Well-educated, conservative mother Karin Morin writes a piece in the National Review about her family’s “adventures in gender-neutral housing.” According to the article, the daughter gets “stuck” by her co-op in a room with two guys and a girl and is unable to switch out of the room. When Stanford refuses to move her to a new room, the parents withhold tuition payments (“If Stanford had informed us that it was allowing such housing, we would have required her either to transfer out or to find another source of funding.”).
Nutty parent overreacts to liberal college policy is old news, though. It’s the “web two oh” that makes this story interesting.
First, the NYTimes’ college admission blog links to the article. The comment responses devolve into easily predicted chaos - but a two gems stand out among the flames.
Both Mom and Daughter have left detailed comments, explaining their positions. Mom claims she “take[s] no particular pleasure in putting my family situation into the public eye” (then why personalize the story?).
Daughter, on the other hand, summarizes the situation perfectly:
This conflict has very little to do with Stanford and gender-neutral housing. Is has everything to do with my parents having a hard time adjusting to the fact that I’m out of the house (I’m the oldest), I’m 3000 miles away, and -especially- that I’m a liberal agnostic while they are conservative Catholics. The NR really should have looked into this situation a little bit before publishing that article.
I can’t believe I’m having to write this in the NYT blog. This is ridiculous.
What’s a loony parent to do, when even your best attempts at turning your family drama into a conservative uprising can get shot down by your liberal daughter on the Internet?
