When the story broke last month about a high school senior suing her parents, my first thought was, “Wow, I wonder what her parents did.” In my head, I’m thinking the worst, that she’s being molested or abused in some way. And though that’s exactly what she initially claimed, that wasn’t the case. While she claimed to have been kicked out, in reality Rachel Canning moved out of her parents’ place at 18 because she didn’t want to live by their rules. To add insult to injury, she wanted them to pay for her outstanding private school fees, which were more than $5,000, her college tuition, current living expenses and $12,000 worth of legal fees. Quite frankly, she’s insane. The fact that this girl thinks she can disrespect her parents, move out and still get money out of them is appalling, but not necessarily uncommon.
If you look at our generation, you’ll realize a lot of millennials have a strong sense of entitlement, especially when it comes to their parents. They view them as a crutch, a safety net of sorts. They have the often-misguided perception that no matter what they do, no matter how they act, their parents will always give in to them. In a nasty voicemail message, Canning told her mom, “I really just wanna s––t all over your face right now.” Call me crazy, but if I said anything like this to my mother, I’d better enjoy it, because it’d be the last thing I would ever do. And I definitely wouldn’t feel as if I had the right to ask for money after that.
One of the main problems with this take-all attitude is that we as young adults are not prepared to deal with problems (especially financial) ourselves, but would rather defer our issues to Mom and Dad.
[quote]However, we have to remember our parents won’t always be there to catch us when we fall. There will be a time when we have to start catching ourselves, and we’d better prepare now, rather than waiting until it’s too late.[/quote]
How many of us actually do our own taxes? Not enough.
How many of us know how to set up a 401k or a retirement fund? Not enough.
How many of us know how to ask parents for money for our cell phone bills? Most of us.
Whether it be the fault of parents for giving their children everything they want, or the fault of the kids for not working hard enough for those things, there needs to be a dramatic shift in parent-offspring relations. For the most part, kids need to stop asking parents for superficial things and start asking questions on how to survive in the real world. Once we get to a certain age, being lazy, helpless and greedy won’t get us any further in life. I do recognize this doesn’t apply to everyone. I have friends that don’t ask their parents for anything, much less everything.
So how did the lawsuit end, you wonder? Canning dropped the lawsuit and moved back in with her parents, but not before the judge asked the question, “Have you ever seen such gross disrespect?” Even though legal actions against parents in this capacity are not a common occurrence, there is definitely a spoiled-kid vibe in our generation. The sooner we shed that label and work toward becoming fully functioning real-life adults, the better.
Photo courtesy of Thinkstock.
