I’m sure that many of you in Canada have heard the story about the Quebec Grade 6 girl who took her dad to court after he grounded her from attending an end of year school trip. Apparently the father grounded the girl after he discovered she had posted pictures of herself on an internet dating site.
If you haven’t read the story, you can find CBC’s version here.
At first I thought this was a very black and white story. It was ridiculous that the judge would overturn the case. However, the more I’ve read on it, the more a realize that this story goes much deeper. This girls parent’s are divorced and her parents on not on good terms with each other.
It turns out that the girl had a major fight with her step mom, and decided to go live with her mom. Her mom gave permission for her to go on the trip, while dad forbade it.
While I still don’t think it’s a good idea for a court to get involved in an issue like this one, I do think there is a much bigger concern in this story. What is wrong with two adults when they basically allow a situation to escalate to this level? Why isn’t this mom and dad sitting down like mature adults and working through this issue until they come to a mutual understanding. I don’t care how they are doing when it comes to their relationship with one another, there should be the ability to set aside those differences when dealing with their children.
Unfortunately, that isn’t always the situation, and as a result, we end up with cases like this one.
Sometimes I’m amazed at our country.
