Roommate's BIG Issue - I want my boyfriend in the room

Parent Cafe
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<p>bethievt - this is exactly what I thought, also. The explanation was that my D insisted on utter darkness and complete quiet so the RM couldn’t make a sound for fear of waking my D.</p>

<p>I knew this was false because due to the fact that our home is situated in a private area there are no curtains on any of the windows across the back of our house! And, about the only thing that wakes my D out of a sound sleep is the vacuum cleaner or leaf blower.</p>

<p>I didn’t bother to email the RM’s mom this information as it would be a “she said, she said” situation and the comment just reinforced there was a problem between the roommate and the roommate’s mom. At this point it was a lose, lose situation for my D no matter what I said to the RM’s mom.</p>

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<p>KATLISMOM - I agree LOL - tho we did go thru something kinda/sorta similar with my gal’s RM and her mother for a semester - ggeesshh!!! LOL Was not very fun at all.</p>

<p>(And every once in a while - for some very odd reason - I still get a weird email from the mom - to let me know how much ‘better’ her DD is than mine - ROFL - UUmmm (but I just can’t seem to agree :D)</p>

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<p>WCM - just best not to communicate with the RM’ mom at all at this point :wink: Be glad in knowing that your gal is OK and doing fine :slight_smile: - that is enough to celebrate - and I wish her good luck on her exams</p>

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<p>I am having one of those “I must be a bad parent, or something” moments. If my son’s roommate’s parent sent me email about him, I would first be shocked that she felt it appropriate to contact me rather than having her son work out whatever it was directly. Then I’d forward the email to my son, chat with him on IM, and say, “Either you’re sleeping in, or there’s drawma going on. I suggest you deal with it.” And that would be the end of that. I wouldn’t send a response back to the other parent, but would probably feign “spam filter got it”. </p>

<p>My feeling is that now that my son is at college, it’s his job to manage his interpersonal relationships. It’s not that I don’t take issues of depression seriously, but that my son and I talk about that and other sorts of things via IM, and I’m comfortable with the rapport we have.</p>

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<p>My nephew said a thermo-nuclear device would be needed to wake my son in the am. I think he’s right.</p>

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<p>calmom is so wise, as usual. Sounds like WCM isn’t being dragged into the drama. Good for you, WCM, and I hope your D gets great housing situation next year. She’s earned it.</p>

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<p>I guess I’d be even a bit less responsive than calmom, now that you’ve sent the initial response. The only response I’d have to any further e-mails from the mother is “Thank you for your concern.” No mention of investigation, that your d is fine, anything else - it’s none of her business.</p>

<p>And perhaps some of us would be able to tell if our kid were depressed if they denied it, but others might not. There’s still a stigma to depression, and a tendency to say, “No, I’m just stressed but I’m OK.” I think it was absolutely correct to contact the RC and the others to verify if the student were actually depressed.</p>

<p>I do think that you have to discuss this with your d, but it can probably wait until exams are over.</p>

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<p>I agree CHEDVA - Drama Mama need not be responded to in any other way than what you posted - if at all - it is none of drama mama’s buisiness. There is time enough after exams to examine this any further - if needed by OP.</p>

<p>Actually I think drama mama needs to be very careful with what she says to the OP and to whom ever else - her mouth (fingers) could actually get her into some hot-water - and if she works in the health care field - she should know better.</p>

<p>It seems - or appears to seem (is that the right to say that?? LOL) - that the OP and her DD are managing things fairly well right now and hopefully that will continue. These roomies really do need to handle this to an acceptable outcome - and leave the mom’s out of it totally.</p>

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<p>WCM: I join the chorus applauding calmom’s usual wisdom.</p>

<p>I add the thought that you must be feeling angry that lies are being told about your D. Acknowledging that and knowing there’s nothing you can do about it might be relieving.</p>

<p>Yes, one does wonder about the other mother who is buying a very patched together story, as others have pointed out, but the RM has experience dealing with her, so she knew what to feed her.</p>

<p>About telling D: tough one during exam time. I know my daughter would definitely want to know and would use her anger (if it arose and knowing my D it would) to fuel her work. But you know your D.</p>

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<p>All I have to say is I empathize with you. There are some wonderful suggestions in this thread, and some of them conflict with others. Which means it’s that much harder to figure out how to handle it. It’s definitely a complex situation involving many people, including two young college women who probably have no idea so many other people have been clued into their situation. I hope it manages to work itself out with as little damage as possible.</p>

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<p>While this should be settled between the RMs, the concern I have is that the OP indicates that the other parents visit 2-4 times a month. Being an 18 or 19 year old “adult” doesn’t mean that you should be capable of handling a dysfunctional “team” where one is obviously an offended parent, especially face to face.</p>

<p>I think the Daughter has to be informed that her Mom was contacted by the RMs Mom and some of what transpired. That way, she can be prepared if she is “confronted” with either excessive concern or accusations by the RMs Mom when she visits. She may be able to handle it completely on her own but maybe Mom needs to offer to talk over possible ways of handling this if RMs Mom does want to have a face to face chat at some point. I have a feeling the other Mom won’t be able to leave this alone and if she feels thwarted by OP, it would really be uncomfortable for daughter to have to be blindsided by an “expression of concern” from the RMs Mom on the steps of the dorm one Saturday afternoon. And, if roomates Mom is only on a fishing expedition, she needs to be told it is totally okay to tell the Mom that while she understands her concern, she feels this is something between her and her daughter and she doesn’t want to be a part of it. </p>

<p>I echo other poster’s hopes that your daughter has the best roomate ever next year.</p>

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<p>I’m wondering if the RM has any idea how far her mother has taken this. What probably started in her mind as a “little white lie” has been blown to massive proportions by her mother. From what you’ve said about the derogatory stuff the mom said about her daughter in the emails, I suspect this isn’t the first time that this kind of thing has happened. It sounds like a convenient way for the girl to deflect her mother to another person to blame.</p>

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<p>Well, I guess I’m a really bad mom. I think I would put this lady in her place. At best, it’s gossip; at worst, slander. </p>

<p>Honestly, I wouldn’t have thought of getting all the officials involved-- but I don’t blame the op for checking on the allegations. (I’m not that trusting of strangers, however. I would have just asked my dd what was going on.) However, I’m #<em>$</em> enough to email this lady telling her that her daughter lied, that she has gossipped and/ or slandered my daughter and that all the dorm officials know her dd has lied because of her inappropriate actions in contacting dorm officials. Dd is not depressed. Dd is not sleeping. Your baby is hanging out with her bf instead of studying and it’s not my problem. Leave me and my kid alone. Betcha she wouldn’t answer <em>that</em> email. :-)</p>

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<p>2college… I’m on the same page as you on this one. I can picture this woman…she was probably the one in the principal’s office complaining every time daughter told her the reason she got a bad grade was that the teacher didn’t LIKE her. D2 and I had a conversation about this…a couple of her favorite teachers are the ones who were the toughest…but she learned the most from them. She said they are the ones that everyone “hates”, because they didn’t LIKE them, and they got D’s and F’s in their class. Uh, gee. Maybe you flunked because you didn’t STUDY and DO HOMEWORK, not because the teacher has it IN for you. </p>

<p>I’m a bad mom…I always have assumed it was my kid’s issue first. Only after being confident that it wasn’t, did I take further action. A couple of times when D was in grade school, something came up, and I got all up in arms about something. I’d gotten her version of the story, and it was only after I told her I was going to go talk to the teacher that a few additional “minor” details came out.</p>

<p>Sounds like this other mother is more naive than anything.</p>

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<p>WCM, I think you have to separate what you might have done when this whole drama started had you known where it was heading, from what you should do now that you and your daughter have become ensnared by some seriously wacky people. I think your initial response was innocent: you assumed that the roommate’s mother was a sensible, caring person like you and the roommate was an honest, normal student like your daughter. </p>

<p>It appears, now, in retrospect, that these assumptions were not valid. Along the way you inadvertently or otherwise withheld information from your daughter, spied on her through a surreptitious conversation with her RA, and communicated without her knowledge about her health and well being with the dean of students. </p>

<p>Worse, her roommate’s mother – a complete stranger – has discussed your daughter’s mental health with the RA and the Dean! I agree with Jeepmom: The roommate’s mother’s behavior is inappropriate and out of line. Creepy is another adjective that comes to mind.</p>

<p>Initially you were worried that the information you received from this fellow parent was cause for concern. You took steps that seemed justified at the time. I’m certainly not judging the decisions you made at that time. </p>

<p>You now have a clearer picture. The mother appears to be an unbalanced person. The daughter may be a victim or may be equally manipulative. Can’t tell, but I don’t see any advantage to sticking around to find out. It’s a lose, lose situation for your daughter either way.</p>

<p>I feel, at this point, just ignoring the mother isn’t enough. Definitely refuse to engage any further with her but don’t leave the situation up to the young people to resolve between themselves. As soon as this exam cycle is completed, you should explain the whole story to your daughter. She’s likely to be upset and surprised at the amount of discussion that has gone on behind her back. </p>

<p>If a visit from you or your spouse isn’t possible, then I’d suggest that you set up a conference call with your daughter and the Dean of Students, possibly with the RA present as well . The objective would be to make it clear that no one affliliated with the college is to discuss any issues concerning your your daughter with anyone except you and that she needs a new roommate, now!</p>

<p>Albeit inadvertently, you and and your daughter have become entangled in a weird mother-daughter web.Your daughter needs to get out of this abusive relationship – one that she’s not even aware of the full extent of – and fast. I know I sound overly alarmist but really, I can’t even imagine a scenario in which the parent of one of my son’s friends advised me that she had talked to a college official about him. I would have been outraged. No, this is not acceptable behavior.</p>

<p>PS To Calmom: I love the “broken record” technique. I wonder how many college kids have ever actually played a record.</p>

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<p>2college, I realize the temptation is to tell the RM-mom to go to hell, but assuming that WC-daughter must still co-exist and share space with RM, a brawl between the respective moms is probably not conducive to their relationship. </p>

<p>It is very possible that RM-mom is a very troubled, needy, attention-seeking individual – which might mean that RM is as distressed over what her mom does as anyone else. So the last thing RM needs is 6 calls from her mom every day whining & complaining about WCM. </p>

<p>We don’t know. What we do know is that there is no issue here that warrants parental involvement at this point. Warring moms is not going to solve the problem – and the RM-mom might very well turn around and take out her frustration by multiple phone calls and email directly to RM. </p>

<p>There has been no indication from any of the posts that WCM’s daughter actually has a serious ongoing problem with the RM, as opposed to a problem with the RM-mom – I don’t think it will help the kids deal with the problem to have 2 problem moms as opposed to 1.</p>

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<p>calmom,</p>

<p>It wouldn’t be a brawl; I am pretty sure I would convince my daughter to go to the residence directors and request a change in RM. I would take very seriously the fact that this woman was willing to discredit my daughter to school officials. </p>

<p>Really, there’s no way I would simply email her to back off or not email her at all. I think she’s dangerous and, by proxy, so is her daughter. If the op’s daughter doesn’t have a problem with the RM, she’s a fool-- because this girl and her mom can really hurt her reputation and everything she’s worked for.</p>

<p>By the way, this reminds me of a situation many, many years ago when I was very young and my oldest was in 1st grade. The stressed-out teacher complained to me one day because my daughter was the first to finish the test and sat poking at a piece of scrap paper on the floor with her pencil. I didn’t see the problem. The teacher sensed that I obviously didn’t think it was a serious infraction and told me she wanted a conference with my husband. (Yes, over poking a piece of scrap paper!) I laughed. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Yes,” she said assuredly. We set up a time. When the appointed time came, my young, 6’4" muscular black husband-- annoyed at having to be at the school at 7am when he worked until past midnight-- walked into the classroom, looked down at her and said, “I understand you have a problem with my daughter.” The teacher said, “no problem” and that was the end of that. </p>

<p>Moral of the story: When you drag a third party into a dispute, sometimes you get more than you bargain for. ;)</p>

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<p>I agree with calmom about the “broken record” technique - “thank you for your concern” - click. It’s virtually impossible to argue with someone who won’t engage. (And it’ll be fun to frustrate her!)</p>

<p>However, to amend my prior answer, since college officials have been involved, I would make sure that they understood the communications that have been happening between the mothers, so that they have a complete picture of what’s going on.</p>

<p>I also would, as suggested, make sure that they know that any communications with RM’s mother need to be one way: RM’s mother makes report (which she’ll probably continue to do); officials say, “Thank you. We’ll investigate, but due to privacy concerns we cannot discuss with you what we find out or what we do about it, if anything.” (That’s what my d’s school says even when I call about her!)</p>

<p>Changing roommates needs to be up to the OP’s d. But if she wants to change roommates, I would do as suggested above and bring all possible parental pressure to bear (including anger that they even discussed d with RM’s mother).</p>

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<p>Student Affairs professionals, i.e. Dean of Students, RA’s, etc., are there to help if students are having problems. Indeed, they are all on red-alert for troubling situations. It was very appropriate for OP to check with professionals about the well-being of her daughter, and not to have done so could have been tragic if the circumstances had been other than what they are.</p>

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<p>lorelei, the issue was the adminstratration & staff discussing the RM’s boyfriend issues with OP.</p>