<p>My son is a member of a fraternity. They did keep them very busy during pledging. Although I don’t know many of the details, I get the feeling that things were quite benign.</p>
<p>You are worried because you haven’t heard from your S for TWO WEEKS??? I would be dead from anxiety if I depended on that level of communication with my S. :D</p>
<p>As it happens, S has chosen to pledge a fraternity this term. So far, this has resulted in a request that we send more ties than the 2 he took with him. Apparently they have to wear a tie every day and respond that one is "a gentleman of X " if anyone asks why. Also he has been required to check for school IDs at the door during a weekend party. And he played his instrument for a brother while said brother presented his girlfriend with a valentine, and arranged to play duets with another.</p>
<p>Horrifically dangerous fraternity culture, huh?</p>
<p>Not being naive, I’m sure that there are some less savory activities. But in my personal experience individual houses vary WIDELY, and it is unwise to get too worked up unless your S is at a school where dangerous hazing is a done thing–and unless you think your S would pledge a house where that kind of stuff goes on.</p>
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<p>I have to say, I just smile when I think of boys, er, young men, doing stuff like this. It’s just so cute and innocent.</p>
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<p>No. </p>
<p>The best way for members to get a “take” on other members’ credibility is to read their posting history, noting dates and content of previous posts to see how that aligns with the current post. </p>
<p>To do so, click on any poster’s Screenname, and from the drop-down menu choose “Find More Posts By.”</p>
<p>JDD, I have heard of boys being told not to call home during initiation week, as part of the initiation. In the case I know best, it was not a hazing situation at all, but one of the evidences of loyalty, maturity and whatever else they thought is represented by not calling home to Mom for a week.</p>
<p>There are no guarantees, however. I would absolutely ask your elder S-1 to call in to his brother and report back to you if he can’t find him. He doesn’t even have to say you set him up to it. Even if the 2 brothers (bio-brothers I mean) get a laugh out of sharing with each other that they’re doing this to reassure you, you’ll still know he’s okay. Besides, S-2 is more likely to share any serious difficulties with S-1 than you, anyway.</p>
<p>Start by telling S-1 how concerned you are and that you need his help to ascertain S-2 is safe. If he agrees to help you, and most older sons do, then he’ll take it from there.</p>
<p>Remember all you need to know is that he’s safe. Don’t pry into every detail of the initiations because they won’t tell you anyway. You can ask S-1 to advise you on how S-2 sounded and did he seem to have any problems he couldn’t manage himself.</p>
<p>I do this ALL THE TIME when I can’t get one of my kids to return a call within weeks. They don’t mind it, as they know if they were in a ditch starving somewhere I’d soon be chasing them too (using their sibs if I strike out beyond our usual comfort zone). What I mean by comfort zone is, if you are accustomed to hearing from your kid around 2x/week, then not hearing word for 2 weeks is not comfortable. For another family, a 2-week break between contacts would be nothing unusual at all. Each family is different. </p>
<p>Good luck and keep us updated here, please.</p>
<p>At my questioning, my son told me after pledgeship that he didn’t have to eat anything or drink anything that he didn’t want to, and that he didn’t do anything dangerous or degrading.</p>
<p>But, he did have to study, be at the house at all hours, be a sober driver, help build for parties and clean up afterward, things like that.</p>
<p>He had to wear certain clothes, jeans and a plain polo (no logo), and he couldn’t talk on his phone walking around campus.</p>
<p>I think with the new laws, national organization policies and campus rules regarding hazing, most fraternities are on their best behavior - and the ones who aren’t are risking not only losing their charter, but getting kicked out of school and possibly prosecuted.</p>
<p>The one thing though, is it is time consuming, and that might be why your son isn’t available to talk. Hopefully, he is using his study hall time wisely. :)</p>
<p>My freshman son at a large midwestern state flagship got caught up in rush because all the guys on his floor were, then he went along with pledgeship, and spent the entire fall semester working security three nights a week, and doing lots of other work at the frat. I guess the idea is that as a pledge you’re the grunt, but when you are initiated as a brother you are not doing the work because new pledges are, and so on.</p>
<p>However, he didn’t get a handle on his coursework and did miserably grade-wise. He also lost touch with the friends he had made earlier in the fall semester and wound up only having his fraternity brothers as his social life. After paying a fair amount in fees, spending all his weekends working, and cutting himself off from other opportunities at the university because he was too busy at the frat… he ended up dropping out because he felt that it was too confining for him. Also, the residential commitment (you have to live in the house for two years) bothered him. </p>
<p>I know a bit about what went on during rush, pledgeship, hell week, though he kept much to himself and told me that if anything was going on that he didn’t feel comfortable with then he would not go along with it.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, as freshman they are so eager to make friends and belong (at least my son was) that the fraternity life is appealing. For my son, the novelty of parties non-stop wore thin and he looked around and didn’t see very much that he really could identify with.</p>
<p>I think that it varies so much among fraternities, parts of the country, and schools. Trust your son to make good judgments, but be there to listen and give support, too. Our son called many times asking our opinions or just running things by us.</p>
<p>Thanks to all, especially the insights/suggestions posted by paying3tuitions, Donna101, and ag54.</p>
<p>I don’t even know what a “■■■■■” is. Clearly I’m not one.</p>
<p>To sum up, here’s what I’ve learned through this thread and the January 2010 thread on fraternities:</p>
<p>1) There are no generalities. Initiation varies by fraternity and by campus. On any given campus, some frats do benign stuff only (running errands, wearing required clothing), and some clearly cross the line (being dumped on a country road in the middle of the night, being locked in a tiny basement room with 22 pledges and three bongs). </p>
<p>2) Sorority initiation bears little resemblence to fraternity initiation.</p>
<p>3) Sons communicate less frequently than daughters, and with fewer details.</p>
<p>4) Rush is largely a “dry” process because it is a very visible period of time on campuses; to ignore this policy is to bring severe sanctions upon the fraternity. Initiation I’m not so sure about.</p>
<p>5) “Hell Week” is the culmination of a long initiation period (six weeks or more). Generally worse stuff happens then…what young man is going to back out at this point after all he’s already been through??</p>
<p>6) College officials have cracked down on hazing, as have the national organizations for each fraternity. There is a lot of education going on, and a lot of media scrutiny. HOWEVER, I do believe that the more that administration cracks down, the farther underground the process of pledging/initiation is driven. Hazing happens, and the pledges aren’t talking…clearly they are made to understand the tremendous risk that the brothers and the fraternity are taking by perpetuating certain rituals.</p>
<p>7) Grades are an important indicator of how things are going during pledging…probably more so than the amount of information and/or communication you are having with your son.</p>
<p>Have I left anything out?</p>
<p>I sincerely hope this helps parents like me who are feeling in the dark about this aspect of their son’s college life.</p>
<p>8) Encourage your kid to keep up with his non-frat activities, interests, etc. even after he has pledged. He will need something on his resume besides “Social Chair” at Delta Delta Omega when it’s time to get out into the real world.</p>
<p>9) Make sure you stick to whatever financial deal you worked out when he left for college. If his summer earnings are supposed to cover books, lab fees, and social life for next year, you can’t suddenly decide to subsidize his new Greek life style by allowing the summer earnings to cover social life only. It will help him say no to the Spring Break trip to Cancun and the winter ski trip to Tremblant (and it will help his grades enormously if he uses the time when the other guys are away to hit the books) if he knows he’s on a budget.</p>
<p>10)Make an effort to get to know his friends without being a helicopter mom. If he’s got a kid from Ukraine in his frat who can’t go home for Spring break or Easter weekend, and you are a car ride away, you can be the family who invites the internationals home.</p>
<p>I’m sure this person has already had their questions answered but I thought I would share my opinion. Like the person said really crazy initiation during pledging is few and far between, but the press do go crazy whenever it gets out one frat has hired a prostitute or something terrible happened.
I just recently pledged a fraternity at my school where the greek system is in our own view very selective. Really it is all about what each individual student is looking for and is comfortable with.
If your kid goes to a larger school state school or large private institution and you know that he/she is a good kid you should be fine. Unless they don’t know what they are getting into, typically kids are attached to the kind of people they want to hangout with. For instance if your kid is not the kind of guy that would make others drink dangerous amounts of booze, perform gross sexual stuff, or do drugs, they most likely will not pledge a place that is like that, which is why schools that do rush second semester freshman year, or first semester junior year are smart.
However, one of the biggest issues for me is the unwillingness of some kids to walk away from things. For instance, I am comfortable with drinking a lot and many of my pledge tasks last semester involved a lot of drinking. I also know that some houses on campus required a lot of drugs for their activities and I would never have been comfortable with that. A year ago our fraternity got in some trouble over a pledge who didn’t want to drink but waited almost two weeks into pledging to let the brothers know. My advice, if you don’t like whats going on, see yourself out and keep quiet, you may not like it but don’t spoil it for people who do.</p>
<p>“My advice, if you don’t like whats going on, see yourself out and keep quiet, you may not like it but don’t spoil it for people who do.”</p>
<p>I actually gave my son the opposite advice. First of all, I trust that he would not join a frat that had cultural values that conflicted with his own. We had the pledge/drinking discussion and I told him that while I was confident he could withstand peer pressure, if he were to see someone being bullied into drinking, he should speak up, because that person might not be as assertive as he is.</p>
<p>Unsafe drinking is never ok and keeping quiet about it perpetuates the practice.</p>
<p>“Hell Week” is generally only a week, and it happens right before initiation. Now it is not allowed by any National group, but individual chapters will still do it. </p>
<p>Hazing covers a wide range of areas that may not seem like hazing at all. Scavenger hunts, wearing costumes, cleaning the house, doing lineup to review lessons are all hazing. So is forcing a kid to eat or drink something. Groups walk a tight line and often slip on the things that they see as campus traditions. It is great to teach guys to stand up for themselves, know their limits and don’t put themselves in danger.</p>
<p>There are really different initiation rituals. When I was a student pledging was crazy. They used to tie pledges to trees in the middle of the winter and kidnap them and leave them in Toronto with no way to get back to campus (Alfred, NY). They used to deprive the pledges of sleep and make them exercise to the point of exhaustion in the winter.</p>
<p>I found this article about fraternities that were found in violation of UNC’s policies.</p>
<p>[The</a> Daily Tar Heel :: Fraternity hazing sanctions decided](<a href=“http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2012/10/fraternity-hazing-sanctions-decided]The”>http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2012/10/fraternity-hazing-sanctions-decided)</p>
<p>The two lesser violations seem stupid, but not harmful. Pledges had spaghetti thrown at them and had their heads shaved. I can’t for the life of me figure out the point of this stupid behavior but it won’t do any permanent harm to the pledges. </p>
<p>I asked my son to keep in touch with us daily while he was pledging. He did. </p>
<p>Edited to add: I think there was a period where he was not supposed to call us. He called his brothers though and used them to tell us that he was ok. I got the feeling that the fraternity hazing he endured was stupid but not dangerous. He was only allowed to walk through certain doors, had to wear his pledge shirt without washing it for a ridiculous amount of time, went on an impossible scavenger hunt on campus, got sent in circles trying to get the signatures of all the brothers and other such stupidity.</p>