Quote:
Originally Posted by lawgal
If it is something the parent is paying for, would that give them an interest in finding out what they are paying for? As an example, if my kid wants a car and needs help paying for it, I want some information about the car before I do it. I do want some information about sororities and sorority life at my daughter's proposed campus. Hopefully that is different from helicoptering.
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Your examples aren't comparable. The car you will at least partially own or you are electing to buy as a gift for your child. In that instance, it would be very strange not to be involved.
The sorority is different. It is a membership that will exclusively belong to your daughter. You can pay for it or not, but you don't really get to participate other than when you are invited to parents events or asked to give money. (It's like buying season tickets to a sports team; you pay and watch, but you don't get to coach.)
Research to answer questions like "is this a safe and worthy use of my money" is completely appropriate. Research into particular groups, reputations, gaming the system to get a certain group or outcome are not appropriate. (I'm not saying that's what you, Lawgirl, would do, but we've seen it here.)
It's sort of like researching colleges. Shouldn't which college and why be a decision made by the person attending and the parental research is again, is this a worthy use of my money? Doesn't it seem strange when parents seem to think college is just like school K-12 where they made decisions for their kids? Isn't it odd that some parents are still trying to advocate for their children with college professors and registrars when the offspring need to do it themselves? In these instances the parents could say, well I'm paying for it. And they are, but it doesn't mean that they get to direct the people providing it. They can pay or not pay and lean on the enrolled student to handle the advocacy.