Well, in this article, it says she was asking for $650 a week in child support and the high school tuition. Really? $650 a week? She appears to define the word “entitlement”. The additional details:
and the fact she still has a $20K scholarship has lost just about any sympathy I had for her (not that there was a lot to begin with). If she was slacking off her senior year, I can see the parents being afraid she would blow off her first year at college as well. But I’m still stuck at the notion of $650 a week.
Sure. Do what you want on your own. If the boyfriend is a drug addict and a criminal should the parents financially support that lifestyle too?
And you can be a cute smart 18 year old girl and still be an asshole. He parents are supposed to bankroll her assholeness?
She probably does not have the standing to argue that. She is not party to that contract. If the school was the plaintiff it would be a straight up contract dispute which would depend on the wording of the contract.
My daughter is 14 and she has been told for a while that certain things are expected of her. When she turns 18 if her obligations are not met our financial obligations end. It has to go both ways especially when you are an adult.
BTW this is far from over. The hearing was not the final word. It was just a ruling on a motion for immediate support before there is a full hearing. But reading some of the judge’s comments makes me think its not likely that it will go her way.
Is the idea that divorced parents owe a duty to their dependant adult children an expansion of existing law in NJ? Not at all. Such duty is settled law in NJ.
Is the idea that non-separated married parents owe a duty to their dependant adult children an expansion of existing law in NJ? Yes it is.
The interesting question is why the test for support of a dependant adult child hinges on the state of the relationship between the parents, rather on the responsibility to support a dependant. The quick answer is because that is the way the statue is laid out, but of course this sort of answer ignores the elephant in the corner and begs to be tested by cases such as the one at hand.
Because child support is part of the property settlement agreement between the married couple not the children. It has to do with the divorce and the support the parent is giving to the other parent. It is to ensure that one parent does not have to shoulder the sole responsibility of support. In a divorce settlement the parents are the named parties of the suit. The children are not.
This story is making a rubbernecker of me - but the details emerging make the girl look even more spoiled. From CNN,
In most families I know, if you cut school, punishments occur (like curfews). I have yet to see anything she has said to bolster her idea that her parents owe her everything she wants. She seems to see them as some sort of cost-free ATM. And apparently the school is letting her finish away, so why the hell was she suing for tuition?
When I watched the documentary “Van Wilder - Party Liaison” the father was able to stop paying Van’s college tuition fees immediately and there was nothing Van could do about it. He even had the College law society helping him out and the idea of suing his father for the costs was never even suggested.
What I am saying is that this chick should start paying her tuition the same way Van Wilder did, by throwing parties and sleeping with Tara Reid.
See, to me, if the school was concerned enough to call child protective services and is allowing the girl to continue to attend, it suggests that there was something pretty off at home. It’s not like private schools fall all over themselves to initiate government investigations of their customers.
And I think that in general private schools don’t kick non-payers out mid-term: they just won’t release a transcript until they get their money.
Yes. An early example of parental support legislation is found in Elizabethan England:
I have come across parental support legislation in various Canadian provinces, including my province on Ontario:
From what I can see, there are some primary issues that are more or less interrelated:
Should a person who can not adequately support himself or herself be supported, and if so, to what degree?
If there should be support, who should provide it? State, church, employer, family, etc., and in what proportions to each other under what circumstances?
Should support for recipients be tied to some benefit for the payor? A state benefitting from a stronger tax base resulting from a healthier and better educated workforce? A Church benefitting from tax relief? Employers benefitting from a healthier and better educated workforce, and benefitting from tax relief? Families benefiting from the emotional, physical and often financial interactions among themselves, and benefiting from tax relief?
The making and balancing of social obligations, including assisting in providing for the well being of others such as one’s family and one’s community (one’s fellow citizens, one’s congregation, one’s employees, etc.), is fundamental to humanity, with a general progression in first world countries to try to ensure that their citizens’ needs are met.
I’m curious as to how spousal support, child support and parental support are handled in the USA. The case at hand, and the ensuing discussion, provides interesting insights.
Ok you got me. My question was way too broad. I meant to say, can they anywhere in the US. I asked since you specifically asked about NJ. As far as I know there is no obligation for one adult to care for another. But I am in no way an expert and I don’t know civil or family law all that well. And I certainly don’t know the law in all 50 states.
In fact, it’s totally relevant. Because it shows that the idea that parents can’t be held finally responsible in this sort of situation isn’t obviously, universally true.
If people were arguing only about law, it wouldn’t be. But they don’t. They argue about the morals of the situation. Who’s right, who’s wrong? There’s quite clearly room for disagreement here.
And frankly, lacking any other information, I would tend to side with the daughter. Her parents seem to try hard to fuck up her future (to the extend of refusing to pay for the school they put her in until the end of the year) over what seems to be a very usual teen/parent issue.
Besides, in the instances I’ve known about (long ago, when I was working in a social service) involving a kid kicked out by his parents the day he turned up 18, the parents were the unreasonnable ones. Reasonable parents might kick out their worthless children, but they typically don’t do so as soon as they can legally get away with it.
Finally, I note that apparently, scolarship might be denied to her on the basis of her parents’ income. Which would make sense if her parents had an obligation to support her financially but doesn’t if they don’t. If true, she’s doubly fucked.
Isn’t it the case these days that schools call CPS at the mere mention of “i’m abused” or when an otherwise good student suddenly has behaviour changes?
The girl made the allegation, the school is required to call CPS -
IOW, they don’t do it because they were concerned, they do it as much of a CYA move and a requirement by law.
Oh for cryin’ out loud, have you been living under a rock the last 20 years? Any time a student even *thinks *the words ‘abuse’ while at school, the school is going to freak out and report it and make sure it becomes Someone Else’s Problem, lest they get sued for ‘knowing about alleged abuse and failing to act’.
And when the CPS got involved, they basically found nuthin’.
And as more details come out, I’d say the shine is starting to come off our ‘honors student’.
Responsible 18yr old honors students don’t get suspended from school for truancy, don’t get busted for drinking, don’t get kicked out of a campus ministry, don’t lose the captaincy of the cheerleading squad…
Obviously no proof, but it sounds exactly to me like she got in with a bad boyfriend - who, it should be noted, was also suspended from school (the article doesn’t say why, but since the daughter goes out of her way to say ‘I don’t have a drug problem’, I suspect he was caught with drugs). And it sounds exactly to me like the parents knew the boyfriend was trouble, and started enforcing rules on visiting & curfews, then escalating the punishment when she continued to disobey (taking away the car etc).
I’m someone’s child. And I simply can not imagine any scenario where I’d *sue my parents. *To me she sounds like a self-centered, ungrateful, over-indulgent selfish little wench that is going to get a rude awakening when it come to learning how the Real World bitch-slaps people expecting to only live by their own rules.
Lacking any other information, I am siding with the parents.