Althouse: "So, folks, what is happening here is this babe sues her parents, sets up a Facebook page, and people start posting to it, supporting her with all of these assaults on Baby Boomer parents."

March 8, 2014

"So, folks, what is happening here is this babe sues her parents, sets up a Facebook page, and people start posting to it, supporting her with all of these assaults on Baby Boomer parents."

"Now, as one who studies sociology in this society and the culture, I find this fascinating that we have these Millennials now who are looking at their Baby Boom parents as a bunch of materialistic, selfish, concerned only with them and their kids are just accessories."

Rush Limbaugh was having a great time with this story yesterday.

60 comments:

Big Mike said...: Interesting. Her parents "make her do homework" and she has a 3.5 GPA? Does she have a problem understanding about cause and effect? What GPA does she think she'd have if she didn't do homework?; 3/8/14, 11:34 AM
rcommal said...: Are we sure the parents are Boomers and not Gen Xers?; 3/8/14, 11:44 AM
Meade said...: If you never tell your children no until they're 18, you're about 16 years too late.; 3/8/14, 11:44 AM
Anonymous said...: Pot calls kettle black.; 3/8/14, 11:50 AM
EdwdLny said...: She left, moved out. Now is the time to allow her to enjoy the consequences of her choices. No matter how foolish and selfish those choices were. Someone is about to get a good swift kick of reality, and, she isn't close to being prepared for it.
Oh, yes, " 16 years too late " absolutely. Her learning curve is mind numbingly steep.; 3/8/14, 11:54 AM
cubanbob said...: I read the story a couple of days ago and there is definitely something creepy about it. The girl's lawsuit is being paid for by the father of her girlfriend whom she is now living with. The friend's parents seem to have a pretty tolerant attitude towards drinking and partying and Rachel is rather nice looking......; 3/8/14, 11:58 AM
rcommal said...: Yep. It appears that the parents are around 48/49. Gen Xers.; 3/8/14, 12:00 PM
lemondog said...: Countersue; 3/8/14, 12:06 PM
KCFleming said...: Lear's curse:
If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen, that it may live
And be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt, that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!; 3/8/14, 12:08 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Interesting. The girl herself is calling them boomers.; 3/8/14, 12:13 PM
Ann Althouse said...: This is a smear on boomers!; 3/8/14, 12:13 PM
Ann Althouse said...: We need a boomer pride movement.; 3/8/14, 12:13 PM
Anonymous said...: As far as financial aid goes, she can't get any unless she has her parents cooperation, as she needs to report their income until she is age 24, as an undergrad. She may need to become legally (yes she is emancipated in all other respects now) emancipated to be able to use her own income on the FAF. We don't know what happened in that household and who is telling the complete truth, or not. She obviously is a good student and has potential to be succesful in college. I wish her luck. With some maturity on all sides, she and her parents may reconcile.; 3/8/14, 12:16 PM
PB said...: Parents must support their children up to the age of 26. First with healthcare, then other things.; 3/8/14, 12:21 PM
Anonymous said...: How to determine independent or dependent student status.; 3/8/14, 12:22 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: History will not be kind to the Baby Boomers. My nephew recently took a sociology class where a theory about the cyclical character of generations was expounded. Boomers fell in the selfish, heedless cycle, takers, not givers. Don't know if the theory has any validity but the characterization of Boomers was right on.; 3/8/14, 12:25 PM
rcocean said...: The boomers are getting on in years. They'll just have to take the heat. Or someone will cut off their Geritol, put them in an old folks home, and ban aging R&R star performances.; 3/8/14, 12:29 PM
David said...: Ann Althouse said...
We need a boomer pride movement.

The soft sigh you hear is we war babies yawning.

(Not from boredom. It's nap time.); 3/8/14, 12:30 PM
somefeller said...: The dad in this story is a NJ policeman and as pointed out, in his late 40s. Not the stereotypical liberal boomer dad that gets the usual suspects all hot and bothered. Interestingly, the lawyer whose family the girl moved in with has some ties to Chris Christie's administration. Turtles all the way down with this one.; 3/8/14, 12:39 PM
James said...: Oops...

Facebook hoax targets N.J. teen suing parents, lawyer says

"The New Jersey teenager who sued her parents to pay for college is the alleged victim of a Facebook hoax that appears to be fanning the flame of public disgust aimed at the teen.

Rachel Canning woke up to a new round of outrage Friday morning. But, according to her attorney, she had no hand in it.

"This page is a hoax," attorney John P. Inglesino said in an email to the Los Angeles Times on Friday morning. He was referring to this Facebook page.

He, as well as some media outlets, say Canning is being pranked through social media accounts that have cropped up in her name.

But that hasn't kept inflammatory remarks from the apparently fake Facebook account from pinging around the Internet -- and fueling rage against Canning, the 18-year-old who recently sued her parents for, essentially, child support."; 3/8/14, 12:51 PM
Gabriel said...: I don't believe the parents are Boomers. The math doesn't work out. They'd have had to have kids in their fifties.

Millennials in general are too young to be the children of Boomers, though the oldest Millenials could (barely) be the children of the youngest Boomers.

It's a little silly, lumping in everyone together born within a span of twenty years. I find +/- 5 to be a bit of a stretch to find common ground with in terms of what we grew up with.; 3/8/14, 12:56 PM
Anonymous said...: When Gen X spontaneously arose and was originally covered in the media (see wikipedia), before the marketers got a chokehold and forced it into a box, it had some overlap with tag end boomers... born in the 60s basically. Then it changed to a tight demo of '65-'80 or whatever it is.

The very youngest boomer would be 49 or 50 now, Michelle Obama's age. The oldest Gen Xers would be the same. Some identify more with boom, some more with X.

I've met people who are 45ish now, who call themselves boomers. It's odd, usually people with older husbands trying to catch a ride on the train and diminish distance. Other 40-somethings are horrified to be considered one.

I would say that anyone who doesn't have the standard boomer experiences and memories of the kennedy assassination, the Beatles, the draft, and oh, I don't know, AN ACTUAL ECONOMIC BOOM, is Gen X. That's why there was originally overlap.; 3/8/14, 1:17 PM
somefeller said...: Actually, us Gen Xers do remember a real economic boom. It was called the mid to late 1990s. Good times, good times.; 3/8/14, 1:22 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/8/14, 1:59 PM
Anonymous said...: @somefeller

Yes, I was in the thick of it. I'm X, but it was a bubble, not a real boom, and more narrowly focused on tech and Web 1.0. I got both elevated and hit by it. There was also a lot of rent seeking and one of the first real hedge fund crises with Long Term Capital Management. It was unstable.

But it wasn't built on solid foundation of main street growth, high living wage, low living costs, and a "real economy" the way the Boomer boom was, nor did it last as long.; 3/8/14, 2:00 PM
lemondog said...: Strauss–Howe generational theory

In general:

Boomers born 1943-1960

GenX 1961-1981

Millennials born 1982-2004; 3/8/14, 2:02 PM
somefeller said...: But it wasn't built on solid foundation of main street growth, high living wage, low living costs, and a "real economy" that makes things the way the Boomer boom was, nor did it last as long.

Or the solid foundation of a couple of decades of guns and butter government spending coupled with the devastation of the US's main economic competitors, the way the Boomer boom was. And that expansion was quite real outside of Silicon Valley. But alas, nothing lasts.; 3/8/14, 2:04 PM
Anonymous said...: True, esp. the devastation of competitors. I often wonder what it would have been like to be in a competition-free landscape like that.

From the stories I'm told, at least about CA, it sounds restful. Want to take a year or two off to travel or bike around the USA? Sure. Come on back to plenty of engineering jobs at your leisure! Blue Sky R & D. Rent is $70-100 a month and you can actually support a family on minimum wage with one person working. Oh and education is high quality and so low cost it is practically free. No student loan bubble.; 3/8/14, 2:17 PM
Big Mike said...: We need a boomer pride movement.

Damn right!!!; 3/8/14, 2:23 PM
ganderson said...: Boomer refers to the boom in babies- not the economy- although the economy did boom from 45-70, for the most part; 3/8/14, 2:38 PM
Known Unknown said...: We need a boomer pride movement.

A.K.A, the past 40 years.; 3/8/14, 2:44 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: She is 18. An adult.

I say...pay for her last semester of private high school. That would be fair to the school with whom the parents have some sort of legal obligation and to just let her finish high school with her friends. They are not obligated to pay for college or anything else. She left home and severed her ties with her parents.

Pack all of her stuff up. Put it into a storage locker. Pay for 6 months of storage. Hand her the keys and a restraining order. Redecorate her abandoned room and make it into a nice office or crafting room.; 3/8/14, 2:46 PM
lemondog said...: Daaaaddy.....I’m sooooooooooooory!!!!!!!!

Actions have consequences

Ten years forward

Or maybe she marries rich.; 3/8/14, 2:52 PM
William said...: Just recently, I saw Hunger Ganes. That movie manages to square the circle. It's a chick flick that successfully manages to play like an action movie. The design and choice of Katniss's wedding gown--a plot point that has driven many men to suicide in real life--becomes an action sequence in the movie. The wedding gown as commando outfit......Anyway, it struck me that the people in The Capital are not really capitalists, or government bureaucrats, or fascists but boomers and yuppies. The younger generation will never know peace and prosperity until the streets are cleansed with the blood of Boomers.; 3/8/14, 3:45 PM
rcommal said...: The original Yuppies were in their 20s and 30s in the earlier '80s--so, mostly Boomers regardless of definition of the latter.

I'm amused by the definition above of Millennials as falling between '82 and '2004. Huh? Betcha that one won't hold up in the long run.; 3/8/14, 4:08 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: The parents aren't Boomers.

Also, the parents owe her nothing. What is going on with the other family that is encouraging this nonsense? Weird.; 3/8/14, 4:11 PM
carrie said...: They better save for retirement because their daughter isn't going to take care of them; 3/8/14, 4:12 PM
rcommal said...: For just one thing, the childhoods of folks born in '82 and those born in, say, 2000 are very different. Think just in terms of technology and media alone!; 3/8/14, 4:13 PM
Anonymous said...: So I looked at the Facebook page and some of the court pictures...

... and I'm flashing back to the plot of "Traffic" (American version) in a big way.; 3/8/14, 4:17 PM
rcommal said...: My suggestion is that if the parties can't reconcile,the parents should clear the bill with the high school (I lean toward that as an obligation, at this point, anyway) and perhaps sign over, if possible and feasible, the current existing contents of any currently existing college fund earmarked specifically for that kid. Then I'd draw up the estate to disinherit the daughter and make it clear that there the bank is closed. No coming back financially for support in throwing a wedding, in times of future unemployment, for help with a downpayment on a house, for cosigning for loans or apartment rentals or the like. Etc.

It seems to me that the young woman is a short-term thinker. It'll be interesting to see whether she regrets that in the longer term.; 3/8/14, 4:32 PM
test said...: rcommal said...
Are we sure the parents are Boomers and not Gen Xers?

Clearly Xers. This is really a terrible story, and the worst is the friend's father.; 3/8/14, 4:40 PM
Molly said...: Pogo is Dead:

Thanks for the full speech and not just the last two lines.

Long ago I read a story about an author who is worried that his publisher will call and threaten him with plagarism, because in order to meet a deadline, the author reset King Lear in a different setting. The publisher does call and says, we are being threatened with lawsuits by two women who claim that you stole their life stories for use in your story.; 3/8/14, 4:40 PM
Molly said...: Pogo is Dead:

Thanks for the full speech and not just the last two lines.

Long ago I read a story about an author who is worried that his publisher will call and threaten him with plagarism, because in order to meet a deadline, the author reset King Lear in a different setting. The publisher does call and says, we are being threatened with lawsuits by two women who claim that you stole their life stories for use in your story.; 3/8/14, 4:41 PM
test said...: rcommal said...
My suggestion is that if the parties can't reconcile,the parents should

The parents should call her once a week and ask her if she's ready to return home. Looking beyond that to funding is accepting the breach will never be healed, in which case the funding is conscience money.; 3/8/14, 5:31 PM
Brando said...: I just don't see her case--is she arguing that her parents should be required to pay her tuition or give her money despite her being over 18? Because if so, why was this not tossed out right away?

I'm too puzzled by that part to think about what an awful person she is.; 3/8/14, 7:19 PM
acm said...: Oof, LemonDog, by those measures I'm in the same generation as my older children. That makes no sense. I don't even feel like I'm in the same generation as my 12-years-younger sister, who doesn't remember when cell phones ddidn't text or take pictures.

The badly spoiled, manipulated teenager in this case is not entitled to support from her parents, of course, and the lawyer/friend/creep who is trying to make his name here ought to be ashamed of himself. The only party the parents do need to pay is the private school.; 3/8/14, 8:09 PM
SGT Ted said...: Actually, us Gen Xers do remember a real economic boom. It was called the mid to late 1990s. Good times, good times.

You mean the continuation of the Reagan boom.; 3/8/14, 8:55 PM
RecChief said...: boomer pride movement? I thought the fact that Obamacare forces young people to subsidize, through higher premiums, boomers' insurance is the boomers pride movement.; 3/8/14, 9:25 PM
RecChief said...: "Or maybe she marries rich."

Probably a brass pole or worse in her future; 3/8/14, 9:29 PM
Joe said...: According to court filings, Rachel Canning's lawyer, John P. Inglesino is a complete slime ball. If the allegations are true, he should be disbarred.; 3/8/14, 9:41 PM
Annie said...: I always thought that '65 was the tail end of the boomers. I just turned fifty. I never heard of Gen X until I graduated college, mid-80s.; 3/8/14, 10:07 PM
kimsch said...: Freeman,

She turned 18 and told her folks that she was an adult, and they couldn't tell her what to do anymore. She didn't want to abide by the rules, because, like, she's an adult.

So she moved out. And in with her bff. Whose father hired an attorney so she could get support, probably because he didn't like her attitude either, and he was supporting her.

She wanted $650 a month in support. That's equivalent to a $32,500 annual salary. For an 18 year old. And, of course, she wouldn't want to pay taxes on it, so it's more the equivalent of a $52K annual salary before taxes, and only taxes, no other deductions.

After she said she didn't want to do what they told her to, while living under their roof, she alleged all sorts of abuse. Throw all the shit at the wall and see what sticks. Her allegations were investigated and found not credible.; 3/8/14, 10:30 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: The parents owe her no tuition of any kind, high school or college. They owe her no living expenses. They owe her love and forgiveness, period, and it sounds like they're already offering that.; 3/8/14, 10:46 PM
Clayton Hennesey said...: Has this girl not heard the inspiring story of Belle Knox?; 3/8/14, 10:47 PM
Anonymous said...: Her lawyer said the page was a fake.; 3/9/14, 7:30 AM
Mazo Jeff said...: I say "Pay up Dad. She is going to choose your nursing home and I'm tired of paying for her birth control pills! "; 3/9/14, 10:08 AM
Mazo Jeff said...: I say "Pay up Dad. She is going to choose your nursing home and I'm tired of paying for her birth control pills! "; 3/9/14, 10:09 AM
lemondog said...: New Jersey Law Blog on emancipation.

Has the court fully settled the matter?; 3/9/14, 1:07 PM
test said...: Has the court fully settled the matter?

No, only the "emergency" injunction has been denied.

From the link: Once a parent who seeks to emancipate the child establishes that the child is in fact, eighteen years of age or older, the parent who opposes the emancipation has the burden to prove

It's interesting commentary, but it's entirely written under the assumption that one parent wants to spend X and the other parent doesn't. There's nothing about a child being able to force both parents to do anything.; 3/9/14, 3:00 PM
test said...: I think even if they "lose" the case the only damages are the daughter's expenses for the two days until she turned 18 (or essentially nothing). They would have been liable for the high school tuition (depending on the school's cancellation policy) except the school seems to have waived it.; 3/9/14, 3:04 PM