Parent's Tough Love Gets Them Sued by Teen for Support

By Elizabeth Nelson

Any parent who has a high-handed, hard to handle child can appreciate this story.

Rachel Canning, a 18 year old who was labeled as "spoiled" and no matter what her parents did, was getting in trouble with alcohol, breaking curfew, disrespect, and her boyfriend and decided she would rather leave home, two days before her 18th birthday than do chores around the house.  She moved in with her best friend and then had the nerve to take her parents to court to make them support her and pay for he

r college tuition.  She must be a liberal, she changed the story and told the judge they "kicked her out of the house."

A northern New Jersey honor student who says her parents kicked her out of the house when she turned 18 is now suing them, asking a court to make them support her and pay for her college tuition.

A judge in Morristown Tuesday ruled against immediately forcing Rachel Canning’s parents — her father a retired police chief — to pay her $650 weekly child support and pay for her remaining year of high school tuition, as she requested in a lawsuit filed last week. Judge Peter Bogaard scheduled a hearing for next month to decide whether to require her parents to pay for Canning’s college tuition.

This totals $13,000, and who is paying for all of this right now? Her best friend's dad, a lawyer, is funding this. She wanted to act like an adult, talk like an adult, stay out till all hours and be out on her own? Fine, that means you pay all your own bills and do it on your own, not on your parent's dime.

“Do we want to establish a precedent where parents live in basic fear of establishing rules of the house?” Bogaard asked.

The New Jersey Star Ledger reported Bogaard’s caution to legal counsel in his initial ruling against an emergency order. It “would represent essentially a new law or a new way of interpreting an existing law,” he said. “A kid could move out and then sue for an XBox, an iPhone or a 60-inch television.”

Court documents show frequent causes of parent-teenage tension — boyfriends and alcohol — taken to an extreme. In court filings, there are accusations and denials, but one thing is clear: the girl, who has been labeled as “spoiled,”left home Oct. 30, two days before she turned 18 after a tumultuous stretch during which her parents separated and reconciled and the teen began getting into uncharacteristic trouble at school.

In court filings, Canning’s parents, retired Lincoln Park police Chief Sean Canning and his wife Elizabeth, said their daughter voluntarily left home because she didn’t want to abide by reasonable household rules, such as being respectful, keeping a curfew, doing a few chores and ending a relationship with a boyfriend her parents say is a bad influence. They say that shortly before she turned 18, she told her parents that she would be an adult and could do whatever she wanted.

“We love our child and miss her. This is terrible. It’s killing me and my wife. We have a child we want home. We’re not Draconian and now we’re getting hauled into court. She’s demanding that we pay her bills but she doesn’t want to live at home and she’s saying, ‘I don’t want to live under your rules,’ ” Sean Canning said, according to the Daily Record of Parsippany. “We’re heartbroken, but what do you do when a child says ‘I don’t want your rules but I want everything under the sun and you to pay for it?’”

“Mr. and Mrs. Canning did not tell Rachel to move out; rather they advised her that she is welcome home so long as she abides by their rules under their roof, which is completely reasonable,” the parents’ attorney Laurie Rush-Masuret wrote the court, according to the newspaper. “However, Rachel decided that she does not want to live within her parents’ sphere of influence and voluntarily moved out, essentially emancipating herself. Obviously, she cannot decide she will no longer live within her parents’ sphere of influence and simultaneously seek payment from them for support.”

Rachel Canning been living in Rockaway Township with the family of her best friend. The friend’s father, former Morris County Freeholder John Inglesino, is paying for the lawsuit. Read the entire Blaze Article Here

Children don't come with an owner's manual stamped on their little feet, when they are born; we're blessed with them and then we "wing-it," making mistakes along the way. So when we are given rebellious ones like this, one that challenge and test our brain, will, spirit and heart, and take us to the end of our rope, all we can do is tie a knot and pray that whatever phase they are going through doesn't kill any of us before they outgrow it.  A little tough love didn't kill us, as we were growing up, so a dose of it sure won't kill them.