Being a teenager is tough: You want to do grown-up things like ignore your chores, break curfew, and date your sketchy boyfriend and attend private high school and college without paying for it, but sometimes the adults in your life just won’t enable you to do all that at once. New Jersey’s 18-year-old Rachel Canning recently gained international attention for trying to escape that reality by suing her parents, Sean and Elizabeth Canning, for child support, current and future tuition, and legal fees after she moved out of their house rather than follow the rules about the aforementioned chores, curfew, and boyfriend. She did this with the help of her friend’s much more reasonable father, high-powered lawyer John Inglesino who, in addition to putting her up and fronting her the money for legal fees, allegedly allowed kids to have “alcohol parties” at his home. But, last week, a judge declined to issue an emergency order for Canning’s parents to give her $600 a week, and it seems she has realized that you just can’t fight the system.
Though the judge had scheduled an April hearing to address the question of whether the Cannings are obligated to financially support Rachel, who is technically an adult, her lawyer announced on Wednesday that she “has returned home and reunited with her parents and siblings.” He added that “her return home is not contingent on any financial and/or other considerations.” That’s pretty understanding of them, especially in light of the very public Facebook post she wrote criticizing “the financial greed of modern parents who are more concerned with retiring into some fantasy world rather than provide for their children’s college and young adult years.” Parents: They might not always understand you, but their financial fantasy worlds do tend to be a little closer to reality than yours (if you happen to be a teen).
