Monthly Archives: March 2014

the song remains the same

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west vincent voicesAnd over in West Vincent, the song remains the same.

Children, we are grading on a new scale today: “O” for Obvious.

‘West Vincent Voices”?  Really ? So obvious in its intent and deliberately close to West Vincent Infos A/K/A Chickenman? (I am sure I will get hate mail on how this is all altruistic and genuine, but define genuine and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?)

Anyway, I got this mailing of a new West Vincent newsletter and had to giggle.  My first thought was I hope they have better virus software when they do this given the issues with the actual township-sponsored website. (And wow remember the explanation on why this occurred? Talk about tall tales, right?)

west voncent website

Not  that this new newsletter isn’t township sponsored, after a fashion. It definitely is.  It is what my jaded political sensibilities would call a cheerleader effort.

This all might be new fangled in West Vincent but they have been doing this for years on the Main Line. And as one of the Supervisors David Brown not only hails from the Main Line but was once aligned with certain factions and is a big part of this missive via e-mail list, well, yes, somewhat predictable.  You see they used to do that all of the time in Lower Merion and these websites and “informative newsletters” still pop up whenever an election season is on the horizon or they felt threatened over issues.

Here is what Dave Brown had to say on this open, unbiased, and ever-truthful latest installment of “As The West Vincent Turns”:

There has been another anonymous attack on a West Vincent citizen. This one was aimed at me; I’m accused of trying to throttle public participation in meetings.

Here’s the truth:

In Ken Miller’s temporary absence, I opened the January 27 Board of Supervisors meeting as Vice Chairman. I asked Tammy Swavely, our Township Secretary, to make careful note of questions asked during the “Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items” part of the meeting, so that, instead of answering them off the cuff, we could get and present full, careful answers at the next meeting.

Questions during the Non-Agenda Comment period are often out of left field, and neither supervisors nor staff may be prepared to answer them knowledgeably.  I think someone who asks a question deserves an accurate answer, instead of one given on the fly.

It’s different with questions about an agenda item: we’ll be acting on that item, and will have done our homework on the facts and issues, and can be expected to give informed answers.

The attack makes it look as if two of the supervisors conspired against the third. The three supervisors have a friendly, cooperative relationship, and as far as I know no two of us would betray the trust of the third.

And isn’t it interesting that this sort of gratuitous attack should be flung at township government when it was?

The very night before, there was a terrific public outpouring of support and appreciation for the performance of township staff and government during the ice storm.  That’s news.   And that’s also reality in West Vincent.

David Brown

Dave, I am not anonymous and even I said you were trying to thwart public participation, because you were. Tell the truth and shame the devil as my Pennsylvania German Grandmother used to say.  And I won’t even touch the ice storm comment.  Because while staff like the police and fire department-type personnel were fabulous all over Facebook the complaints about the beloved Roadmaster and his snowplowing abilities were rampant.

You learned this very tactic in Lower Merion Township.  This is what those commissioners do: they can blather on ad infinitum as long as they speak, but the public is put on a three-minute egg timer (five minutes if you are a group).  At the start of any public participation they tell you they will listen to what you have to say but won’t respond to you.  As a matter of fact, they as commissioners can decide to pull apart what a member of the public is saying but the public in question cannot comment back, or offer rebuttal.  Interactive dialogue is a four letter word. And trying to end run another supervisor to try to render them useless is one of the oldest political tactics in the book of political tricks.

Most of these people in West Vincent have no idea of what your old political ties were like all your years in Lower Merion, nor the political company that you kept.  And that is indeed a shame.  Because if they knew, they would have your play book, wouldn’t they? I remember the look on your face at that very nice cocktail party in the New Year. At first you were so thrilled that someone knew all you had done in Lower Merion.  Then I told you who I was and wow, Dave, you aren’t always such a good poker player.  Your face gave you away as you scurried away as fast as humanly possible.  You still don’t get that I would never have been rude to you in a social situation as someone else’s guest or anything remotely close.  As opposed to you, I wanted to make sure the playing field was level and you knew to whom you were speaking (as in a fan of actual good government and Chickenman.)

This newsletter is just the latest attempt to divert the public from Chickenman and a continued effort to try to undercut actual reforms.  It is the 2014 version of that Good Government for West Vincent and who did that again? Dave Brown and that Kit Troiler person? And isn’t it funny that this pops up but that old website favorite Government for West Vincent Township  and David Brown’s old campaign or whatever website appears to have been taken down?

My guess is they will have a website at some point because they have “parked” some web addresses:

WEst silly

Here is who is doing this  special newsletter.  I do not object to informative newsletters.  It’s just this is so politically obvious it is almost painful. Listen to what they have to say:

There’s so much good   in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it doesn’t become   the best of us to be talking about the rest of us (Irish axiom)

WELCOME!

West Vincent Voices is brought to you by a volunteer group of   West Vincent residents who hope to inform and entertain readers with a    balance of news, opinion, and features about our community. If you enjoy our   first issue, we hope you will share it with your friends by using the Forward   button in the top right corner.

We would love to   receive your feedback, pro or con, and welcome your news and story ideas for   future issues. Let us know about your neighbor with a special talent or a   local business you’d like us to feature. We are also   interested in short literary works, art, photographs, and humor.

Contributions from   our readers should follow these guidelines: News articles and opinion pieces   must be signed with the contributor’s name or names and contact information   provided for fact-checking purposes. Original humor, art, photos, and   literature may be submitted anonymously or under a pseudonym. Personal   attacks, rumors, innuendo, etc., will not be accepted for publication. We   reserve the right to decide whether and when a submission will be published.

If you would prefer   not to receive West Vincent Voices, use the Unsubscribe tab at the top   or bottom of the page.

We look forward to   hearing from you!

Lee Calhoon, John Rieder, Sara Shick, Larry Stone westvincentvoices@gmail.com

Change is hard for people and change is obviously not an easy thing in West Vincent.  But the truth is if you live in West Vincent you need to cut the old political regime out for the cancer it is.  Yes West Vincent is a lovely place.  But it won’t stay that way as long as 2/3 of the Board of Supervisors is who they are.  You could stand to get a new Township Manager too.

It’s a shame that for every two steps forward in West Vincent you get these other steps backwards.

It’s also a shame that certain factions in West Vincent don’t get it. They don’t get that people don’t want to live in fear of government and elected officials (or their supporters) where they live. They don’t get that at the end of the day, people don’t want to go to meetings, they don’t want to have to speak up but if a system is broken and they are paying for it, what other recourse do they have? These people fear Chickenman for one simple reason: he tells the truth.

However, if you want to check out this newest latest and greatest version of Good Government for West Vincent the spin version, e-mail westvincentvoices@gmail.com

I really wish I could just say this newsletter was fabulous, but I can’t. It is just more  political chicanery and I find that so disappointing.

dear applicant

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I am going to have a bit of a rant. What happened to the niceties of business etiquette? Am I crazy to feel insulted when I receive a impersonal form letter?

Yes…..this is a pet peeve kind of post. (Sorry)

A couple of months ago a friend who works for a preservation-based non-profit sent me an ad for a part-time job. It was for a part-time program coordinator at Historic Sugartown on Sugartown Road in Malvern. She had worked with me on historic preservation projects where I was a volunteer and was so excited to share this with me. She encouraged me to apply.

Historic preservation is something I am quite passionate about. So I indeed decided to respond to the ad. I sat down shortly after New Year’s and wrote a very detailed cover letter to the Executive Director. I submitted it along with my resume.

I am at a point in my life where I can choose what I would like to do, and if I want to do something like this part-time I finally can. I love this little historic crossroads village, and everything in the job description I knew I could do, even if I had never worked for a museum or historical site. The position sounded ideal, interesting, and fun.

Would I die if I wasn’t offered this very part-time gig? No. It was just something that really interested me. Also, the truth is you just never know so you should always go for what interests you. Life is short.

It’s March and until today I had heard nothing. I had already figured they had given this to someone who had spent their professional life around historic sites or museums.

Late this afternoon I received an e-mail. From the Executive Director referring to me as “Dear Applicant.”

I have a name. They didn’t use it. That alone was disappointing and almost infuriating. If you are going to bother to send a rejection letter, at least use the applicant’s name.

The note said :

Dear Applicant,

I am writing to inform you that the position of Program Coordinator at Historic Sugartown has been filled. We received over 60 applications for this part-time position, so it became an extremely competitive review process. We thank you for your interest and wish you all the best in your endeavors. If you would like any feedback on your application, please do not hesitate to email me.

Thank you again for your interest.

Best regards,

They had sixty applicants. Not six hundred. Heck there are mail merge programs that can quasi personalize even a generic e-mail.

I just think that if someone can take the time to apply for something, submit a resume, and a detailed cover letter, that the people who receive the resumes and letters can at least do better than “Dear Applicant”. Maybe that is too old-fashioned and antiquated , I don’t really know. But it is how I feel.

I will note that no one ever contacted any reference I provided them with and that is fine. I can completely accept that I wasn’t the shoe to fit this non-profit’s foot. It happens. But the position interested me because it is something I would like to do if the opportunity presented itself, so I applied. No regrets.

What bothered me was the “Dear Applicant” . They did not take the time to learn my name to send me my rejection e-mail, but they would give me feedback on my application? Are they even sure which resume and cover letter I was?

I realize that it is a brave new impersonal world out there when you apply for a job, but I swear I miss the days when receipt of resumes were acknowledged, people interviewed mostly in person (versus telephone interviews, Skype, and Google Hang Outs) , and when you were rejected they at least inserted your name in the rejection letter….which used to be a letter and not just an e-mail.

That is my rant. I know they will never consider me at Historic Sugartown to even take out the trash because I wrote this post, but as the workplace has evolved to business casual it should not mean that all niceties of business etiquette should just disappear.

Just food for thought.

Thanks for listening.

the in-between season

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Looking at my garden today, I realized it’s here: the in-between season.

The in-between season is neither winter nor spring. It’s just in-between. Right now we see the snow receding, and the land is scarred from this winter’s weather.

Of course, this winter’s weather might not be over yet. We have had plenty of years where it actually did snow around St. Patrick’s Day and into April.

I know, I know, bite my tongue. Well from your lips to God’s ears but I am not counting on anything especially during the in-between season.

Once the temperatures consistently rise, I think we are going to have a real mud season too.

As I was looking at my newly redefined woods today I thought I would sow them with wild flower seeds this year. The tree canopy is so opened up that there is enough light for a lot of wild flowers and well, I would love to have more wild flowers in the woods.

I see the little green tips of things here and there and soon (hopefully) all those hundreds of bulbs I planted will start to appear.

I have made one wood chip mountain disappear. Hopefully tomorrow I will resume my chip spreading. I can be a klutz and I banged my foot against a furniture leg and as a result am a bit gimpy today.

People have been asking about my wood chips. Yes, they are somewhat raw and from the ice damaged trees. Yes, I know the debate here. Yes, that includes the whole thing about taking nitrogen out of the soil.

I don’t use this kind of mulch every year. But part of what I am chipping is bare ground where nothing much grows but weeds. These wood chips are being placed ON the soil and not IN the soil. My chips are hardwood only and a couple inches at that. And yes, I have done this before.

Enjoy the ducks. They make me smile .

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mulching

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Today I got out into the garden for a few hours to spread wood chips. I have a giant mulch mountain and the remnants of a smaller mulch mountain courtesy of the February 5th ice storm and subsequent tree work. I find it easier to start this while the plants are all dormant because it’s easier to spread things out.

Not everything is dormant, though. I see the little green beginnings of water probably bulbs starting to emerge here and there. And the birds are starting to sing other than winter songs.

I moved a lot more woodchips than I intended. Maybe it was the stubborn gardener in me who doesn’t like being called a city girl once in a while. Or maybe it was just because people have looked at the piles of wood chips and said that I needed a bobcat to move them.

(Uhhh no I don’t.)

I did not accomplish all that I wanted to, but I made a very respectable start at it. As the snow melts in my backyard and in my words I spread my chips. In other words, as the snow creeps back, my wood chips creep forward.

The sheer physicality of doing gardening again after so long was great. I know I will pay for it later in my lower back, but right now I’m feeling very Wonder Woman-esque!

It also felt good to begin to right what mother nature turned upside down but a short month ago.

I need to get some of this done now, and will do more as the weather warms towards spring.

When I garden is when I do a lot of my thinking. I don’t know if it is the connection to earth, or just the time to myself doing whatever it is I’m doing and letting my mind wander.

I was thinking about people and what drives them and what moves them today.

This morning I had someone wig out on me slightly for tidying up a bit of years old publicity that was for all intents and purposes my intellectual-property because I created it. It is also something that is over and done with. The person I did it for originally, contacted me and was not happy. I had decided to take down a webpage that had NOT been in active for a few years and had received very little traffic in the first place.

The truth of it is, my actions had nothing to do with them. It was me, tidying up. I am going to assume they were having a bad day and/or a hard week. This is someone I’m going to hold a grudge with. File under: stuff happens. I am just letting it go.

Then I heard from a friend of mine. Someone had forwarded her an email where she was discussed by another person. No doubt about it, it was hurtful.

My friend has a tender heart and a good spirit, but this really upset her I could tell. I told her to let it go. Yet she struggles with it and I totally get why.

But the thing is this: if we can’t let some things go we will drive ourselves crazy. Not everyone is going to like us or be happy with us every hour and every minute of every day. To an extent, that is on them. It is their issue, and I think we should leave those things as their issues.

I have had to practice what I preach in my own life. And it’s not easy. Sometimes it is very hard to bite your tongue. Especially when you would like to roll up in front of those people who irk you at times and yell “Oh shut up, flannel lips!”

But in the end what will that accomplish? The answer of course is not much. So it’s easier to learn to let it go.

I don’t say that lightly, as I can be a brooder. But if someone wishes to wish me ill, I can’t stop them. And I’m not going to own it like I deserve it, it’s their issue. Not mine.

Sometimes I think just as human beings have the capacity for great love and great kindness, they also have a huge capacity for hurt. And sometimes they don’t do it on purpose. Sometimes they do.

However, how their negativity is released to the universe depends a little on each of us as individuals. We can either soak it up like a sponge and become infected by their negativity, or we can be a little more practical about it and just let it roll off our backs .

And it’s hard to let stuff roll off your back. But sometimes you just have to do it whether you want to or not.

And I have to be honest, when I am trying to work through things, gardening is one of the best things for me. I have time to myself, I have time to be one with the earth, it gives me a creative outlet, and I can work off steam if I need to. I will note however, that most of the time I just garden because I like to do it!

At the end of the day, I think people should garden more. We can only control our own actions, we can’t control the actions of others.

(Hmmm I think my garden Buddha is rubbing off on me.)

TGIF all.

do parents have the right to parent?

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Really,dear?  Is that all?

When you are the parent of a teenager, unusual stories about teenagers make you sit up and listen.  I am the step-parent of a teenage boy.  I haven’t been at this for that many years, so as opposed to parents with more time logged under their belts, I might think about things more in some cases just because I don’t have that many years of life experience doing this.

And life experience is key here.  Kids have life experience, and no one said they were dumb or without rights, but where do you draw the line between kids and adults? Adults do have more life experience, right? And we are supporting these kids emotionally, financially, and literally, so what if one kid really throws a curve ball? Do we wrap kids in cotton batting and keep them insulated from the world and reality, or do we let them experience life and make mistakes?

And then there is the battle of the sexes.  My friends with teen girls always tell me boys are easier.  I don’t have enough experience to know, but after something caught my eye on the news this morning, I might be rethinking that.

My experience with teenagers is limited personally to my friends’ kids, my nephew, and my stepson. I am learning to speak teenage boy…..slowly.  It involves lots of patience, occasional piles of clothes on the floor, mono-syllabic conversations, fear of green vegetables, video games, things are never “cute”, and girls (although girls are not discussed).

Immediate family-wise, I am lucky.  I have an amazing kid, and my nephew is an amazing kid. (Please note: My niece is not being deliberately left out here, she is just not a teenager yet even if she is the best fashion stylist in the family.)  But how would any of us be if we were the parents of one Rachel Canning of New Jersey? This is what caught my eye this morning on the Today Show : the story of this girl suing her parents.  Only this isn’t some cute ’80s move starring Drew Barrymore.

This is the story of a teenager who didn’t like the house rules and basically ran away, went to live with and be supported by a friend’s parents and is now 18 and suing her parents for money.

New Jersey honor student sues parents for school fees after they cut her off at age 18

Rachel Canning, 18, claims her parents, Sean and Elizabeth Canning, threw her out of their Lincoln Park, N.J., home last year and stopped paying for her private high school, where she excelled as a cheerleader and lacrosse player. But Sean Canning says Rachel left voluntarily after she refused to abide by simple rules of the house.

By      / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Monday, March 3, 2014, 5:07 PM
Updated: Tuesday, March 4, 2014, 9:40 AM

But Sean and Elizabeth Canning say their “spoiled” college-bound daughter doesn’t live by their house rules and left the home because she didn’t like the law of the land — overseen by her father, a former Lincoln Park police chief.

The Morris Catholic High School senior and lacrosse player instead has lived at the Rockaway, N.J., home of a classmate, whose father, John Inglesino, has foot the bill for the suit.

“My parents have rationalized their actions by blaming me for not following their rules,” Rachel said in her court papers, according to The Daily Record of Morristown, N.J. “They stopped paying my high school tuition to punish the school and me and have redirected my college fund, indicating their refusal to afford me an education as a punishment.”

“I want money but I don’t want to live with you?”

It sounds like a bad Lifetime TV movie, doesn’t it?  Only it’s not and it is happening up in Northern New Jersey. This girl, Rachel Canning is a senior it looks like at Morris Catholic High School. It also looks like she has two Facebook Pages. This one and this brand new one she has been posting on for a few hours. She has been posting comments she has been receiving.  (For the record: no matter what she is trying to do she does not deserve to be called all sorts of vile and crude four letter words as that accomplishes nothing .)

So she isn’t getting along with her parents.  Sounds like a teenager.

So the parents say they don’t want her partying, hanging out with a certain boy, and there are house rules.  Sounds like parents.

So she runs away to a friend’s house.  Sounds like teenage girl d-r-a-m-a.

So friend’s parents take up her cause, including living expenses and court costs? Ok, that sounds like over-stepping a bit?  And the father of the best friend where she is living is according to media reports Former Morris County Freeholder John Inglesino? A politician and a lawyer? Why would he take this on? Does he have something against the parents? Does that sound normal to you? We’re not talking about the  cool parents you can talk to once in a while, we are talking about the parents that call me crazy seem to want to take over someone else’s child?

I must admit that I am somewhat astounded at these other parents inserting themselves here.  Are there real instances of abuse? Or are they just the type of parents of teens today more interested in being friends with their kids versus actual parenting?

rachelNow look, we were all teenagers once.  I remember one time in a fit of young teen drama like many other teens I told my mother I couldn’t stand it any more and was leaving.  I still remember my mother’s response which was “use shopping bags from the grocery store, not the good luggage.” That really pissed me off, I slammed a couple of doors….but I came down for dinner a few hours later and all was forgiven.

I did not have the acceptably “cool” parents of the day.  They didn’t throw us keg parties and they did things like called other parents before I went to a party to see if (a) parents were there (b) alcohol was being served. Needless to say, I missed a lot of parties. But at almost 50 I can say I am around to tell the tale.

Did I clash with my parents? Yes I did.  What kid doesn’t?  As a matter of fact, if I am brutally honest it has taken years to find the adult relationship with my mother I am actually comfortable with as an adult. And we still tangle on occasion.  That is the nature of parents and children.  It’s not always perfect.  It doesn’t mean I didn’t love my parents and don’t love my mother, it’s just reality.  They were parents, not my good buddies.   I loved them, I hated them, they embarrassed me, I embarrassed them.  And somehow, we all survived. They were real people, not Carol and Mike Brady.

My father has been dead a few years now and I love him and still miss him every day. I am lucky I still have my mother, and yes she is an original.  She is not your orthopedic shoes, gray hair and knitting kind of mother and grandmother. She is more like a senior fashionista who still loves her heels and dressing up.  She can be outrageous and even annoying to me because I am her kid even if I am almost 50, but would I have essentially divorced them, run, away, and sued for money?  Would I have turned them into a Bravo TV reality show?

No.  My parents weren’t perfect, but neither am I.

As a relatively new parent I am acutely aware of things like helicopter parenting.  Those are the parents that do everything including think for little Johnny and Susie….even well into purported adulthood. I have had people tell me stories of these types of parents which are truly a little crazy. I have seen things I thought was crazy.

The flip side of this, is I have seen some somewhat astounding kids here and there.  I used to live (for example) near an esteemed private school for boys. These boys used my old neighborhood as a parking lot – there wasn’t enough on-campus parking and well, that wasn’t cool anyway (you could get away with much more if you parked off campus).  I used to see two types of teenage boys: the really lovely ones who were in many cases children of my friends growing up, and the others with extreme misplaced senses of entitlement who quite frankly were brats.  Now that isn’t going to endear me to the private school set, but it is the truth.

And I saw it all I think.  For example, a lot of the kids drove mommy and daddy’s expensive cars to school and not only didn’t think twice about getting tickets (mommy and daddy would pay them natch’) , but they didn’t think twice about dinging the cars or even losing the keys. I remember finding a couple of those expensive starter keys that don’t look like regular keys for Mercedes Benzes and BMWs.  I used to always walk them back to the school, because as an adult I knew each one of these keys costs a ridiculous amount of money.  Every time I took the keys to the school I was told by the school I shouldn’t bother, the parents would just replace them anyway.

Weekends meant a lot of these boys would come back to my neighborhood as a meeting point to go to parties, mess around with their girlfriends, and dump their liquor bottles after parties.  The best story about bottles were the kids who tried to dump them in our trash.  My neighbor at the time (who was a psychologist by trade), stood there and made them take every bottle out of the trash.  They whined and protested and she kept it simple: they could deal with her or they could deal with the local police.  And yes, I still have still photos somewhere of this.  I remember one kid saying “you don’t know who my parents are”.

And all this time, through to present day I am told by parents of teenage girls that teenage boys are much easier to deal with.

After seeing this news report, I might be inclined to agree.

This girl Rachel got a bit of a smack down by a judge yesterday.  He told her no.  I am guessing that doesn’t happen very often.

N.J. judge denies teen honor student’s request for emergency funds in suit against parents 

Rachel Canning, 18, won’t get $650 weekly child support or payment of her private high school tuition from estranged parents Sean and Elizabeth Canning, a judge decided Tuesday. But a second hearing on the suit is scheduled for next month, and the Morris Catholic High School senior could still force her parents to pay up her impending college costs.

By      / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, March 4, 2014, 6:45 PM

A judge Tuesday ruled against New Jersey teen Rachel Canning, who sued her parents for expenses and education tuition after she says they tossed her out of their Lincoln Park home last year.

Morristown Superior Court Judge Peter Bogaard appears to have agreed with an independent investigators’ assessment of the home atmosphere: that the high school cheerleader and lacrosse player is “spoiled.”…..“We love our child and miss her. This is terrible. It’s killing me and my wife. We have a child we want home,” Sean Canning told The Daily Record of Morristown, N.J. “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.’”

Rachel Canning has lived in the Rockaway, N.J. home of classmate Jaime Inglesino. Inglesino’s father, John Inglesino, has foot the bill for the girl’s lawyer fees, more than $12,000 thus far.

So I looked up this Rachel’s father on Facebook along with her.  I did that after Facebook, being Facebook I saw a comment by a friend of a friend talking about this Canning family. What she said prompted my further look:

“Father was police officer and chief in this town and….they still live there (he retired and now works in another town as town business admin.). Family has had personal struggles, but really nice family. Love the mother, very involved…. I think Rachel has headed down wrong path. Broke my heart to watch judge read ruling and Liz (mom) cry and Rachel not react. As hard as I remember those [teenage] years being, I cried a lot over arguments with my mom and dad…..That other man [parent of friend] is too involved. He should be siding with his peers not with children’s friends”

canning family

This person’s comments are nice and measured.  And see this is the thing: small towns always have gossip about the families of people who hold public positions so don’t you think if this girl’s parents were so awful or abusive to the point Children and Youth would have to step in or should step in that people would have heard of it?  I found this public photo of the family on Google and sorry, as a photographer you learn to pick up certain things in photos, and maybe my radar is off, but what do you see here?

This is what Rachel’s dad has to say:

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father 2

father 3

father 4

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And then there are the photos of the parents and this student-sues-parentsgirl at yesterday’s court hearing.  The parents in tears, the teen smiling and showing little other than that. I am sorry, but the more I read, the more I feel for the parents.

girlsCourt testimony seems to paint a picture of parents trying to not lose a kid to partying and bad influences, so I guess I don’t get why the parents of this friend of hers has inserted themselves here? How is their business to influence someone else’s child? If this was an “at risk” teen, maybe I would feel differently but what I can’t escape is this is a teen who was told “no” and didn’t like it.

Rachel Canning has two Facebook pages.  Her new one is very much in the public eye and she is “sharing” publicly.  I wonder if she is being coached? Or does she think at 18 she knows best in the sharing/over-sharing department? Does she want to prove our case or paint herself cleverly as a victim in overpriced jeans? Or is she just a messed up kid ?

brat 1

brat 2

Is it the responsibility for every parent to reward bad behavior? Because if this girl is an honor student really being wronged, why wouldn’t she be one of these kids applying for scholarships and financial aid? Is it just me, or might that be too much work?

And I have to admit this gal needs a dose of reality because not every parent can afford to send every kid to college as much as they might want to. And I know and have known kids who had less than nothing who figured it out and got the education they wanted.

I think this girl is about to learn a very valuable life lesson of who to trust and listen to OR she will continue to hold everyone else responsible for her life and her decisions.  I hope it is the former and not the latter.

N. J. teen sues parents but loses first round in court

Rachel Canning wanted $650 in weekly child support, plus the payment of her tuition at Morris Catholic High School. But a New Jersey judge denied her initial request. “Are we going to open the gates for 12-year-olds to sue for an Xbox? For 13-year-olds to sue for an iPhone?” he asked.

By David Porter, Associated Press / March 5, 2014

A northern New Jersey honor student who has sued to get her parents to support her after she moved out of their home had her initial request denied Tuesday by a judge who cautioned that the case could lead to a “potentially slippery slope” of claims by teenagers against their parents.

Rachel Canning had sought immediate relief in the form of $650 in weekly child support and the payment of the remainder of her tuition at Morris Catholic High School, as well as attorney’s fees.

State Superior Court Judge Peter Bogaard denied those motions but ordered the parties to return to court on April 22…..Court documents show frequent causes of parent-teenage tension — boyfriends and alcohol — taken to an extreme. In the filings, there are accusations and denials, but one thing is clear: the girl 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.

She said her parents are abusive, contributed to an eating disorder…Canning wants the judge to declare that she’s non-emancipated and dependent as a student on her parents for support…

But this raises a conversation with parents.  What rights do parents have as far as discipline? Should they be more concerned about being popular with their teenagers, or about being their parents?

Now maybe these Canning parents didn’t handle every conversation well with their daughter, I have no way of knowing.  Do I believe that the relationship issues between adults affects kids? Sure it does, but does that mean every teenager should rise up and sue their parents?

If she wanted to leave, she is now 18.  But it seems to me she didn’t necessarily want out of Hotel Parents, she just wanted her own way. I mean let’s get real if you are a woman: did your parents like every boyfriend? Isn’t boy drama just a part of growing up?

Of course with girls especially, there is that whole forbidden fruit thing.  The parents say no and they work harder to get around them. However, as much as it pains me to say it, for the most part my parents were right when they said “no”. I for one just didn’t want to hear it.  Do I think they could have phrased things better and as a new parent do I try to improve on what passed for teen-parent communication back in the day? Yes to both.

I feel strongly about kids trying to respect adults.  I do not see teens as equals to adults.  I think a lot of kids are more intelligent than adults, but now that I am the adult I kind of get the other side of the dynamic.  And it’s hard.  You want to be their friend, yet you literally have to be the grown-up.  You think you are saying the right thing and half the time it falls on deaf ears….face it if it is longer than two or three sentences I think all teenagers hear is the “waah, wahh, wahh” that Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty used to hear whenever their teacher spoke.

I admire the super patient among my friends.  I will admit sometimes I don’t get it, a lot of times I don’t get it….but I try all the time to get it.  I will admit I get hurt feelings when I try to make a super awesome dinner and it gets pushed around the plate or  my teen just shows up late. I will admit I don’t get the love affair with video games and dirty socks on the floor. And I know these are little things. But as opposed to some, I am so new to this, so this is all my learning curve.

And then I read about kids like Rachel Canning. And I hate to be all judgmental and mean grown-up, but I count my lucky stars.

But I feel for these parents.

So Rachel, I know you are out there lapping up your press. I can see it on your face in video and photographs and on your Facebook page.  Maybe you see yourself as a Real Housewife of New Jersey in training, or feel your parents should just cater to your every whim, but life doesn’t work that way. I hope you go to counseling with your parents and work it out. But do I think they should pay for you as a non-emancipated teenager living elsewhere? Nope. I hate to say I think you are being a brat, and I am sure it is not that simple, but that is how I feel. I also find your behavior selfish in as far as you as a kid don’t even realize your actions could say….cost your parents their employment and then where would all of you be, including your sisters?

And little girlfriend, I wish you could see how creepy it is that your BFF’s dad has so inserted himself into your life. Sorry, but the jaded adult in me just doesn’t see this as normal or good.

Love them or hate them, we only get one set of parents.  Don’t do something you regret. There is plenty of time to be a grown-up, my dear.  Go home. Actions have consequences, and I really don’t think you have a clue…..

 

loss.

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Loss is a big word.

I was thinking about the word “loss” yesterday as my arborist completed day five of our post-2014 ice storm clean up.

Our woods have experienced a loss. Many saplings and trees were damaged beyond salvation during Mother Nature’s winter ice storm whirlwind in February. A lot of trees were salvageable and as our arborist and his crew righted our trees and made them safe, I thought about loss in the context of the cycle of nature.

This loss to our woods, a nature made culling, has opened up the canopy of our trees. Light will reach the woodland floor where it hasn’t in years and years. That means with proper care and love, our woods will now renew itself.

So in a sense, the loss of tree and plantings courtesy of ice storm 2014 will have a positive side. That positive side is new growth and renewal.

But what I am also wondering is, can we as humans, apply that to our own existence as well?

We lose people in our lives for various reasons all wound up in the cycle of life and death. But what if we looked at it as God pruning our life canopy, much like Mother Nature did with the tree canopy of my woods during Ice Storm 2014 but a few weeks ago?

I am not trying to trivialize the losses we experience as human beings, only trying to see it as a life pruning that opens us up for renewal and new growth, or perhaps to say God’s plans for us are not originally what we thought and we need to have faith.

Whether the loss is of a friend or loved one, or the loss is due to death or life circumstance, it hurts. You are hurt and sad, you can be angry for a time, and then comes the life canopy opening to the sky for renewal and new growth. So if you can let go of the negativity and hurt, you get peace and acceptance. And one day, your heart is lighter and you are once again looking forward and are hopeful.

Getting to that forward place and feeling hopeful is work. I know because this is sometimes inner battle I have struggled with. But I figure at the end of the day we need to live and just let stuff go. Release it back. If you have ever had people in your life you could consider stuck for lack of a better description you can see what hanging onto the bitterness and negativity does to them. It is personal choice whether or not you accept that for yourself. Again, not trivializing this as it can be really hard work.

Losing people to death has a finality, obviously. So once you get though he cycle of grief and loss you can hope to put a period on it. Losing people to other life circumstances can be a little more tricky, and the emotions there can be quite complicated. But loss isn’t the end of everything, unless you allow it, right?

This week a dear friend’s little sister unexpectedly became a young widow. I understand the position all to well and a few short years ago I watched my sister struggle through the same thing.

It is so hard, no other way to describe it. Both of these women lost husbands who were extraordinary human beings. I wish my friend’s sister all the peace and love her world can give her because this is grief and pain you wish on NO human being. And when you are the loved one of someone going through this there are just periods of helplessness, because nothing you do feels like you are making it better.

Life is a cycle. Do we glow with it, grow with it , or rail against it? I don’t have those answers. I just saw what some will say is a weird parallel. But if you can think of certain events as life pruning, maybe it makes it easier to release the negative, embrace the positive, and retain the hope we as human beings need to grow?

Thanks for stopping by on a slightly contemplative Sunday before yet more snow. But the good thing is I have seen a few bits of green emerging as just the tiniest of green tips below some snow that melted. You know, renewal?

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