Every now and then a story comes across the news wire that makes me very angry. A story that makes me wonder about the future of our race. A story that makes me certain that somewhere along the way we have gotten things so very wrong.
No. It's not the sad tale of Michelle Bachman blaming the earthquake and hurricane Irene on bad government in Washington. Honestly, if God were to smite those who were incompetent Bachman herself and the entire cast of FOX news would be long gone.
Often these stories that get me riled aren't political in any way.
This story that I read yesterday is a perfect example:
Judge blasts kids for suing mom over birthday card
CHICAGO—Raised in a $1.5 million Barrington Hills, Ill., home by their attorney father, two grown children have spent the last two years pursuing a unique lawsuit against their mom for “bad mothering” that alleges damages caused when she failed to buy toys for one and sent another a birthday card he didn't like.
The alleged offences include failing to take her daughter to a car show, telling her then 7-year-old son to buckle his seat belt or she would contact police, “haggling” over the amount to spend on party dresses, and calling her daughter at midnight to ask that she return home from celebrating homecoming.
Last week, at which point the court record stood about a foot tall, an Illinois appeals court dismissed the case, finding that none of the mother's conduct was “extreme or outrageous.” To rule in favour of her children, the court found, “could potentially open the floodgates to subject family childrearing to . . . excessive judicial scrutiny and interference.”
In 2009, the children, represented by three attorneys including their father, Steven A. Miner, sued their mother, Kimberly Garrity. Steven II, now 23, and his sister Kathryn, now 20, sought more than $50,000 for “emotional distress.”
Miner and Garrity were married for a decade before she filed for divorce in 1995, records show.
Among the exhibits filed in the case is a birthday card Garrity sent her son, who in his lawsuit sought damages because the card was “inappropriate” and failed to include cash or a check. He also alleged she failed to send a card for years or, while he was in college, care packages.
On the front of the American Greetings card is a picture of tomatoes spread across a table that are indistinguishable except for one in the middle with craft-store googly eyes attached.
“Son I got you this Birthday card because it's just like you . . . different from all the rest!" the card reads. On the inside Garrity wrote "Have a great day! Love & Hugs, Mom xoxoxo.”
In court papers, Garrity's attorney Shelley Smith says the “litany of childish complaints and ingratitude” in the lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt by Garrity's ex-husband to “seek the ultimate revenge” of having her children accuse her of “being an inadequate mother.”
“It would be laughable that these children of privilege would sue their mother for emotional distress, if the consequences were not so deadly serious for (Garrity),” Smith wrote. “There is no insurance for this claim, so (Garrity) must pay her legal fees, while (the children) have their father for free.”
Cook County judge who ruled on the case, Kathy Flanagan, declined to assess sanctions against Miner, but said the lawsuit amounted to nothing more than children “suing their mother for bad mothering.”
In court filings, Garrity's attorney writes that “she does still love” her children but found that they wanted “the benefits afforded by a family relationship, but none of the restraints.”
Steven A. Miner wrote that the case is no different than a patient suing a physician “for bad doctoring.”
“(The children) do not view their (lawsuit) as an attack on mothering, but rather on accountability," he wrote. "Everyone makes mistakes, but . . . there must be accountability for actions. Parenting is no different.”
Garrity called the lawsuit nothing but harassment.
“Everything . . . shows that these children, orchestrated by their father, will stop at nothing to embarrass and financially harm their mother,” Smith wrote in a court filing. “In the process they have embarrassed themselves and left a public record blogged about on the Internet that will shadow their every future relationship.”
hmmmm - go judge!
If any parent should eb taken to task and held accountable for bad parenting in this case they aught to look at the father!
Good grief. When does it end. I must admit that I now have a smle from ear to ear that the father and the kids have now been flogged.
Posted by: bellini | August 30, 2011 at 04:24 PM
And just think, every one of those kids will marry and have children of their own and won't they be such good parents!
Posted by: sandrac | August 30, 2011 at 11:01 PM
It's a frightehing testament to our 'modern' world isn't it?
Posted by: JDeQ | September 07, 2011 at 07:54 PM