[agzg]

I'm all for parents who read the forums or ask (reasonable) questions in order to better understand what their child is going through or help them with wardrobe questions.

I'm not all for parents who use the forums as a place to vent their frustration that their child did not receive a bid. We don't know anything about them or their kid, and can't give reasons as to why or why not a particular potential new member was bid. We can only make assumptions based on the posting style of the parent. If the parent posts like a jerk, we'll assume their kid is a jerk, plain and simple.

Regardless, we expect parents, especially those that are sorority members themselves, to be disappointed when their daughter doesn't receive a bid. Taking it to the point of disagreeing with a poster's (very thoughtful) post by posting snippy things like "you must not have kids" because the post doesn't (or actually might) apply to that one instance will not gain a parent points.

For crying out loud, get excited, disappointed, whatever - but when you take it to the point of whining about it on an internet forum, you've just earned yourself a heli-parent badge. There are much better people to vent to (like say, I don't know, actual FRIENDS). Coming here to whine makes them look like they want to "fix it" for them, or at least defend them when they either have nothing to defend themselves against or should be defending themselves. They're adults. It's hard to get over that, but parents do it all the time. In fact, there are a ton of parents on this board who did just that. They're active posters, and contribute a lot to many of our discussions.

Also, comments like "wah wah she'll at least get into her country club" make you sound like an even BIGGER ass. At that point, a parent has dug him or herself a hole, and the hole keeps getting deeper with comments like that.

If you would like us to understand your frustration, take a moment to try to understand ours - we have heli-parents "vent" on our forums ALL THE TIME. And ALL THE TIME they tell us things like "well I'm glad my daughter didn't pledge a sorority you're all bitches" because we don't think it's appropriate to whine about it here. What you're seeing, for many posters, is YEARS of frustration over this very issue.

In short - go ahead, read the forums, ask any questions you have, but when you take it to the point of posting like a jerk because your child was released from recruitment (which, if you actually DO read the forums you'll see that many of the regular posters do express disappointment because either we personally have been there before or we have friends who were released or whatever the reasons), we're going to treat you as such.

Good luck to your daughter.