Roommate Says No Visitors Allowed

Parents Forum
81

<p>^^</p>

<p>Possibly, but I still don’t think why that should matter.</p>

<p>Your daughter and that RM are adults who aren’t living in an extremely socially conservative society or school where separation of genders is expected. </p>

<p>The dorm room is as much your D’s as her RM’s…and that RM needs to get off your D’s back. </p>

<p>If the RM has such an issue with opposite gender guests…she should have considered attending a more socially conservative/religious college. </p>

<p>Personally, if my roommate ordered me not to have female guests…even to hang out socially…I’d be wondering if he’s mature and whether he has a tendency to force his personal moral/social sensibilities on others.</p>

82

<p>Strikes me as a privacy issue. Roommate’s has expectations that her bed shouldn’t be used by others when she’s gone: no sleeping in it, no eating on it, no laying on the pillow while visiting, etc. And she is within her rights. Perhaps she didn’t express it plainly. I had a suite roommate who had someone sleep in my bed (and live in my room) for two weeks during Christmas Break without my permission, without changing the sheets, with someone clearly going through my closet and drawers, with some lingering litter. My suitemate knew my wardrobe in revealing detail too, which suggested that she’d gone through my room several times.)</p>

83

<p>I think the visitors should RESPECT the roommates space and stuff. She got upset over strangers sitting on her bed. Understandable IMHO. But the roommate can’t dictate who visits when she is not there. </p>

<p>Perhaps an apology about violating her bed and her space, and an agreement that visitors will not do it again. My D days that she would never have been OK with visitors on her roommates bed if roommate was not there. And for roommate to see pics of strangers on her bed, she probably got upset. Understandable, really. </p>

<p>Beyond that, the D should be able to have friends, male or female, in the room as long is they respect the roommates bed and stuff, and as long as they are there during visiting hours, etc.</p>

84

<p>Most important suggestion chorused above: call in the RA. That’s exactly why they are there, to help resolve conflicts over room management, before they turn into ice-cold relationship problems. Make use of all those crunchy workshops the RA’s attended before your girls moved in! That this is their only issue is very positive and bodes well for a mediated solution, sooner not later. </p>

<p>

But I must say I disagree with the first sentence box-quoted above, and declare the other sentences in that box “irrelevant.” !</p>

<p>UMD is in a suburb but copes with some crime, too. It’s not Nirvana. Also consider that many UMd students grew up in and around the cities of Baltimore and D.C. where petty-theft crime is a factor. I grew up in Baltimore, and am telling you that college-bound kids are raised to protect their own possessions; it’s just a way of being street smart and getting through to a better place. I realize all that doesn’t jibe with “I don’t do toilets” but I’m just raising a different POV that this RM is being appropriately cautious about theft. </p>

<p>Does it matter that these latest guests were boys? YES. Depending on how and where she was raised, she might be very distrustful of unsupervised boys in a bedroom. Eagle Scouts, Shmeagle Scouts. She (or her Mom) might be thinking “boys on the bed this week, two people beneath the sheets on my bed next week…” Since you wrote that your D having boy-guests was the only new aspect of the recent experience, it seems that the most recent guests being male might have triggered the RM to throw up this big “stop sign” at your D. Certainly it can be talked through so she’s not so upset, as the boys are certainly allowed to be there!!! Just understand what may have triggered her. </p>

<p>I’d respectfully suggest: step waaaay back from your opinion about the nature of the RM girl’s relationship with her own family, mentioned here twice. That’s also a boundary issue. The RM’s patterns of frequent texting, mother/daughter FB friending and steady home visiting are entirely the RM’s business. We can hope that her family is a positive force in her life, just as you are in your daughter’s. Perhaps the RM hasn’t yet translated that warmth into dorm relationships, but give it time.</p>

<p>To prepare your D for a mediation, you might suggest to her by phone to bring the RA by saying she’s interested in solving these “management” problems together. They are not yet relationship problems. </p>

<p>Here’s how I once advised my D (and was later told it was my best advice ever). Instead of pulling on two sides of a rope, like a tug-of-war (who’s right and who’s wrong), just put down the rope. Together go to the same side of the rope, look across it together at the problem both share (room use expectations). Brainstorm and agree upon practical solutions that meet both sets of needs. </p>

<p>If the RM is impossible she won’t participate, but if she is otherwise trying to adjust to college, she will.</p>

85

<p>I agree with others that the girl should have requested a single, and if dorm singles weren’t available, should have sought an apartment (if allowed).</p>

<p>Someone mentioned something about fees: at both public and private universities, the signed roommates, not the visitors, are fined for stains and damage. It could be a reason for this person’s concern, maybe not the only reason. They could return to the RA and draw up an agreement, that damage/stains caused by the other’s visitors would be the responsibility of that roommate. Because I don’t care how often this person has been called spoiled and controlling, she is within her rights not to pay for the accidents or irresponsibility of people who are not her associates. (And I’m not talking about her bed, here, but things like wall damage, carpet stains, etc.) She may be somewhat too paranoid about that, but I do think she is not being “controlling” to insist on a limitation of her own liability when she is absent.</p>

86

<p>The fact is that the RM discovered some people on her bed when she was not there. This can be taken to mean that the guests did not respect her personal space. She may feel that since the OP’s D did not ask the young men to get off the RM’s bed, that OP’s DD did not respect boundaries either. Now RM is really over compensating by setting unreasonable boundaries as a reaction to what had occured. Lots of good suggestions for mediation here.</p>

87

<p>paying3tuitions – Thank you so much for your great advice. However, there is one assumption that you made that is not true. My D does NOT attend the Univ of MD at College Park. Crime on that campus is substantially higher than at my D’s university.</p>

88

<p>sunnyflorida – You mentioned dorm “visiting hours” in your post. Are there actually colleges and universities that have rules regarding when you can have visitors in your dorm room? Perhaps there are some private religious colleges that do. Seems like a throwback to the 50’s. I went to college in the 70’s. Even though the dorms were not coed, we could have guests (male or female) whenever we pleased.</p>

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<p>^ There is one dorm at umich that doesn’t allow male visitors on the sleeping floors after a certain time of day. In the other dorms, you have to have roommate consent for overnight guests but I think that’s the only rule regarding visitors.</p>

90

<p>^^ @OP - Yes, I did assume she was at UMd College Park. Sorry I didn’t think more broadly. Thanks for the heads-up there.</p>

91

<p>I spoiled my kids by giving them their own bedrooms at home, and I doubt I’m the only one guilty of doing so. In HS and even MS, they valued their space when they had their friends visit. I don’t understand why so many colleges insist on spending on just about everything but giving students a choice to have single rooms at a price - first time out of home and freshly minted adults for the most part - if they are willing to pay for it, why not make singles available? I don’t think DS or DD ever mentioned their freshman year roommates by their junior year, so this random pairing of strangers doesn’t necessarily accomplish much.</p>

92

<p>I completely agree with Dad<em>of</em>3. Some people thought that I have been “unreasonable” to insist that my girls always have separate bedrooms. They thought that I should convert one of the rooms (the one closest to me) as my personal study, & force my daughters to double up. That strikes me as amazingly selfish. Three of us; three rooms. Each gets her own. I have never regretted that decision. </p>

<p>And why should the transition to college be made more difficult by bunking with complete strangers? Doesn’t have to be a big room; merely a separation with a separate door. If in this case the girl had a lockable door, the problem might have been solved right there.</p>

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<p>Mainly cost factors due to the need to revamp dorms and possibly build new dorms to accommodate all those single rooms. Colleges aren’t likely to do something to increase costs…especially when it is something that is still seen as driven mostly by a minority of upper/upper-middle class families*. </p>

<p>A minor reason that is often cited by college admins is to encourage greater social interaction and learning how to negotiate and live with different people. Personally, I can’t see why they can’t do that by having roommates share an apartment style suite but single sleeping spaces. </p>

<ul>
<li>Most parents with multiple kids still have kids share bedrooms…even many with the means to afford bedrooms for all kids. The latter views is as a form of “character building”.</li>
</ul>

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<p>cobrat, I hope you respect the fact that other families’ Mileage May Vary from yours, or from those you have bundled in terms of “character building.”</p>

<p>I am the daughter of a career naval officer. There were six of us. We moved around a ton (internationally, too), not only because of his frequent transfers, but because of personal desires on the part of my parents. That discouraged investment in large homes, even to rent, and required us to double-up. It was extremely unpleasant. Sometimes we had to share a room with a commonly used item, such as the family piano, or the laundry room. :eek: Sometimes we were not separated by gender. I longed for my own room, and the uncertainty of it all affected me deeply. I felt that there was no little “corner” that I could make my own, and I think it affected my self-esteem and identity in early and later adolescence. That has nothing to do with the college students or dorm life in general (necessarily), but it did form me, in that, believe me, shared rooms in my solidly middle-class birth family was not “character building” but was problematic to that character. Thus, I, with less money than my parents, have insisted on separate bedrooms. I think it has helped to strengthen the relationship between my daughters by retaining separate space for each of them. I am anything but well-off financially.</p>

<p>As to “social interaction” (at college) that is precisely why there has been a move to more residential colleges and more Interest houses. It doesn’t diminish social interaction to have one’s own private room that wouldn’t be much bigger than a cabin on a ship. Three small rooms within a shared suite (with a small living room) promotes far more voluntary social interaction than cramming three strangers together. IMO.</p>

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<p>^^</p>

<p>Please reread my post carefully. </p>

<p>That sharing bedrooms is “character building” was the assessment of those parents, not mine. I actually agree that students should have their own private sleeping spaces and if any sharing needs to be done…it should be in a suite arrangement with separate sleeping spaces. </p>

<p>In short…my belief is that the colleges’ real reason for not going to all single-rooms or my suggestion of separate sleeping arrangements in a shared suite is that they’re too cheap despite charging exorbitant tuition.</p>

96

<p>I am not jumping on the unreasonable request band wagon because we really don’t know what has transpired. Right now we are only hearing one side of the story (where Op is painting her daughter as the injured party).</p>

<p>We really don’t know what prompted the request. Perhaps something happened that Op’s D is not telling her about. As a person who spends their days listening to tales of woe, I have found that there are 3 sides to every story; yours, mine and the truth.</p>

<p>To me it seems like there should have been some ground rules established before moving in with one another or on move in day as to each one’s expectations regarding their shared space.</p>

<p>For someone to say out of the blue “I don’t want people in the room when I am not here” does not pass the smell test to me.</p>

<p>My D had a great roommate freshman year, who is still one of her best friends. While there was no drama and they got along great, what my D found out after having a roommate is that she did not want to live in a room with other people. She is one of those people who are of the mind set that their home is their sanctuary. She told me that being in classes and being out around people all day, she just wanted to come “home” to peace, quiet and no people until they have had a moment to themselves. I find nothing wrong with this.</p>

<p>I agree with Epiphany and dad of 3, that it is a big adjustment sharing space with another person when you never had to do it before and with a stranger none the less does not make the situation any easier. Perhaps, if the option for a single had been given I am quite sure that the RM would have taken one. But since Op stated that getting a single was not an option, the 2 of them have to come to a happy medium. This means that there will have to be some give an take on both sides.</p>

97

<p>^^ sybbie719…I thought more that way too until the whole “I don’t do toilets” piece. So I think we are getting a pretty accurate depiction!</p>

<p>And my son already knows this about himself, which is why dorms available became a very important part of our college search.</p>

98

<p>I don’t blame the roommate about the toilets (unless you are bowing to the porcelain gods, then one should clean up after themselves). For as much as we pay for room and board why should they have to clean the bathrooms? My daughter lived in in rooms that had their own baths which were clean by housekeeping along with all of the other bathrooms in the dorm.</p>

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<p>Not wanting to clean toilets, and expecting your RM to clean the toilet always because you “don’t do toilets” is two different things! If cleaning service were available, that would be ideal. But it does not sound like it is.</p>

100

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<p>It depends on school rules and building layouts. In some instances, if the students live in a suite with a shared bath or if an individual room has its own bathroom, housekeeping personnel do not clean that bathroom because they would have to go through student rooms to get access to it, and they’re not allowed to go into student rooms.</p>