Pardon me while I rant incessantly: Thank you, entitlement generation

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There are children who suffer horrible abuse and neglect at the hands of the people who are supposed to love and protect them: their moms and dads.

There are also children who bear emotional scars from parents who were doing the best they could for their kids. Parents who were simply ill-equipped to raise their children into emotionally healthy adults.

There are days when I think I’m the worst mother in the world because I’ve allowed my own foul mood to spill onto my kids and overreact to some minor infraction. I wonder if there’s any parent who hasn’t felt this way.

As adults, how many of us have questioned to what extent how our parents treated us as children has impacted who we are today? Both positively and negatively? If everyone had a wonderful childhood, we would put the practice of psychiatry out of business. Mostly likely the alcohol and illegal drug trade as well.

But what if you could SUE the offending parent? Certainly would help with those therapy sessions and bar tabs, no?

That’s what this enterprising brother and sister duo attempted to do:

20 year old Kathryn Miner and her 23 year old brother, Steven Miner

According to a story from ABC News, the adult children of 55 year old Kimberly Garrity were attempting to sue her for being a lousy mom. “The children sought $50,000 for emotional distress stemming from the damage of her supposed bad mothering.” The news report goes on to say:

The case was originally tossed by a Cook County circuit court, but the kids appealed. Last week, an Illinois appellate court also dismissed it.

Raised in a $1.5 million home by their father, the children alleged the Garrity was a lousy mom because she failed to send money for birthdays, called her daughter home early from homecoming, and threatened to call the police on her son, then 7, if he didn’t buckle up in the car.

Steven also accused his mother of once smacking him on the head, saying that he still suffers from headaches. One of the exhibits in the case included a birthday card that Steven called “inappropriate” because it failed to include cash or a check.

The card did include the inscription, “Son I got you this Birthday card because it’s just like you ? different from all the rest!” On the inside Garrity wrote, “Have a great day! Love & Hugs, Mom xoxoxo,” according to court documents cited by the Chicago Tribune.

Oh, where do I begin?

Two bratty children raised by their father in a million dollar home, mad at their mother because she didn’t shower them with the lavish gifts their father did and actually had the audacity to tell them no. And frankly, Garrity didn’t smack that kid in the head hard enough if she was trying to smack some sense into him.

Incidentally, the kids’ lawyer? Yeah…their dad. Kimberly Garrity’s ex-husband.

Miner did not respond to messages left by ABC news, but said in court papers that he filed the lawsuit after much legal research and had tried to dissuade his children from bringing the case.

Why would their father agree to take on their case (presumably pro-bono, because I’m guessing neither one of these kids have worked an honest day in their lives in order to pay for a lawyer) knowing from the start that it was a case they would most likely lose?

Here’s what Garrity’s attorney had to say (source Bossip.com):

In court papers, Garrity’s attorney Shelley Smith said the “litany of childish complaints and ingratitude” in the lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt by Garrity’s ex-husband to “seek the ultimate revenge” of having her children accuse her of “being an inadequate mother.”

“It would be laughable that these children of privilege would sue their mother for emotional distress, if the consequences were not so deadly serious” for Garrity, Smith wrote. “There is no insurance for this claim, so (Garrity) must pay her legal fees, while (the children) have their father for free.”

I guess it’s true what they say. The spoiled, rotten sense of entitlement fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.

This is a ridiculously extreme case of the entitlement generation run amok, but it permeates American society on so many levels.

But that’s an entirely different rant. Maybe next time…