I will preface my comments by saying that I am a mom myself. (Though I didn't get married and have children until several years after my undergraduate experience was over.)

I will also note for the record here that I have not yet read the original thread that apparently inspired this one, so my comments are entirely my own opinion in general...not referenced to any other situation which may have blown up on there recently.

I don't think that being a parent is something that would work on the vast majority of traditional campuses. The sorority experience at a traditional campus is demanding and in my experience (at my own campus)/observation (at campuses I work with now)...being a parent would conflict with those obligations.

Could it work at a non-traditional campus? Sure. But there is a fine line to walk. I absolutely agree that there are events that are just not appropriate to bring children to (chapter meetings, ritual events, etc) and if a member couldn't comply with that, then perhaps undergraduate sorority membership simply isn't for her.

Its different as an alumnae member, because a large number of us do have children and events are planned taking family/career obligations into consideration. The average undergraduate chapter plans their events around the schedules of the typical undergraduate student, as well they should.

Bottom line is that it has to be a case-by-case decision taking into consideration the campus involved and also the potential member involved. But if you ask me honestly would I have been open to accepting a woman with children for membership into my particular chapter while I was an undergraduate member? My honest answer would have been...no. It just wouldn't have flown on my campus. (And if the chapters I advise now came to me and asked me my opinion, I'd probably discourage it...but again, I mostly advise at traditional campuses.)

Is Britney raising her kids? I thought her nannies were raising them! As much as she's been covering every tabloid lately, there is no way she is spending any quality time with them.

I think that is a really honest and realistic answer. Unless a PNM can make it clear that all of her ducks are in a row, so to speak, why should a chapter trust that she would be able to juggle the myriad responsibilites involved in going to school, working, raising children, paying dues and being an active sister in a collegiate chapter? In most chapters, they can't take the risk on just anyone. If they make a mistake and the girl drops or is completely inactive, they're one member down, when for many chapters, every member counts.

Now that part, I would have a problem with...but really, I'd have a problem with any sister who tried to terminate her membership.

To be honest, I don't even think we CAN terminate membership. I've never heard of anyone even try, but we're only 21 years old.

The majority of the women in my alumnae club have children. We have a rule that no children attend meetings unless 1) They are an infant and being nursed or 2) It's a family/kids event and all are invited. I guess at one point, some women were bringing their kids and they would all hang out with the other kids, but the women in the chapter realized that they needed some time to NOT be Mom and the alumnae club was that time. Truth be told, we all need some "girl" time .. no husbands, no kids, just our sisters.

Sometimes there are opportunities for our children who are older to babysit for one of the sisters' kids who are younger and that works out nicely.

In my NM class there was a woman who depledged, and we found out later she had gotten pregnant by her boyfriend. She finished college, but I think she felt like pledging was not her priority anymore with all that was going on in her personal life, as well as a change in financial situation. I always felt badly she left because I think the chapter would have been very supportive.

Confession: The chapter I advise is better at accepting people where they are than I probably would be.

In the six years I've known this chapter, they have had a pregnant sister and 41 year old sister and lesbian sisters--they are really good at looking at the heart of someone, whereas, as an advisor, I tend to think more about the group's image and the financial bottom line. I am proud of them when they make such decisions despite what other people may think--and they will defend those decisions to the end by supporting their sisters and challenging those who do comment. They epitomize sisterhood to me.

They are at a southern school which is small and "non-competitive". Based on what I am reading here, I guess that gives them a luxury others may not have.

I see nothing wrong with GLOs accepting moms, but I do think that moms may have to be willing to accept that they are entering the sorority's world, and not the sorority trying to fit their world.

Sounds like the chapter you advise is very progressive! Kudos to them! It definitely makes a difference when recruitment isn't cut throat. Chapters are more likely to take a chance in the name of sisterhood if they don't get ostracized for the choice.

To throw a small wrench into the conversation, what about chapters that have housing requirements? A thrust of the conversation so far seems to be that most would have no problem with a member with a child/children as long as they're held to the same requirements as other sisters. So what about chapters with houses that need to fill them and have only very specific exceptions to living in in their bylaws? (and have suspended members for not fulfilling their housing obligation) Would the sister with a child get an exception while the sister with a fiance or other "good reason" (per her view of her life) would not?

Most housing requirements have exceptions that are strictly laid down in the rules. My sister's house is that if the student lives at home they don't have to live in. A student with a child is different than an engaged student or "don't wanna" student and the latter two will just have to deal with it.

Yay-THAT Phi Mu is one of MY sisters!!! Good for her and I'm glad there is a committed alum among us who joined as a mother but, this girl doesn't necessarily sound as mature about the situation when her main concern was that she made sure her children had decent "NAME BRAND" clothes to wear yet, she was struggling to pay bills (or however she said it)....Glad to call Sage my sister and hopefully Green and White will be an awesome sister like mine here but, just be careful about any decisions you make that could risk losing membership-or worse-your children.....

I agree a woman with a child is different, but since the main response had been there would be no issue as long as she was held to/could fulfill all the responsibilities of a sister, I was just trying to add a dimension to the conversation in terms of whether her not being able (although for valid reasons in her own right) to fulfill a chapter's housing requirement would be a consideration of her membership. Affording a house is a crushing responsibility for some chapters, particularly small ones or rebuilding ones and the bylaws I've seen that give exceptions (if any) for living in specify not just living "at home" but very specifically living "at home with their parents". So again, I was just saying that on the face of it, most chapters won't have built-in, automatic exceptions for someone with a child, so it may not be just whether someone can attend events that factors in to whether she can fulfill a chapter's needs and requirements. Not trying to be difficult, just stirrin' up the pot with the un-fun reality that sometimes chapters make very hard decisions that don't seem fair because they absolutely have to.

You are so kind. *blush*

I think if the chapter has a live in requirement as rigidly stated as you have presented, then membership for a single mother would indeed be difficult, if not impossible. I think it would be unfortunate at best.

I know that the "culture" of a campus can not be ignored in these circumstances.

When I attended college, Wright State at the time was primarily a commuter campus (although it appears to be moving away from that in recent years). There was no real on-campus housing to speak of. The very nature of that, made it a true possibility for me to be an active and involved sorority person.

Question: would you really have an issue accepting a lesbian sister?

Yeah, I didn't think this would be much of a problem in NPC sororties outside the south.

We had one sister who was bi and had a girlfriend for awhile. It generally didn't bother most people. There were a couple very conservitive sisters and they would make a huff out of her bringing her girlfriend to date functions, but they usually were a small minority of the chapter. We were concerned we would have been known as the "lesbian" houseafter she was initiated, but that never ended up happening.

That all depends on what "stop showing up" means and how the organization handles it.

Anyway, I'm talking about a woman having her membership terminated for her. That's what the post I quoted was referencing.

Thanks for the clarification. :)

"Terminate membership" to me meant expelling her after she's been initiated.

Because not every organization operates like that, which is why I asked the question.

I think many if not most orgs DO have some sort of process for termination after initiation (I know ASA does, simply because there are some bylaws that have termination as the consequence for breaking them), but I think many would also go as far as offering early alum status, rather than full termination for something such as not paying dues or not attending mandatory events.

I think you're referring to AlphaFrog's post. She was saying that if the member didn't fulfill requirements as far as showing up to things, she would have no problem expelling her after initiation - not because she has kids, but because she isn't doing things that are mandatory of all members.

We've ALL had members who are perfect angels during pledgeship and then after initiation go all 666. I, too, would have no problem terminating the woman who before initiation showed up to every event with no excuses and then after initiation everything was "I can't come, little Mudflap stubbed his toe."

Hilarious visual!!

Just because she has kids? Feh. If she doesn't go to things and doesn't pay up and she's going to be in college a while longer, get her off your rolls. She's dead weight. She's taking up a space that could be filled by a committed, involved sister.

We offer (not force) alum status if you GET pregnant. If it's a pre-existing condition when you join, you can't use it as a bargaining chip to get away with doing less.

Of course we all do. But not because a woman with a child can't be active that semester or can't find a babysitter during "important" sorority meetings and events. Being inactive in a chapter for whatever reason doesn't equate to being de-initiated for every organization.

Early alum status sounds better. But I was replying to a post about termination.

Right.

And not every organization expels people for being inactive for a period of time. In many cases the person is just an inactive member who can reinstate their membership during their collegiate years or upon graduation. Expulsion may mean something different to me than it means to you all.

We used to be a lot more lenient about giving "inactive" status to sisters for a variety of reasons for a limited period of time (i.e., for things like having a giant amount of credits in a semester). Not so much anymore. I'm guessing most NPCs are like that.

Special status is usually something unforeseen (i.e. you lose your income source, you had the Enron scholarship etc) and there's often a "professional" status for things like student teaching. Every group's policy is a little bit different. The point is these statuses are for things that are beyond your control.

A lot of it comes back to the $$ and the housing issues.

Without those dues, you may lose your house.

Bingo.

And without attendance, your GLO stands to lose face.

I can only speak specifically for my NPC group, but you can definitely be terminated if your attendance is a problem and/or you stop paying dues. And it is an actual termination - your name is crossed out in the chapter's roll you signed at initation and everything.

Its not an "early alum" status for not being able to pay your dues - its a removal, period.

Later in life, you can apply for reinstatement, but I don't know what's involved in that process...I don't personally know anyone who has done it.

(Of course, if sisters are having trouble paying their dues and/or with other life situations, the chapter would try to work with them prior to that. But if no solution can be reached through the appropriate means, terminated membership is the final result.)

BTW - its not a matter of simply going inactive (even just for a semester), because the chapter only has a limited number of spots per semester available for inactive members. If you don't apply and get approved for inactive status before the spots fill up for any given semester, there's nothing that can be done for you.

We actaully had a much older woman go through recruitment this fall. She was very nice, but really, how much does a 40 year old married woman with kids have in common with 60 single 20 year olds? She ended up dropping out, not b/c anyone was mean to her, but I think b/c she realized that her time to join a sorority had passed. She seemed to really just want to go alum, but of course she couldn't do that.

I can't speak for the rest of greek orgs but I'd to say that my experience has been positive. In the pledge class before mine there was a mother who got a bid however she never got initiated. Also, I just had my daughter two months ago and my sisters have been more than supportive. However, I was a sister before I had her so I don't know if that counts for the purpose of this thread.

Wow, I thought it was very rare for this to happen when I heard about it, but from reading this thread, I guess it happens every now & then. If you go to school here, I'm pretty sure you know exactly who I'm talking about coz this happened fairly recent a yr ago I think. It probably depends on the person, so you would have to have had like a super good sense of time management to pull it off from the start at the beginning. There was a girl here who was the traditional college-aged student & her son was 3 yrs old when she became the chapter president, but she also had her fiance with her, so I think it might have been very different had she been a single mom on her own.

There is a defected brother from my chapter, age 28ish, pledged and was initiated with a wife and two daughters under age 5. IMHO, it doesn't speak much to your manhood to have a family to care for yet to be out and about galavanting with a bunch of 21 year olds... but no one wanted to hear me then... he has since dropped letters and pledged an NPHC fraternity (previously alluded to), where he felt he fit in more... Priorities, priorities...