<p>Shasten</a> Snellgroves, NYU Junior, 'Shocked' That She Must Share Suite With Toddler</p>
<p>Don't know what NYU was thinking in allowing this in the first place. Most colleges I knew of had separate dorms for parents with children or encouraged the latter to find off-campus accommodations.</p>
<p>It doesn’t sound like the child is actually living with its mother, but I can understand why that would be distressing regardless. If the university is going to stick hard and fast to their guest policy you would think it would be handled the same way as any other time when a roommate abuses their guest privileges… what an odd situation.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the first time it’s occurred to NYU that this might occur and be a real problem. What parent would CHOOSE to do this?</p>
<p>The childfree roommate posted here too, not just to Huffpost:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/new-york-university/1448071-warning-nyu-housing-guest-policy-allows-students-children-stay-overnight.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/new-york-university/1448071-warning-nyu-housing-guest-policy-allows-students-children-stay-overnight.html</a></p>
<p>The young woman posted here. The fact of the matter is that there are no age provisions placed on guests at most housing. When you get a roommate and she has a smelly, disagreable, disgusting even dangerous friend that comes over, unless something threatening happens that’s too bad. Roommates get “sexiled” all of the time. If you enter into a lease with someone privately, and that person neglects to mention that there is child in the picture and no specific mention of one is made, you are in the same boat without the restrictive time period that colleges at least put on the overnight guests. The rules for housing are right out there. This student did not think about the possibility of her roommate having a child, which is understandable as it is unusual. But illegal to have the cchild there under the guest regs, nope.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the roommate’s decision to rent university housing with these restrictions on her ability to live with her son. Where does the kid go for the other 24-odd nights each month? Doesn’t NYU have family housing???</p>
<p>In at least one case, an undergraduate student’s parents stayed with him in on-campus (graduate) student housing.</p>
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<p>The price Shasten says she is paying is the price for a single room within a suite, so is she talking about a suitemate instead of a roommate? (Is she sharing a room with a visiting 4 y/o boy?) Either way, it’s still ridiculous. She had some good points about liability issues.</p>
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<p>That’s what makes this situation so odd. NYU like Columbia and many other universities does run family on-campus dorms and off-campus apartments for such situations.</p>
<p>The roommate was moved to a single, from what I have heard. Things have changed. Back nearly 40 years ago, I was a Big Sister in a program as were others on campus. We would occaisionally have the kids stay the night in the dorm room. Not a problem ever. Now with the child molestation sitautions with the priests, teacher, coaches no one would do that. Also, the idea of a child in a dorm (which it wasn’t–it was apartment) is a horror. </p>
<p>Apparently this mother has been doing this for a while but this Ms Snellgroves is the first to make it enough of a deal that NYU moved the mother into a single. I don’t see what NYU could do about not permitting the child to be guest since guest policies in place make no age stipulations.</p>
<p>I don’t think the parent has primary custody of the child, and the child does not live there. But she would have visitation rights and would want the child there for overnights in such a situation. To get housing with a dependent full time would cost considerably more. The apartments given to NYU students are ususally very small with each small bedrooms shared by two people, a small living room/kitchen dining area and shared bathrooms among all those living in the apartment is the usual fare.</p>
<p>I find it kind of disgusting that a college student can’t tolerate the presence of a pre-schooler on a regular basis.</p>
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<p>There’s a big difference from volunteering to allow kids to stay on campus overnight or a few days and having the situation effectively forced upon you by the university’s housing office…especially when they do have on-campus/off-campus accommodations for parents/families. I’m wondering why wasn’t this parent placed in an NYU apartment/dorm with other parent students with children/families??</p>
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<p>I find it odd you don’t seem to consider the regular presence of a pre-schooler to be a serious imposition…especially to a late adolescent/young adult who never signed up for such a situation in the first place.</p>
<p>I think this is such an odd situation that NYU would be hard pressed to create a general policy that would actually address this. The only thing that makes this different from any other unpleasant guest situation is the age of the guest in question-- and having young guests isn’t unheard of or usually that big of a deal. My university had a siblings weekend where your siblings come stay in your dorm with you for the weekend. I don’t know anybody who brought a sibling THAT young, but in theory they could and there were young kids around the year that I participated.</p>
<p>I am sympathetic to the girl, I can see why it would be irritating. I didn’t sign up to live with a child and wouldn’t want to have to worry about keeping my side of the room child proofed, and ANY guest who is over as often as it sounds like this child is can begin to feel intrusive. I would feel weird inviting friends over if we were to be sharing the space with a 4 year old. But I don’t really blame the university so much as the mother for choosing this kind of a housing arrangement to begin with which is so obviously inappropriate for her child, the issues the roommate has aside.</p>
<p>I don’t blame the girl for not wanting to regularly share her room with a 4 year-old boy. She’s paying (well, borrowing somehow, since on another thread she says that she is paying for NYU with loans outside of $14k in scholarships/grants/year) a lot for that NYU education. (And she’s going into special education, which isn’t a high-paying career!) </p>
<p>Now that her name is known, thanks to the Huff Post article, she should consider changing her CC screen name to maintain her privacy here.</p>
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<p>Considering how bureaucratically Kafkaesque NYU can be, I do believe NYU bears the most fault in this situation…especially considering I can easily visualize how their housing office either “forgot” to tell the parent about parental housing options they have…or screwing up the paperwork so they end up putting said parent in a regular dorm. </p>
<p>Par for the course considering the countless bureaucratic snafus friends and colleagues who attended NYU for undergrad faced during their 4+ years there.</p>
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<p>Hmmm. But this is her home. Even the safety issues would bother me. What if the child happened to get into something harmful of mine in the dorm while I was out? Thinking of myself at 19, I would not have wanted to worry about a child’s needs in my home.
If this is a policy that the school wants to keep, perhaps they could add a little mention in their housing questionaire. “Would you object to rooming with the parent of a child who might spend a good part of their days in your room?” I mean, seriously, this isn’t something that 99.9% of the undergrads have to worry about, nor should it be.</p>
<p>The child probably lives with another relative, like the student’s mother. NYU probably doesn’t offer enough aid to cover the expense of family housing, if they offer it.</p>
<p>Other are right, though. This same issue would apply if the child was the student’s sibling, and her mother needed her to care for the child over the weekend. It would probably be better for both the stay where the child lives on weekends, but it is possible the child lives with the father who has primary custody, and this is the only time the mother has with the child. It’s also possible the child is in foster care, and has visitation with the mother.</p>
<p>While I understand the concerns about a young child in a college dorm, other guests could be just as disruptive - or even more. I recall some threads here about such guests (the boyfriend who moves in and effectively lives there, who is in the room without the roommate at all hours). Some colleges purposely have a faculty family resident in each dorm, so there are children around the common areas. My biggest concern would be that the student teach her child to respect the suitemate, and understand the status as guest - of BOTH students. It appears that NYU has resolved the problem by moving the roommate to a single.</p>
<p>There are MANY reasons why this is awkward for all involved. First, for the child. This situation is absolutely not in his best interest. What kind of environment is a dorm room for a child? Dorm rooms are TINY, and crowded, and have no privacy. For one thing, I would imagine the little boy would have a much earlier bedtime than the average college student. Is the roomate obligated to go to bed/have lights out at 8pm? Second, for the mother. How can she study while looking after a 4-year-old? Doesn’t she realize the imposition she is making on others- not just the roommate, but everyone in the dorm? Third, for the roomate. This is a little boy- she has now lost her right to get changed in in the room, walk around in her underwear, be free, as a girl should be able to be in a room she shares with another girl. What if he breaks her cell phone, or her laptop? Will the mother pay? This has nothing to do with her not liking children. No one should have to share a room with someone else’s child if it’s uncomfortable for him or her. If the mother wants to go to school, she should be in family housing, where there would be other kids and parents… It really perplexes me why the mother would be in a regular dorm.</p>
<p>Replace little boy with a big, shaggy, scary looking boyfriend. Feel better?</p>
<p>Sorry but the mom should have been placed in married housing. If she couldn’t afford that, find another school or other options like the rest of the world has to. </p>
<p>It is perfectly acceptable NOT to want a 4 year old running around your dorm room. Heck, I don’t want most 4 year olds running around my HOUSE, why should this be any different.</p>
<p>The situation would be uncomfortable. Period. Whether the complaining roommate is right or wrong, insensitive or not, the set-up is going to leave her feeling like she can’t live like a college student in her own room. If the kid goes to bed at 8 or 9, she’s effectively kicked out. If the kid keeps college hours while visiting mom, she’s got a 4 year old boy watching her every move. Even the best 4 year olds get into stuff, butt in with obnoxious questions, etc. Is he that much different than a gross boyfriend? I’d argue, yes, he is. </p>
<p>The four year old is a child. He must be treated and talked to as one. You can tell your roommate to please go stay at gross boyfriend’s place when he gets obnoxious. You can’t tell a mom to go stay at the 4 year old’s. Roommates can negotiate who gets the room if one wants to have guest or gathering, and this can be fairly last minute. If the child is there every weekend (although there’s no indication that this is the arrangment), roomie NEVER gets to host weekend activities at her place because where else would mom and child go? </p>
<p>I don’t think NYU can do much more than they have wrt the situation as neither woman is in violation of school policy. However, I do believe the parent is making unfair demands of her roommate.</p>