[seraphimsprite]

When I first moved into our chapter house, I remember thinking our house mother was really just a very nice and sweet grandmotherly type. She seemed to really care about the members and the chapter as a whole, she made an effort to get to know all of us and she was pretty much always there for help or advice when we wanted her without being overbearing and controlling. We really thought we had the best house mother.

And then she just seemed to change. We all started to think that she was really just sick of being a house mother, but wasn't willing to actually quit because she became pretty much unbearable by my senior year. It was really obvious that there were some members of the chapter that she still loved, but some she really couldn't stand at all and she was actually pretty cruel to them, complaining to the advisory board about every little thing and trying to get them in trouble. We actually got yelled at as a chapter because she thought we were too loud at night and she had complained about us running around and laughing at 10pm.

Our two biggest complaints about her were that she didn't seem to appreciate that we were actually college students (and it wasn't as if we were carrying on like the Animal House stereotype or anything like that) and the fact that she was very obvious about her favorites. I was the House Manager my senior year and she actually refused to work with me for a while because she liked the President better and decided she'd just rather go to her with her concerns.

The other big thing is that I'd echo the concern about menu planning and overseeing the kitchen. We always complained because our food was so bland and every other night seemed to be fried something, but the cook was never willing to take any of our suggestions. I actually found out after I graduated, from one of my friends who ended up on the advisory board, that all of that was because of our house mother was a really picky eater and made the cook cater to her preferences instead of the chapter's.

I would say that a good house mother would think of her role as a counselor more than anything else, definitely not as a surrogate parent. She should be accessible, but not overbearing or controlling and definitely not try to interfere with the affairs of the chapter unless it's a really serious risk management violation and the women are putting themselves in danger or something like that.