Mom involvement behind the scenes?
 

What sort of role do moms of actives play during formal recruitment? Are they allowed inside the house during FR parties? Or do your moms simply bring up food before and then after the party schedule? I am not sure it sits well with me to have non-initiated moms in the house during such sensitive processes. Am I just overreacting?

Are you referring to house mothers?

No, moms of the actives. I have no problem with a house mom being in her apartment during recruitment events. I just wasn't sure what to think about moms (that are not a d pi) in the house during the parties.

This varies by school. Most schools have rules that alumnae have the same silence rules as actives during recruitment. Some of the SEC schools have a long-standing tradition of moms helping with things like preparing or setting up meals and small tasks like making nametags or taking out the trash during recruitment.

I can only speak for my group, but I would presume that only official advisors are allowed to be around during voting and discussion.

My chapter did have a few moms who were around helping with food prep and stuff like that, but I think it depends on whether or not you have sufficient local alumnae support (we did not). One later became an AI.

Same here. Moms might help with meals, or flower arranging, or setting up the party or breaking it down, but they would not interact with the PNMs (nor would the advisors). They would be strictly behind the scenes and would not be privy to voting or the tallying of votes.

It is especially nice for moms to assist when alumnae are not able to. I have never seen a mom try to exceed her "place"- they just followed thru on whatever their assigned task was.

At big SECs schools you just about have to have some around unless PH restricts the number of non chapter members in the house as Alabama does.

I only know about my daughter's chapter and mine.
At both, moms were welcome to come help with food, set up before and after parties, breakdown after parties were done etc. DURING parties, we sat quietly in a hallway or in the kitchen or on the second floor. We did not participate in the parties...I think a few nicely dressed ones carried trays of drinks or something out to the party floor and quickly returned.
We certainly did not sit in on nor were even near enough to hear discussion during the chapter meetings.

For instance...between philanthropy parties, we cleaned off the tables between parties, straightened items left on there, and put out new materials. Late that night, we installed draperies, stage and seating for skit parties, picked up Coke bottles and straightened chairs between parties, and then broke it all down again after the parties were done.

I think as long as moms are properly vetted, told expectations, and held to them, that things should be ok. It is up to the chapter to preserve ritual and setting some type of written standards and roles for the moms is probably a good idea if your chapter doesn't already do that. If you are concerned about membership selection being compromised, discuss this with the chapter leadership and maybe the moms will be dismissed during certain times and/or given notice that they are not permitted in certain areas of the house in order to preserve order.

ETA: At my undergrad, we didn't utilize non member moms, only alumnae, but our house mother, who was not a member, was discreet and respectful and knew when she could/could not be in a certain area where there was ritual. Good luck!!! I think it is great you have moms who can be involved and help with behind the scenes set up and assistance!

I don't know about other sororities (obviously) but for us, voting involves significant ritual. I don't see any possible way mothers would be allowed in there, or in the basement with the rush secretary and all the paperwork. But cleaning, arranging, name tags, chairs, etc., I can't imagine turning a mother away if the help was needed.

I am a mom who has helped in the kitchen for my daughter's sorority for the past 2 years. There are several other moms that come and help. We do not come out of the kitchen during parties and are not around during voting etc. Quite honestly, I don't think my daughter's chapter would be able to do it without us. We worked like trojans the whole week...:)

We only had alumnae help out but we had a large, local alumnae chapter and therefore plenty of help. I know our house mom (not a DG) and one or two alumnae would help out during the party, making sure there was plenty of water glasses, etc. It would not have been a problem for a mom to do what most of the local alumnae helped out with though - I'm sure "mom" can help clean/organize just as well as any alumnae can. As long as they aren't there for voting, I don't see a problem.

I remember some of the alumnae (I'm assuming, as they were "old") being at houses when I was going through rush too. One of them almost ripped the napkin out of my hand when it got stuck b/c of condensation as I was headed for the door! Now I know she just didn't want all those fines if I had ended up taking something out of the party!

I don't think we ever had non-Alumni moms come to help during recruitment, and the ones that did come pretty much only dealt with setting up and cleaning up food/drinks for the rounds. Usually we have enough actives who either choose to be on a food/set-up team or have to be because they don't know the cheers, etc. well enough to be actively rushing PNMs (usually girls who had jobs and internships and didn't get back to school until after spirit week/work week ended and rush started) to do things like making name tags.
It's possible other houses have moms coming to help, but I haven't heard of that from my friends in other sororities either.

I'm a mom and an alumnae. I've helped in the past at parties, but I've never even peeked into the area where collegiates were voting. That includes the chapters where I was a Chapter Development Specialist

Yes...moms are involved. A very welcome addition after long days of parites. They help "turn" the house from round to round and prepare food and drink trays during parties. They are not present for voting, etc.