<p>I see nothing wrong at all</p>
<p>my S thought I was weird when I looked up the location of his pot luck roommate and read about his home town (1,500 miles away)
Didn’t both me one bit.</p>
<p>I think it would have added stress to our move in for D, honestly, to have dinner at a stranger’s house during the day before or after move in. I would have appreciated knowing the parent’s contact info AFTER the move in, though. And certainly it would have been appreciated for the roommate to invite your D to come for dinner the first week or two they were in school. More than that is overstepping, I think.</p>
<p>If I were the mom hlsess contacted, I would be touched by the gesture and genuinely appreciative. I can see though how my D would have been offended or annoyed – it’s her journey. They don’t understand how and why we reach out to others – in their mind, we’re crowding their space.</p>
<p>I have a different concern – I never met D’s roommate or her parents because I moved her in early. I don’t have the roommate’s contact info, but I want to tell D “please tell your roommate’s parents I’m sorry I couldn’t meet them in person” so they won’t think I’m rude or uncaring. I don’t know what to do beyond that.</p>
<p>My D is 6 hours from school. Her first year RM was about 3 1/2 hours away. We met the parents at move-in but did not exchange numbers and I can’t even remember their names. D became an RA after that so no more RMs. If I was unable to reach my D for a period of time, I’d call Res Life.</p>
<p>As for the OP’s situation, I probably would have asked my D to convey to the RM that they could call us if we lived close by. If I were the far away parent and the other mom called me, I would have been very appreciative.</p>
<p>I agree with the D. I don’t think Mom should have called the RM’s Mom. It’s time to step back and let the daughter take the lead on things now.</p>
<p>It was a nice gesture, well meant, but I think the communication needs to run through the kids. I am moving D in tomorrow and her roommate has already moved in early (athlete) and the parents are gone, so I don’t see any reason why I’d meet them or contact them. I agree it’s hard, but the kids need to run the show.</p>
<p>My son would have found it embarrassing, but as a Mom I would be forever grateful! I think it was a wonderful gesture.</p>
<p>OP, don’t be hard on yourself. The coming months and years will be a process of constantly re-drawing the line as she moves into full adulthood, and this won’t be the last time that you “break” what she thinks the rules should be. The good news is, they either forgive or forget. :)</p>
<p>FWIW, I totally understand why you did it, and I would have been grateful to get the call.</p>
<p>Hlsess - I would have loved to have gotten a phone call from you! With S1, it would have helped me sleep better. I was actually hoping S2’s roommate was from far away so we could have him over for short holiday weekends.</p>
<p>I would have appreciated the call very much, if I were the roommates’s mum. Very nice gesture.</p>
<p>Although the gesture might have appeared helpful, you didn’t take into account how the situation would look from your daughter’s point-of-view. It was somewhat intrusive.</p>
<p>When S moved into his 1st place, we helped him move in & happened to meet the room mate & his mom. We parents traded phone numbers & emails, “just in case.” They were 2500 miles away on the East Coast and we were 2500 miles away in HI. 
The mom & I traded a few emails but that was about it. Neither of our kids cared much.</p>
<p>When D moved into her apartment, we took her & her new room mates grocery shopping. That was the only time we saw them. We never met their folks or had any way to contact any of them, much less their parents. The past 2 years, D has lived with HS friends, so we have contact info for some of them & their folks but rarely contact any of them, tho we are all on friendly terms. This coming year, D will again live with one of her HS friends; don’t have her contact info but have known her dad since we were both in college together. We commiserate together about how slow our Ds are about getting us their schedules so we can get their plane tickets. That’s about all we talk about them. ;)</p>
<p>Our kids & we are comfortable with the amount of contact we have with them & we always got advance approval if we planned any contact with room mates and/or room mates parents.</p>
<p>OP, I think your gesture was very thoughtful and I would have been touched if I were the RM’s mom. Actually S’s RM’s mom was thrilled that we traded info because I told her my best friend lived 30 minutes away. They also had family/friends in LA, but it made the RM’s mom feel better about the separation (it was their older S). Freshman year IS a delicate time, so it is good to let the STUDENT take the lead, which my kids were very clear about pointing out. :)</p>
<p>As a college kid, this seems a little strange to me. I do not think that my parents even knew the names of all of my freshman-year roommates.
Definitely check with your daughter about college-related issues in the future. If you are not careful, she may perceive some of your behavior as overbearing when you don’t even realize it.</p>
<p>As a parent, I’d have been put off receiving the phone call. I’d have read “chopper blades a whirring” into it and wondered just how involved you were going to be in my kid’s business. My kid needs to grow up. She does not need another mom hovering nearby. The university has a trained residence hall staff there in case of emergency. Let them do their job. Sorry if that sounds unkind, but those would be my feelings. </p>
<p>We are in a similar situation. We are local. Dd1’s roomie is from NJ. I don’t know that I’ll even meet roomie’s mom as roomie has to move in early and go through orientation on what is move-in day for the rest of the freshmen.</p>
<p>“chopper blades weren´t whirring too hard” when D1´s friend asked her to contact me to ask about a female medical problem, or when another friend happened to be close by our house (on a highway) and her car broke down. </p>
<p>We are going to be thousands of miles from D2 when she goes to college next year. I would be very grateful if someone were to extend their kindness to her.</p>
<p>^a call at the request of student is not the same. If d1 called me because her roommate asked her to, that’s hardly intrusive. It’s a very different kind of thing than me taking it upon myself to call roomie’s mom.</p>
<p>If I got a call that said, “Hey, I’m (roommate’s) mom, and we live near the college, so I just wanted you to know that if anything ever comes up you can give us a call”–I’d be grateful, and wouldn’t think it was weird.</p>
<p>But at the same time, I think my kids would resist having me make such a call. So there’s a reasonable chance the other parents are happy you made the call, while your D and her roommate will get over it. Try not to commit such a horrible, embarassing sin in the future, but don’t worry about what you already did.</p>
<p>I think it was a lovely gesture. But now you have to let your daughter take the lead.</p>
<p>When we took D1 to her freshman year, we met the roommate’s parents and really hit it off. I exchanged cell numbers with the roommate and her mom. My daughter rolled her eyes, but when their entire leadership group got food poisoning a week later, bad enough to actually be on the tv news, and my D was the hardest hit because of a chronic problem, I was grateful that the roommate could call me directly as my daughter was being loaded into the ambulance.</p>
<p>We didn’t meet D2’s roommate’s parents, but did exchange cell numbers with her in case of emergency. Thankfully, we never had to use it.</p>
<p>We NEVER contacted the roommates parents for either of our kids before they went to college. That being said…we DID meet one roommate’s parents at Parents Weekend (and subsequent events) in 2003…and we became fast friends…still keeping in touch regularly.Our kids both know this. If you meet the other parents at a future date and they WANT to exchange info…that’s one thing. BUT it’s college…time to let go.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Very nicely said. The other thing is … We, as adults, all have the maturity to recognize that any “overstepping” was well meant, well intended and meant to be gracious and warm - so no harm, no foul. I don’t think teens have that maturity, so it just turns into “ew, mom, you embarrassed me.” I think seeing the diff is a huge part of growing up.</p>