our issue is the sharing of a room, private space with a person of a different gender. </p>
<p>Heck, I didn’t even want a same sex roomate!</p>
<p>I think the drama and conflict which has a potential for erupting in a single sex room is only increased when you throw in this variable. Additionally, RA’s and housing offices are only asking for trouble IMHO.</p>
<p>To start with, I personally believe that gender-neutral housing is a great idea, but should not be forced. Also, it is wrong to refuse to support your child’s education just because they disagree with you on some issues.
But regardless of my opinions, I noticed something about the article that I don’t think anyone has really looked at. The fact that the daughter appointed a proxy means that the college did not force her into it. You should not appoint a proxy for room choice unless A. The proxy knows EXACTLY what you are looking for in a room, or B. You would be fine with any rooming situation. So she voluntarily gave up her choice in that. The proxy was acting as her (that is, after all, the meaning of “proxy”), so unless they forced the proxy to make the decision (which, of course, they did not), they were not forcing her to live in a co-ed room.</p>
<p>Sharing a room with someone of a different gender doesn’t take away privacy any more than sharing with the same gender, harvardmum.
But anyway, in response to the article, if that mother doesn’t want to allow her daughter to go somewhere that allows that option by choice, she is not helping her daughter or her morals any. If you force someone to follow your morals even into college age, they can’t have any morals of their own at all, neither morals the same as yours nor different morals, unless they break away and make their own decisions.</p>
<p>I’m going to say this again: The daughter has stated that her proxy knew what she would like, that she was perfectly happy with the housing arrangement she ended up with, and that she liked her roommates. The daughter did not feel forced into living in a room with two male roomates and a female roommate. She knew this was a possibility, and when it happened, she was fine with it. Moreover, Stanford offered to let her change rooms and she declined.</p>
<p>Possibly she was less than candid with her mother, or possibly the mother, willfully or not, misunderstood, but that is a problem between mother and daughter.</p>
<p>Very good point, Fang. So really, I think it is completely the mother’s problem, she is trying too hard to force her morals on her daughter. She should trust her daughter to be responsible, and if she thinks there is something inherently irresponsible about living in a co-ed room…well, let’s just say there are much, much more irresponsible things her daughter could be doing. If her daughter can handle a co-ed room, it shows that she is both responsible and mature, not immoral.</p>
<p>One of my friends had a D who was in what was known at the time as the (co-ed) co-op that was mostly clothing optional. Seems like the OP’s D could have done a lot worse in the “offend your parents’ sensibilities” game.</p>
<p>I think Harvardmum is referring to the possibility that illicit sexual relationships may develop between people who share lodging with members of the opposite sex. This has actually happened in the past, if I’m not mistaken. In fact, i think Cardinals have played a major role in preventing this kind of problem, in earlier times. What type of Cardinal are you?</p>
<p>Yeah, sexual relationships can develop in all-gender rooms (and out of curiosity, what makes these relationships “illicit”?). They also can develop, and have, in single-sex rooms.</p>
<p>I’m amused by the assumption that college students are categorically incapable of sharing a room with someone of a different sex/gender without having sex with them. This is especially absurd when applied to LGBT students. At many schools, all-gender housing became available through queer student activism, for gay students who weren’t comfortable in single-sex rooms or trans students whose identities weren’t being respected there - or, through the efforts of close friends of different sexes who wanted to live together. There are plenty of reasons to live in a mixed-gender room that have nothing to do with prurient interest in your roommate. For some of us, it’s a healthier, more responsible option than living in a single-sex room.</p>
<p>(For the record, I’m a guy; I chose to live in an all-gender room my first year of college and will be doing so again this year, for a variety of reasons.)</p>
<p>This topic just jumped to my mind again today.</p>
<p>For all of you who are saying, “OMG she’s such an awful mother!!!”
Look at yourselves, you sound like a bunch of spoiled little kids. “Oh, that poor girl will have to take out a loan for her final quarter of college!” Are you serious? A quarter is, like, 10-15 grand. If that girl honestly can’t pay off that much herself after her parents financed her education for 3 years, she has a lot of problems.</p>
<p>But, of course, what can you expect on a college admissions forum full of rich white people -_-</p>
<p>Hey, ilikecollage, I like collages too! Cutting out lots of different types of paper and pictures and gluing them together. That’s fun. </p>
<p>I find that this forum has lots of different types of people. For instance, it has half-white, half-Mexican students who can run really fast and who go to private NE boarding schools. And it has Jewish students that go to public schools. Sometimes these are even the SAME student. Isn’t that amazingly diverse?</p>
<p>@SlitheyToav
I don’t know what you were trying to imply there, because the fact that I decided to ■■■■■ with one thread several months ago certainly doesn’t make what I’m saying any less valid. Furthermore, I find it a little obsessive that you went through every one of my threads to find that discrepancy. You should find a hobby or something.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t take away from the fact that many of the people commenting on this article feel a sense of unwarranted entitlement.</p>