pen & pencil

Posted on September 18, 2014 by carla

It started innocently enough. I wanted an answer to a question I had.

As a parent, I am newer to the game that a lot of people out there. And I am a step-parent. My instincts are good, but I simply haven’t been at it as long as other parents.

I had noticed even last year with our child that I didn’t feel the teachers had kids using a pen enough. Of course, the only basis for comparison I have are what I see my friends’ and family’s children doing, or my own personal experience. And my personal experience is different because I spent most of my life going to private school. I was using pens in fourth grade to learn calligraphy – of course I am dating myself here because that was back when there was actual penmanship still!

I asked my child what the deal with pens versus pencils was and he said “all the kids his pencil.”

I asked a mom I know who had a child in my child’s class and she shared with me that even her child who was older and farther along in high school still basically used pencil for everything.

kaleidoscope

Posted on September 1, 2014 by carla

Memories are sometimes but little fragments, like looking through a kaleidoscope.

Sometimes a song triggers a memory. You hear a song and you stop and remember where you heard it first. Yesterday I heard Vacation by the Go-Go’s. That song always reminds me of the Jersey shore, my friend Karen and her friend Ellie. I heard that song and in my mind’s eye saw us as our late teenage selves when we didn’t worry about tanning and were spending summer in flip flops with sand on our feet. I swear I could almost smell the Bain de Soleil Orange Gelèe.

Other memories and like shards of glass. Fragments that pop into your head in that stage between sleeping and waking, which fall away when you wake up. I had that happen the other day when I first started thinking about writing this post. But I didn’t write it down, and the memory was fleeting.

This morning is September 1st. I woke up with memory of the many years my friend Pam would leave all of her friends “rabbit, rabbit” messages the day the old month ended to remind us to say rabbit, rabbit the first day of every new month. Saying rabbit, rabbit as your first words of the new month is supposed to bring you luck all month long. I still say it.

Today is also Labor Day. As a kid, in spite of the true origination of the holiday , you knew it was the last “official” day of summer vacation. An in between day when you are packing up and coming home from summer vacation. Maybe at a neighborhood barbecue. You wake up and even the air is different. Change is coming, a fresh start in a new school year. And the dreaded thought of homework.

Labor Day marks our transition of summer towards fall. It will feel like summer a few weeks yet, but soon it will be time for hay rides and corn mazes.

Enjoy the day.

heightened awareness

Posted on July 16, 2014 by carla

This post has nothing to do with Chester County, per se. It is just one of those things that makes me think. It made me think of a girl who once lived in Bryn Mawr. A girl who was raped and murdered in her dorm room at prestigious Lehigh University in 1986. Jeanne Clery.

At the time, it shocked everyone who heard about this even if you had never met the girl. She was the same age give or take a year as my own sister who attended another not so far away prestigious Pennsylvania college. This girl was also but a few years younger than I was and was from the same area I grew up in: the Main Line. You just don’t think about nice Main Line girls from Main Line prep schools going away to college and getting raped and murdered do you? Especially at schools like Lehigh, right?

The story of Jeanne Clery galvanized the greater Philadelphia area and the country. Eventually, on July 22, 1988, the murderer of Jeanne Clery was sentenced to death after being convicted of her murder.

In the years which have followed, Jeanne Clery’s parents Howard and Constance Clery have devoted their lives to campus safety. As People Magazine wrote at the time:

During the trial, he and his wife learned about the lapses in security at Lehigh, and shortly after the verdict was announced, they filed a $25 million suit against the college for negligence. It was to be the first round in a campaign that would touch state legislatures, colleges and concerned parents across the country. The Clerys had lost a daughter, but the loss ignited a cause.

The suit was settled out of court (the family is prohibited from disclosing the amount), but the Clerys were not ready to close the book. They used the cash, as well as their own money, to launch Security on Campus, Inc., a nonprofit clearing house for information and advice. They began lobbying state lawmakers for statutes requiring colleges to publicize their crime statistics—not a detail generally found in cheery recruitment brochures—and in May 1988, Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey signed the first such bill mandating that all state colleges and universities publish three-year campus-crime reports. In addition, schools are required to have clear policies regarding alcohol and drug consumption on campus. Three more states have followed Pennsylvania’s lead, 21 others have statutes in the works, and the Clerys have already begun campaigning for a federal bill as well.

It is because of the perseverance of the Clery family that the Jeanne Clery Act came to be. As per The Clery Center for Security on Campus:

The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (20 USC § 1092(f)) is the landmark federal law, originally known as the Campus Security Act, that requires colleges and universities across the United States to disclose information about crime on and around their campuses. The law is tied to an institution’s participation in federal student financial aid programs and it applies to most institutions of higher education both public and private. The Act is enforced by the United States Department of Education.

The law was amended in 1992 to add a requirement that schools afford the victims of campus sexual assault certain basic rights, and was amended again in 1998 to expand the reporting requirements. The 1998 amendments also formally named the law in memory of Jeanne Clery. Subsequent amendments in 2000 and 2008 added provisions dealing with registered sex offender notification and campus emergency response. The 2008 amendments also added a provision to protect crime victims, “whistleblowers”, and others from retaliation.

What made me think of Jeanne Clery and all her family has accomplished after all of these years? Two disturbing stories of sexual assault on college campuses. One from May 2014 in Philadelphia Magazine about Swarthmore College and a recent front page story in The New York Times on Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Excerpts:

Rape Happens Here PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE

For 150 years, leafy, progressive Swarthmore College tried to resolve student conflicts in the best Quaker tradition — peacefully and constructively. Then came 91 complaints of sexual misconduct. In a single year.

BY SIMON VAN ZUYLEN-WOOD | APRIL 24, 2014

In the early 1980s, staff members in one of Swarthmore’s libraries began hanging reams of white computer paper in the bathroom stalls, which students would use to gossip about cute boys or gripe about homework. A few years ago, pieces of white paper of a different sort began appearing in campus bathrooms. They’re printed up by the administration and emblazoned with the words SEXUAL ASSAULT RESOURCES…

….ON APRIL 25, 2013, Swarthmore sophomores Hope Brinn and Mia Ferguson stood on Independence Mall in Philadelphia and told assembled media that the college had badly mishandled claims of sexual assault; in response, they were bringing a Title IX complaint to the federal government. This was just days after the duo filed a separate Clery Act complaint alleging that Swarthmore had systematically underreported such incidents. The complaints were part of a larger strategy — they later met with high-profile attorney Gloria Allred — in which Brinn, Ferguson and a couple dozen co-complainants aimed to use their personal stories to shame and ultimately reform their college.

Ferguson, from Brookline, Massachusetts, wrote an op-ed, “Raped and Betrayed,” for a student newspaper. Brinn, from Wilmington, Delaware, stood before the school’s board and told how she was sexually assaulted, stalked, and then met with “grave indifference” by the administration. ….

(in both publications, these are HUGE articles, click on the hyperlinks above each excerpt to read then in their entirety.)

The New York Times:

Reporting Rape, and Wishing She Hadn’t
How One College Handled a Sexual Assault Complaint
By WALT BOGDANICHJULY 12, 2014

GENEVA, N.Y. — She was 18 years old, a freshman, and had been on campus for just two weeks when one Saturday night last September her friends grew worried because she had been drinking and suddenly disappeared.

Around midnight, the missing girl texted a friend, saying she was frightened by a student she had met that evening. “Idk what to do,” she wrote. “I’m scared.” When she did not answer a call, the friend began searching for her.

In the early-morning hours on the campus of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in central New York, the friend said, he found her — bent over a pool table as a football player appeared to be sexually assaulting her from behind in a darkened dance hall with six or seven people watching and laughing. Some had their cellphones out, apparently taking pictures, he said.

For women to report sexual assault at any age is traumatizing. Read articles about the topic and you learn the common denominator: victims are often victimized again through any judicial process. But what we are talking about here is on college and university campuses. Which in my mind is always geared first to protect the school and administration.

So as far as we have come in this country with things like the Clery Act and heightened awareness on the topic, it seems like many colleges and universities are still treating issues like this poorly if not sweeping them under the carpet? Remember the 2007 front page stories of the Villanova football players accused of raping a girl in her dorm room? Remember but a few days later the victim halted the rape case?

The Philadelphia Inquirer at the time reported on it and said in a July 27, 2007 article:

A Villanova University student who told the school that she had been raped by three incoming freshman football players, who have since been kicked out of school, does not want to press charges, Radnor police said yesterday…..Villanova’s department of public safety does not have arrest powers, he said. Radnor police are working with the District Attorney’s Office to clarify Villanova’s obligation to report allegations of serious crimes, he said….Villanova’s handling of the matter “seems pretty speedy,” she said.

The Swarthmore College article by Philadelphia Magazine and the New York Times article on Hobart William Smith has ignited this topic once again.

In 1986 I was much younger and what happened to Jeanne Clery was seen from the scary perspective of that girl was my sister’s age and only a few years younger than me. The recent Philadelphia Magazine article and New York Times article hits me as an adult who not only had friends that attended both of those schools but have friends who have kids of their own or nieces and nephews and even grand children at these schools today.

The Hobart and William Smith article in the New York Times was very hard for me to read. I remember going there back in the day to visit friends from high school and I remember how much my friends loved the school. I remember how terrific I thought the school was and how pretty the campus was. And now, decades later, these same friends, male and female are horrified by the New York Times article.

So is this a case of everything that is old is new again? Even as far as we have come with raising awareness on college campuses and laws on the books about how and what campuses must report and so on, are we still dealing in the murky waters of reality versus the veritable machines that are colleges and universities? After all, negative little things like crime can really hurt the old ratings, rankings, grants, and donations right?

But as a newish parent person now I have to ask, would you rather deal with a school that tells the truth and acknowledges issues or covers it up and makes everything seem all ivy walled and bucolic with Skip and Sissy walking down a brick lined path to class holding hands?

As someone who was a young adult when Jeanne Clery was murdered I think I would rather have the truth, please. After all, for what parents fork over in tuition, don’t they deserve the truth? And our kids, don’t they deserve the truth and don’t you want them to feel and be safe, especially if they have to report something heinous like an assault?

Anyway, this made me think about this topic again, and I guess I just don’t get these schools. I get they want to protect their hallowed halls but the truth shall set them free, right? It makes me wonder how honest schools around this country are with their Clery Act reporting.

Also worth reading? A great piece on the topic in Slate.

Excerpt:

Slate: New York Times Reports Another Campus Sexual Assault Horror Story. Now We Need the Data.
By Emily Bazelon

Can universities handle their role as independent investigators and adjudicators of sexual assault? You may conclude that the answer is no after you read Walt Bogdanich’s big story in the New York Times about the aftermath of an alleged assault at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York. It’s called “Reporting Rape, and Wishing She Hadn’t” because from the point of view of Anna, the student who says she was victimized, her school did almost everything wrong….What a disappointing, dismaying mess. And yet, I’m not ready to give up on the whole university adjudication system. People ask me all the time why universities have any responsibility for dealing with rape accusations in the first place. These are serious allegations. Shouldn’t they be in the hands of police, prosecutors, and judges? The answer is that there are supposed to be two parallel tracks. It’s not either/or. In passing and enforcing Title IX, the federal law that’s a shield against sex discrimination in an educational setting, Congress gave schools an independent obligation to investigate allegations of sexual assault and harassment. That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t also be a police investigation.

Then of course there is the rather predictable I-really-didn’t- beat-my-spouse response in the New York Times from Hobart and William Smith’s Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees:

Re “Reporting Rape, and Wishing She Hadn’t” (front page, July 13):

The Hobart and William Smith Colleges community is heartbroken by our student’s experience, and we deeply regret the pain she has suffered. Her experience does not reflect the environment, values and traditions we have built and maintained for nearly two centuries at Hobart and William Smith. As an alumna, a proud mother of a daughter who graduated from HWS, and chairwoman of the board of trustees, I write with a heavy heart.

Like all colleges and universities, HWS is challenged to ensure that we are meeting the demands of a shifting legal landscape — especially in the area of sexual assault — as we also work to meet the needs of students while fostering a safer and more collegial learning environment.

We welcome the conversation about whether higher education should even have a role in adjudicating cases like this one. However, until federal law changes, we are required to carry out internal investigations and adjudicate cases based on the preponderance of evidence standard, as we did in this case.

….MAUREEN COLLINS ZUPAN
Chairwoman, Board of Trustees
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Geneva, N.Y., July 15, 2014

There are more letters underneath that one, but that was enough to share. I hate to say it but it seems that Maureen Collins Zupan has more empathy for a Somalian refugee that was cleaning her office ladies room in September 2011, than she does for women on the college campus of Hobart and William Smith Colleges?

She wrote about that Somalian woman:

In all fairness I wouldn’t want to be president of the board of trustees of this school right now for all the tea in China, and perhaps her response was in part crafted by the college’s spin doctors and image consultants? It’s not as if all she was saying is wrong, to me it was kind of sort of HOW she said it. She calls herself a feminist, mother, daughter, and so on. I have never met a true feminist yet who would sit still for something like this do you?

Also worth reading? A June 10th essay in The Atlantic.

All She Said Was No
A dangerous misunderstanding of sexual assault
JAMES HAMBLINJUN 10 2014, 1:35 PM

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George Will wrote in The Washington Post on Sunday that being sexually assaulted has become “a coveted status that confers privileges” such that “victims proliferate.” His remarks hit at the core of the misunderstanding and denial that condone sexual assault in its most common form:

Consider the supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. “sexual assault.” Herewith, a Philadelphia magazine report about Swarthmore College, where in 2013 a student “was in her room with a guy with whom she’d been hooking up for three months”…Six weeks later, the woman reported that she had been raped.Now the Obama administration is riding to the rescue of “sexual assault” victims. It vows to excavate equities from the ambiguities of the hookup culture, this cocktail of hormones, alcohol, and the faux sophistication of today’s prolonged adolescence of especially privileged young adults.

That Swarthmore vignette is sexual assault—not “sexual assault.” Most sexual assault is perpetrated by an acquaintance, not a masked man in the bushes with a knife, and its definition hinges not on physical force but absence of consent. This is a quintessential example of the shape sexual assault takes when it goes unreported and unpunished. Apart from editorial missteps like using skeptical quotes around sexual assault, and accusing an entire generation of faux sophistication while using “herewith” in a thoughtless take on a critical public-health issue, citing the Philadelphia rape story is fraught in that its resonating importance comes in the paragraphs just after Will stops quoting it.

….According to a report today from the U.S. Department of Education, the number of sexual assaults reported on college campuses increased by 50 percent between 2001 and 2011—from 2,200 to 3,300 cases. That’s actually more heartening than disconcerting, in that it’s unlikely that sexual assault increased by that much; rather, more victims are coming forward. They come forward when they don’t feel they’ll be blamed for being raped, dismissed as drunken sluts, and when there are appropriate outlets for reporting and justice. But it’s still underreported and underpunished, thus condoned.

James Hamblin makes a whole lot of sense. The US Department of Education and US Department of Justice report can be found by clicking on this link here.

We can’t and shouldn’t helicopter parent and can’t wrap them away from the world in cotton wool, but kids should not only learn quite clearly that no isn’t necessarily a negotiation and should mean NO, but they should be as safe as humanly possibly on college campuses.

Remember Jeanne Clery.

Thanks for stopping by.

baby crazy?

Posted on June 30, 2014 by carla

There is an article circulating around about a couple in Tredyffrin who have asked the Chester County Court System for protection from the birth/biological mother who lives out of state. The article reads like a Lifetime TV or true crime movie.

Adoptive parents seek protection from biological mother
By MICHAEL P. RELLAHAN, mrellahan@dailylocal.com
POSTED: 06/28/14, 5:36 PM EDT | UPDATED: 59 SECS AGO

WEST CHESTER — In an unusual court filing, a Tredyffrin couple has asked the court here to prohibit a Maryland woman and her husband from stalking them via the Internet and in person.

The Maryland woman, Michelle Stilipec, is the biological mother of the Tredyffrin couple’s son, but has waged an increasingly vituperative battle to gain custody of the young boy, claiming that she was the victim of an illegal and fraudulent adoption process — one of a number of dissatisfied mothers who have joined a loose “anti-adoption” campaign in the United States.

The Tredyffrin couple earlier this month filed a protection from abuse petition in Common Pleas Court, citing Stilipec’s alleged “ongoing threats, stalking (and) harassment,” behavior they say has become increasingly hostile.

On June 3, the petition alleges, Stilipec appeared at the mother’s workplace and at the couple’s home — addresses that she was not legally entitled to have information about, according to the couple’s West Chester attorney.

In the petition, filed on June 16, the mother alleged that Stilipec had posted flyers in her neighborhood accusing the couple of kidnapping her son, who she identifies as Jonathan Eagle Stilipec, and of committing adoption fraud….Michelle Stilipec also appears in a YouTube video that lasts for 20 minutes in which she describes her case. In it, she can be seen holding up a flyer with a photo of the Tredyffrin couple, who she labels “kidnappers” and accuses of adoption fraud. In it, she is dressed in a red, white, and blue blouse with stars…..“They encouraged my husband, son and myself to leave our home for fear that (Michelle Stilipec) was planning to abduct (the child),” the mother wrote in her PFA petition. “We had to leave our home, (and) take a leave of absence from work for an extended period of time.

This is something of interest to me because I was never able to have my own children. So if life circumstances been different, maybe I would have been one of those parents who adopted, instead of becoming a step-parent. I also know someone who has devoted their life’s work to a non-profit that assists parents trying to adopt with grants and whatnot.

I know many who have adopted, I grew up with kids who were adopted. In both instances, the kids always knew and I never knew any who had sought birth parents out when they were old enough, nor that birth parents sought these kids out. But I know both instances happen because face it, it is totally human nature to want to know where you came from.

The adoption process is arduous and expensive. That I know from friends. As a matter of fact I have one friend who opted out of the process years ago because it was just too hard on the couple. I have heard stories of single moms who were encouraged to give up their babies by their hospitals when they were born.

Baby stories are always heart wrenching. This one working its way through the Chester County Court system is just terrible to hear about.

This couple, I don’t know them and they aren’t named so I will call them John and Mary Doe, adopted a baby through a legitimate agency. And now the birth parents have decided they want their baby back and that their rights were violated. They have joined the ranks of what is described as an “anti-adoption movement.’

If the birth parents, who are apparently from Maryland, were just fighting this through the court system it wouldn’t necessarily be news. But because newspapers like the Daily Local are reporting things like the fact the birth parents started a Facebook page against the adoptive parents put up a kooky video on CNN and papered the neighborhood of the adoptive parents in Chester County with flyers on utility poles, this case is front and center.

None of us were there, so we don’t know what happened, but I still feel for the adoptive parents. They went through the adoption process legally by their account to the media and I guess in court documents. It looks like from the birth parents Facebook page and blog the agency was Adoptions From The Heart?

These birth parents by their own accounts on their Facebook page do not appear to be dumb or illl-informerd. In their own words they say:

-Michelle is a Veteran of the US Navy where she held a Top Secret Security Clearance. She has a B.A. in English and a background in holistic health. James is senior enlisted in the US Navy as a Mass Communications Specialist. We have no criminal record between us.

The birth parents imply that the media has gotten it all wrong and that the Tredyffrin Detective hasn’t been nice, basically. O.k. if people in the community you serve, your residents, appear as if they are being harassed, stalked, and basically cyber-bullied, how are you supposed to be? Matter of fact get to the bottom of it, right?

And where I keep getting stuck is it doesn’t seem like these adoptive parents just brought this baby home. It seems like they have been parenting him and providing a home for quite a while. And now they have by newspaper accounts had to flee their home and go into hiding? Who does this to people?

By their blog, these birth parent claim post-partum depression of two years ago when the adoption must have taken place so has this been going on that long? The blog doesn’t have many posts but the most coherent is the “our story” post from 2013. The rest of it reads of a person (or persons) suffering from deep emotional distress.

The blog is called Jonathan Eagle’s Law. Incidentally as per the Facebook page, the birth parents are not of Native American heritage.

The husband/birth father in this equation is apparently still active duty military. I just can’t get my head wrapped around how they went through a long process to adopt their baby out to another family legally and now this is happening.

At the end of the day, as this baby grows this horrible case threatens to become his life legacy and that doesn’t seem fair. Poor child.

The birth parents on their Facebook page wrote something about family support a few hours ago:

It would be nice if we had family to support us in this time, unfortunately that is not the case. We both came from broken homes where our spirits were broken and where we were asked to remain children rather than encouraged and blessed to become adults and live our own lives. People grow older and they mature, hurts from the past heal, but we can not force other people to grow up with us. It has only been our deepest desires to reconnect with our family but there must be openness and honestness on all sides.
We were told within the first year of our marriage that our choices were not ours, our house was not ours, and our womb was not ours. Those things belonged to them to control and Michelle was the other woman in her own marriage because she chose to become college educated and capable of earning a living before becoming a mother….correction, before allowing them to be grandparents. Michelle never had a mother, and she had watched single mothers struggle for a living.
Years ago we made the mistake of defending ourselves, as so many people do. We learned in time that the best thing to do is walk away and try to heal ourselves. We can not change others. We can not force our love others who tell us that they do not want our love; we can not heal someone of pain they will not talk about; we can not ask someone to love or respect us if they do not love or respect themselves.

I can’t tell who is doing most of the writing on this page, but an educated guess would be the birth mother. She seems to be in such emotional pain that I have to ask if she did have her child, would she be able to care for him?

There are no winners in this case. It will undoubtedly play out on a much more public stage than not, and I feel for the adoptive parents at the end of the day. They went through a process to adopt a child, and now this. I now understand why so many families choose closed versus open adoptions.

preserving choice in education in pennsylvania

Posted on April 29, 2014 by carla

Fifteen and twenty years ago I knew nothing about home schooling, cyber charter schools, or bricks and mortar charter schools. I wasn’t a parent, so I didn’t fully comprehend the importance of having such choice.

Yes, I predominantly went to private schools. But when I was in 7th to 9th grades I was in public school. Then called junior high in the much ballyhooed and over indulged Lower Merion School District. Welsh Valley Junior High School.

We had been living in the city, in Society Hill, and once we got past the 6th grade school choice as in a good and safe education meant little kids on buses and trains. So my parents made the move to suburbia at the end of 6th grade into the Magic Kingdom of the Main Line and Lower Merion Township.

The kids in the new neighborhood were awesome. They went to public, private, and Catholic school. Unfortunately, while my parents hoped that nice kids in a nicer neighborhood would translate into the public school I would be attending and it didn’t . Welsh Valley ended up being an education all right. Just not the positive or productive one that people like real estate agents would chatter about hoping you would purchase their listings. And some of those houses were classic. (And allow me a brief detour because I have to share the fact that as an 11 year old you haven’t lived until you have seen a Main Line house with not only a padded scream therapy room but a guest room devoted to a very odd collectible – an electric chair removed from some prison or something. The house was somewhere in Bryn Mawr.)

But back to public school. I have written about it before in detail, am not going into it again in such detail, so here are the cliff notes: drugs, bullying, inappropriate teachers, and behind the 8 ball scholastically when compared to my peer group in other schools, including other public school districts. I was a very bright student, smart enough to have been put more than a year ahead and my parents saw that their child was dying by inches in this educational environment that was supposed to be so fabulous. Only it wasn’t.

So the three year experiment was ended and I went back to private school. To Shipley. Private schools were almost affordable back then. Smaller classes, teachers who gave a damn, and actual academic excellence. It wasn’t a perfect Utopia, every school has issues, but I thrived. I will always be grateful that I was able to go to Shipley.

However, today private schools are ridiculous in price and their tuitions are beyond the reach of a lot of people. Even Catholic or other faith based schools are out of reach. Because of that, there is a need for education choice. We have seen the rise of cyber charter schools, bricks and mortar charter schools, and home schooling in Pennsylvania. These types of schools have filled the void created by that gargantuan public school vacuum in Pennsylvania.

I will freely admit that fifteen and twenty years ago I was a skeptic of alternative forms of education. But then I became a parent with a kid who was a faceless cog in the wheel of a giant school district who in my opinion did not care, or did not care enough. They did not care about effectively and consistently dealing with bullying even in elementary school. They did not care enough as a top down approach to education. And if you were the parents of a special needs child? Well I have friends who have children in that category and they will tell you that you have to fight for the basics in public schools every day. Even in affluent areas.

My personal experience is that of a very bright child who was suffocating. When my kid came home with “homework” that was not a book but a poorly copied copy of a Xerox copy of drivel I knew I was reaching a breaking point. When I experienced first hand a principal not dealing with overt, obvious, and repeated bullying, I knew I was beyond the breaking point. And this was not some inner city elementary school with no resources. This was East Goshen Elementary School in the West Chester Area School District. You would have thought that a school in what is supposedly Pennsylvania’s wealthiest county would be better than that, right? They weren’t.

And I know full well that teachers I know through social media who are in this district are going to be peeved at me once again. I also accept that friends of mine whose children were fortunate enough to make it through WCASD unscathed and prepared for life are not going to be happy either, but this is our experience, and I can’t dumb it down or sugar coat it, it happened.

I know I am not alone. I know a lot of parents in Chester County who either have their kids in charter/cyber-charter schools or who are home schooling. One friend in particular stands out. Her child is on the autism spectrum and was dying by inches in her Chester County school district. Her child was not getting needs even remotely met, and they were paying for it in taxes. So my friend decided to home school. The difference is remarkable. Her child is bright and articulate and is becoming a wonderful young lady who excels in school, loves to learn. She is like any other teen, and this is thanks not to the public school district where they live, but due to the determination of her parents.

We put our child in a charter school. As opposed to our parents, private school was not in the budget. The economics of today are very different, and when we were in private school we weren’t looking at $30k to $50k a year per child when all was said and done.

Our child is in Renaissance Academy in Phoenixville, and is thriving. The teachers care, they educate, the kids are nicer and brighter. Classes are smaller, which means your kid does not get lost, they are not just a cog in the wheel. And the irony is we are now in arguably the best school district in Chester County and we choose to keep our child there. He is happy. That also makes us lucky if we had to make a change, but most in charter or cyber charter schools can’t say that. And we all deserve choice. We are paying for it.

Another thing about how I feel now about alternatives to public school has to do with my peer group, my friends. I have two very good friends who are involved with charter and cyber charter schools. One in development and one from the administrative and educational side of the table. They are two of the brightest women I know and as a parent they are exactly the kinds of women I want in education today.

I am a realist, and I am not immune to what critics say about these schools. Yes there are issues with schools everywhere. We have seen it recently with an elite private school and some very upper crust public schools feeling the sting of a drug bust, and well then there is that principal from Chadds Ford who has “retired” after a PSSA testing scandal.

So are we bullet proof literally and figuratively no matter where we send our children to school? Absolutely not, but we pay enough in taxes every year to fund public school education that we should be able to have choice.

And there are two bills winding their way through Harrisburg that would rob parents of choice and detrimentally affect children’s lives. Especially those kids with special needs who often don’t get enough help now. Here, I will let Renaissance Academy describe it as they did in a notification to parents. It is fair and balanced and tells it like it is:

Last year, the legislature passed Act 3 which was an honest attempt to bring rationality to the funding of special education children. A commission was formed to draft a report and further legislation to achieve that objective. The commission did admirable work creating a three-tiered system and multipliers for each category of special education student. But two inequities arose in the recommended implementation. First, only in the case of charter schools is the funding based on basic education funding. Second, while the implementation is to apply only to the $20 million in new special education proposed by the Governor for traditional schools, it is applied to the total $1 billion in special education funding for charter schools.

These fundamental differences lead to two serious inequities. First, the discriminatory treatment of one class of special education student based, not on their challenges, but solely on the type of public school they have chosen to attend. The same child, with exactly the same challenges, would receive more state financial support if he or she were in a traditional school than if the family had chosen a charter school. Second, the decreased funding for charters destroys the ability of charter schools to meet state and federal FAPE requirements, and in some cases to continue to exist as a financially viable school.

To learn more about the specifics of these two bills HB 2138 and SB 1316:

Click here for HB 2138

Click here for SB 1316

I am not going to say all public schools are bad. They aren’t . But charter schools are a choice we should be allowed. Our child is in a very successful charter school and a public charter school is alternative public education. This is education we pay for, so we should not let lobbyists and politicians vote into laws things that remove educational choices.

This is of course another reason why I think people need to send Harrisburg a message this upcoming May primary. I think these bills are but another reason to render Governor Tom Corbett a lame duck. So use the power of your vote. Anyone who supports these bills either publicly as a sponsor or behind the scenes shouldn’t be representing us in Pennsylvania.

However, don’t just send a message with your vote, write your legislators. In Chester County it is suggested that you contact some or all of the following ASAP:

Dan Truitt (House/R) 610-696-4990

Robert Tomlinson (Senate/R) 215-638-1784

Pat Browne (Senate/R) 610-821-8468 – CO-SPONSOR of SB1085

Anthony Williams (Senate/D) 215-492-2980

Andy Dinniman (Senate/D) 610-692-2112,

Bernie O’Neill (House/R) CO-SPONSOR 215-441-2624

Dwight Evans (House/D) 215-549-0220

Jake Corman (Senate/R) 814-355-0477, Education & Appropriations committees

More information on what politicians do in Harrisburg:

House Education Committee:

Majority Members

Clymer, Paul I. – Chair YEA (215)257-0279

Aument, Ryan P. YEA (717) 295-5050

Christiana, Jim YEA (724) 728-7655

Emrick, Joe YEA (570) 897-0401

English, Harold A. YEA (412) 487-6605

Fleck, Mike YEA (814) 644-2996

Gillen, Mark M. YEA (610) 775-5130

Grove, Seth M. YEA (717) 767-3947

O’Neill, Bernie YEA (215)441-2624

Rapp, Kathy L. YEA (814) 723-5203

Reese, Mike YEA (724) 423-6503

Rock, Todd YEA (717) 749-7384

Simmons, Justin J. YEA (610) 282-3901

Tallman, Will YEA (717) 259-7805

Truitt, Dan NAY (610)696-4990

Minority Members

Roebuck, James R. – Chair YEA

Carroll, Mike YEA

Clay, James YEA

Conklin, Scott YEA

Harkins, Patrick J. YEA

Longietti, Mark YEA

Molchany, Erin C. YEA

O’Brien, Michael H. YEA

Santarsiero, Steven J. YEA

Wheatley, Jake YEA

Senate Appropriations Committee:

Majority

Tomlinson, Robert M., ViceChair
Pileggi, Dominic, Ex‑Officio
Scarnati, Joseph B., III, Ex‑Officio
Argall, David G.
Baker, Lisa
Brubaker, Mike
Eichelberger, John H., Jr.
Gordner, John R.
Greenleaf, Stewart J.
Mensch, Bob
Rafferty, John C., Jr.
Smucker, Lloyd K.
Vance, Patricia H.
Vogel, Elder A., Jr.
Vulakovich, Randy
Minority

Ferlo, Jim, MinorityViceChair
Costa, Jay, Ex‑Officio
Blake, John P.
Farnese, Lawrence M., Jr.
Schwank, Judith L.
Solobay, Timothy J.
Washington, LeAnna M.
Wozniak, John N.
Yudichak, John T

Be polite when you contact these people. Suggested talking points are as follows:

1. These changes would ensure that that the same special education child, with exactly the same challenges, would receive 30–60 percent less state financial support if he or she were in a public charter school than if the family had chosen to remain in the traditional public school. That is outrageous and blatantly discriminatory. At RA we have 160 Special Education students, this will be nearly a $1.5 million dollar impact on our small school.

2. This inequity will most likely also prevent my school from meeting mandated state and federal FAPE (Free and Appropriate Education) requirements, and could cause us to close –based, not on quality, but on insufficient funding.

3. The financial implications of the implementation of this bill is disastrous for one class of special education students, and will be a major step in the direction of eliminating educational choice for Pennsylvania parents.
There may not be any charter schools left in PA if this bill passes. Why are our public charter school kids being discriminated against as if they are not as worthy as traditional public school students? Our charter school kids deserve the same funding as every other public school child.

4. Children, regardless of the school they choose, should be getting the same amount of money. These are real children, with real disabilities who will get hurt by this. And if this passes, ALL of the kids in the school will be hurt because the school will not survive. We ask you, in the best interests of ALL our children, to not support this legislation.

My friends who work for an with charter and cyber charter schools are telling me that right now schools are trying to figure out how to cut 10% and more out of their budgets. Want to know why I admire charters other than the choice they provide our kids? They actually do more with less every single day. As opposed to traditional public schools and school districts they actually try harder. And well, yes, a lot of charter and cyber charter schools are making traditional public school systems look bad and work harder. I am all for that.

Students and parents deserve choice. Please join the fight to preserve such choice.

I hear a lot of parents who have kids in Charter Schools will be going to Harrisburg on May 6th. That is next Tuesday. A lot of these parents can’t really afford a day off, but they are making the choice for their children.

I hope the media will pick up on this as well. Education is so important. And the media is NOT talking about this, it’s not sexy enough for them or sensationalistic. It’s only education, right?

You can find information on the website of the Pennsylvania Coalition for Public Charter Schools.

Your voice is needed to preset student equity and my final note is this is not merely another pissing match between traditional public schools and public charter schools. As the Pennsylvania Coalition for Public Charter Schools says (and I quote):

This is not a traditional vs. charter school issue. It is about institutionalized discrimination against special education students based on the school they have chosen to attend. A special education student in a charter school will receive between 30-60 percent less than a student with the same challenges in a traditional school.

My child is not special needs. He is merely a kid who needed a better choice in public education and a charter school has provided that. But I have friends with special needs kids. I know how they scrimp and sacrifice. So for them as well as more generally speaking, anyone who chooses alternative public school education for their children, I write this post. It is also my belief that it won’t be just special needs kids who suffer if these bills are just passed into law the way they are now.

Thanks for stopping by.

the happiness quotient

Posted on April 11, 2014 by carla

These are two old snapshots of Vermont taken approximately 25 years ago now. We used to go up there once in a while and stay at my father’s friend Patrick’s house in Bondville. It was a very happy place for all of us and quite beautiful.

Waking up happy is such an amazing feeling, isn’t it? I woke up feeling so much better this morning. It has been three weeks since my surgery, and although I still feel tired, I just feel better today.

I think the weather helps too. It’s spring and the air is that soft yet sweet air that almost is fluffy. And the birds trill in the mornings. It’s ever so different from waking up on a winter’s morning because I think we all just had too much of winter this winter. It went from being a winter wonderland of new fallen snow to “when is this stuff going to melt?” Didn’t it?

Happy is an elusive thing at times, yet so basic. We all want to be happy, but we don’t always reach happy, or it is fleeting. But does it have to be fleeting? I don’t think so.

Part of being happy is loving and being loved. Part of it is being grateful for what you have and owning who you are.

Being happy isn’t pretending. Pretending is imagining a possibility to some, but to others it is a non-acceptance of reality. Pretense takes all forms, and you have to feel for the great pretenders you meet. They are obsessed with stuff and not substance. Or they pretend because their reality is too just hard for themselves. Unfortunately, to me, their view of the world is narrow, and they always think the rest of us can’t see them as they really are, but we do see them with their life underwear hanging out. That is sad.

Happiness comes with contentment and a sense of belonging and place I think. I have that. I wake up loving who I am with, where I am, and the woman I am becoming. I say “becoming”, because I believe we continue to evolve as people as we age.

Do I have self-doubt at times? Sure. I think we all do if we are honest. But the thing is now I can also see myself reflected in the eyes of someone who truly loves me for who I am, not who they think I should be. There is a big difference there.

I also think part of being happy is being with people who are happy and happy with you.

I hate to look back, but sometimes I do because not for anything else, it makes me truly appreciate where I am now. It’s not like my prior life with the ex factor was all bad, it wasn’t. But in retrospect, when you are with a glass half-empty person who always seems angry and of the mind set “the world owes them” versus a glass half-full person with a positive and peaceful outlook in the long term it makes a big difference. A friend once upon a time said God did a lift out on my life to give me the life I should have. I can’t disagree, and I am grateful. I am also grateful because for a while I found myself becoming a glass half-empty person. I did not like that person in me or in others.

We all come from something and somewhere, and we have to own that. But we can’t let past unhappy rule our futures, right? Isn’t it more positive to learn from what has occurred in the past and just move on? And I say that as someone who has worked hard to learn and let go. But then I realized a few months ago I actually had learned to let some stuff go, and I found that really peaceful.

Women are wired to hold onto stuff, and I am not perfect (nor do I pretend to be), but seriously? I feel different about myself and being positive and happy and grateful is actually real. Yet, at the same time I accept I am a work in progress. Some days will always be better than others, but the thing is this, believing in better being possible and being happy actually makes things better.

There are some we will encounter in our lives who we will bring into our worlds, and share our lives with for a while who will always hold part of themselves back. There are just some people who don’t share in return and part of them will always be that combination of stuck and selfish. You can’t change them, you aren’t responsible for them. Leave them to their states of envy and dissatisfaction. Life is too short to waste air space on those people. There will always be people richer than you, poorer than you, bigger house, smaller house, fatter, thinner, and so on. Why not just be grateful for what you have and be happy? I have said it before, but it is true , that it really took experiencing and having breast cancer to start to free me as a person and begin to change my perspective in some regards.

I think we learn from the people in our lives. The ones who stay, the ones who leave our lives for whatever reason, and those who are short term blips on the radar.

Maybe people will find this post too much and too zen. Yes, I think a lot, and this is what I woke up thinking about. Maybe that is why I like to write so much. Writing makes me happy and I used to feel so guilty about that. Why? Because I made the mistake of listening to someone once who said my writing was just self-aggrandizement. Well it’s not. It is part of who I am. (And in my head I feel my mother somewhere smiling at the 12 year old me who screamed at her and said “I hate writing! I never want to be a writer!”)

Writing and photography are the ways I express myself. Both skills do indeed make me happy and I work hard at both. There will always be those more talented than I, and I am quite o.k. with that. Life isn’t a competition, we all have our place in it.

Part of being happy is liking who you are as a human being. Some days that is not easy. I have been a partial being of not so happy since my surgery. A lot of that had to do with the physical pain post surgery and the hum of exhaustion that rules your body after a few hours of surgery. You just feel miserable. You don’t mean to, don’t want to, it just is. But today, I woke up and just felt happy and more like myself. Like I had turned a corner, so it made me think about happiness.

Spring is a great season to think about things like what makes you happy and what being happy is. Spring is a season of renewal, is it not?

In a little over a month I will be 50 years old. It’s funny I remember being 18 and about 21 and wondering what the 50 year old me would be like. I remember at the time not really being able to picture it because to an 18 and then 21 year old, it just seemed so old. The reality is it is not so old, not so bad. It’s looking forward to the next chapter of my life.

The reality of turning 50 isn’t about someone throwing you a big birthday party, it’s an acceptance of sorts of knowing who you are as a person. And liking your life, being happy, being loved. It’s about realizing is where the grass is always greener is in your own back yard. Not someone else’s.

Thank you for joining me on this slightly flowing, slightly rambling stream of consciousness. Be happy and find your magic in everyday life.

april fools’

Posted on April 1, 2014 by carla

April Fools’ on me is it is so nice outside and I am still recovering from recent surgery. So I have been restoring a quilt and reading. I hate to say I am tired, but wow I am tired.

Reading is a delightful luxury. Novels, back issues of The New Yorker (which I apparently first picked up as a small child for the cartoons according to my parents), and a newspaper column I have read some of online from Maine I find fascinating because I think parts of it would make great skits for Saturday Night Live….or a series of New Yorker cartoons.

I have a bunch of friends who are a combination of native New Englanders and transplants. A few are in Maine. So the “Mainers” talk about a columnist in The Portland Daily Sun named Natalie Ladd. Not because her writing is so fabulous but because ( and I marvel at this) that she has apparently turned being a master kvetcher into a column. It’s like if Erma Bombeck was a whiner, and was kind of sort of humor-free.

Part of me marvels at that because in my Walter Mitty dreams a newspaper or magazine offers me a column some day because they love my writing style. It’s not that far-fetched because when I first began my transition out to Chester County, for a while I was writing online articles for The Philadelphia Inquirer’s now defunct online Neighbors blog. It was so fun and I loved it. I would pick my topics and pitch them. And of course my other dream is to have a one woman photography show in some super cool Chester County gallery.

So I think “maybe some day” and keep honing my crafts.

But I marvel at this Natalie Ladd. She has made herself a career of sorts via her column which seems to basically journal her midlife crisis meets empty nester. There she is in her “headshot” for the paper a woman of a certain age and definitely older than I. She has the worst glasses seen since Sally Jesse Rafael left television. And she is clutching a baby bottle in one hand and a mortar board in the other. You are almost embarrassed for her until you read a few of her columns and then it hits you: she’s the woman you avoid in the grocery store.

Because blogging is a personal writing journey, I hope I never morph into the woman who can’t deal with the empty nest (or anything else) like I see in these columns.

I could see being a columnist and writing a few columns about being an empty nester, but not making it as a variation on the theme of your personal aging and your main kvetch.

I asked some friends who are almost and total “empty nesters” what it is like. My one friend loves it until the dirty laundry mountain comes home to visit …..and she has quality time with piles of dirty clothes and not the kids. Another friend said it was hard at first but then you have to view it as an accomplishment because you have raised these amazing human beings who are your children to be fine individuals in their own right and this is the natural progression.

I never asked my mother how she felt. My parents just seemed to go about their lives and my sister and I developed our adult lives. I wonder how I will be when my stepson hits the road for college. I think that I know I will miss him because he is a very cool kid and I love him, but the reality is I want him to spread his wings and explore the world. It will be his time.

So this to me, after reading this woman’s columns (not all, because I just don’t have the stamina or interest) this stems from not necessarily just the proverbial empty nest, but the fact that she is not one with aging.

Maybe I look at life overly simplistically in some regards now. I look in the mirror and yes, basically a 50 year old woman stares back at me and some days I am literally thinking “when did 50 happen?”

But what am I supposed to do here? Act like a teenager, dress like a teenager, and avoid aging and be generally embarrassing ? But then I step back and well ….there will always be someone older than me, younger than me, poorer than me, richer than me, bigger house, smaller house, and so on. That is like the balance of life. So why not just be more accepting and move on?

Another friend and I were talking this morning about how we have stayed together as friends and love our lives, our homes, our families. Nothing is perfect, it doesn’t have to be. We are grateful for what we have and for each other. We were once part of a larger circle, and the circle has shrunk as other women we know have changed and spread out into different circles that fit their lives.

We have seen some morph into cliques of mean girls in rather strange places like church groups. Who knew Sunday school meant mean mommy time? I find that sad. People using the church lady cloak to just be bitchy is so 1960s and the era of drunken cocktail parties.

We also marvel at the ones who worked really hard to get their goals (for lack of a better description) and who are so malcontented that they still can’t be happy. Ever. We all have those moments, but what happened that these people let it drive the bus? Life isn’t a Real Housewife franchise even if we like to watch that sometimes on television.

And then there are the friends who are just lost. There is a sadness when we discuss them, because we miss the people they used to be.

Life and relationships are work. And maintenance and selflessness. Life and relationships are fabulous and messy and wonderful. And we age. Like it or not as someone in my house likes to remind me, we aren’t 18 anymore.

Good, because I don’t need to be 18 again. It was fun, but that teenage girl is not the me of today. Parts of her still live within me I suppose, but I kind of like where I am. I am happy and I am loved….and I have a big garden all my own that I can create and a house that is perfect for my family.

Does that sound simplistic ? Maybe it does or maybe through life experience and my aging I have learned what is important. Part of my life experience has been breast cancer. That is why I also write a breast cancer blog. But the odd thing about having breast cancer is in a lot of ways it has freed me. Maybe why I don’t fear turning 50 and beyond is because I know I could have also NOT been that lucky to attain 50.

In closing today I share New Yorker cartoons. One from their March 17th edition and one from their March 24th edition. Although the grown up in me reads the New Yorker for the fabulous articles and solid writing, the child I once was still loves the cartoons.

Thanks for stopping by today.

passages (life and time march forward)

Posted on March 30, 2014 by carla

With Lily my first dog. 1960s – maybe 1966

My apologies to author Gail Sheedy for my post title. But it (passages) just sort of popped into my head and there it sits. That is how writing happens for me – often with just a word that dangles there until I pick it up.

I know I am recovering from my surgery and although exhausted and still experiencing pain, I am feeling better because I woke up with the beginnings of something to write navigating my brain from subconscious to conscious.

I woke up thinking about my childhood friend Suzette. I don’t know why I thought of her in particular but I had this random thought of her parents’ house in Gladwyne. And watching M*A*S*H on television with her. I think we were around 12.

Her neighborhood was one of my favorites back then. It was when Gladwyne still had lots of woods, open space, and fewer McMansions and the pretense of the people who go with them. People still rode horses on the roads.

Ok so all my childhood friends are the average age of 50 to 52. Some are in the 48 to 50 range. ‘When did we get to this age?” I ask myself sometimes.

At historic Harriton House circa 1976 – 1977

It’s a crazy concept how fast time goes. I knew my sweet man in high school and I can still see him in my mind’s eye wearing a brown turtleneck leaning against a door jamb and looking really amused at something. He spent a lot of time looking amused at us girls during high school.

I remember sneaking out of the Shipley Boarding Department with my friend Abbi to take the train and go to a UPenn party given by or partially hosted by another girl’s older brother. Of course then, I also remember barely making the last train home and getting back into the dorm without the dorm mother knowing. I can’t remember her name but she just made you want to get stuff by her. She was like a prison warden.

Now all of a sudden I am not quite but almost 50 but looking at it closely. How in the heck did that happen?

I remember talking to another life long friend Liza a couple of weeks ago. I said to her I remember our parents being our age…and now we are their age from back then. Boy did we laugh. Our parents back in the day…together…was so much fun.

Same with my friends Lizzy and Nicky. I have so many memories with them. Their father is the first person who took me to the Library of Congress. I also remember the Italian car – Alpha maybe – that their father had that had this horrible smell when they bought it. It was new, directly from Italy, and eventually we learned the odor – a salami sandwich left inside by one of the factory workers behind a door panel. Their father, like mine is gone, but their mother is still with us. And what a cool smart woman she is. Who can cook better than Julia child. She is amazing.

Some of my friends are grandparents already. And then there is me, the late bloomer, just getting used to helping to raise a teenager. And I look at him and remember being that age. It is such a weird concept. And when I was his age, my life wasn’t about video games and texting my friends. We used the phone (too much) and we wore…wait for it…Love’s Baby Soft. (Talk about an OMG you just dated yourself moment…)

My sister and I with Riccardo Muti and Eugene Ormandy. Sometime in the late 1970s or maybe 1980

So I have pretty much completed the first 50. Was it all I had hoped? I am not really sure. I know it has taken me a little longer to get where I wanted to be, but that is partially fate and partially me. I think if I had listened to my inner voice more often I would have made fewer mistakes. But aren’t mistakes part of how you gain that elusive thing called life experience? And who is perfect, anyway? I certainly am not (my mother will tell you she is, but that is a mother thing that just makes you smile.)

Some people get really bent when they hit that half century mark. I don’t know what I am. I don’t feel 50, generally speaking. I am still figuring out when I stopped being a teenager. It just seems that in a blink of an eye, here I am. I guess that is why when you are growing up, those older than you like grandparents will tell you not to waste your life.

If I measure my life by the dogs I have owned it has been a pretty awesome journey. I won’t however, measure my age in dog years.

As I look out my window I see my world as it exists today. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. It is what I always wished for in my heart of hearts. My own house, my own garden, my own family. It’s nice, really nice to have all this and I value and appreciate it.

I love my life, but still I ask: when did I get to the point that I am looking at 50? I guess that is a great mystery of life I will continue to unravel. But I have to say being almost there, it’s not so bad. Nor is it as old as I thought it would be when I was a teenager.

Life and time march on. Your life doesn’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to be perfect. But as we age and gain that thing called life experience I think we at least learn to value the important things, the right things. And I am not talking money and social stature. I am talking hearth and home. I am talking good relationships and real friendships. Because face it, after the superficial is gone, that is what is important. That and a little faith in God.

Have a good Sunday, everyone. Thanks for joining me on this slightly philosophical ramble.

do parents have the right to parent?

Posted on March 5, 2014 by carla

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 Sasha Goldstein / 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?

Now 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 Sasha Goldstein / 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”

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:

And then there are the photos of the parents and this girl 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.

Court 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 ?

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…..

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Published: Monday, March 3, 2014, 5:07 PM

Updated: Tuesday, March 4, 2014, 9:40 AM

Tuesday, March 4, 2014, 6:45 PM

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