Posted on 12/28/2012 7:44:29 AM PST by Uncle Chip
A music theater student has won a stalking order against her parents who admitted they installed monitoring software on her computer and phone to ensure that she succeeded.
David and Julie Ireland have been ordered to have no contact with their 21-year-old daughter - their only child - before September 23, 2013 and must keep 500 feet away from her at all times.
The unusual case concerns Aubrey Ireland, a musical theater major who regularly fills lead roles at Cincinnati's prestigious College-Conservatory of Music and has made the Dean's List every quarter.
Despite this success, her parents often drove 600 miles from their home in Leawood, Kansas, to visit her unannounced and to accuse her of promiscuity, of using drugs and of having mental issues.
They even informed her head of department that she had mental problems and that they were considering going to court to force her to get treatment, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
When she cut off all contact, they stopped paying her tuition and demanded she return the $66,000 they had spent. The judge refused and the college gave her a full scholarship for her final year.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
These aren’t helicopter parents. They’re DRONE PARENTS!
Good for the judge. At 21, it’s harrassment clearly, including the money, used to attempt to control her. Parents do owe their children an education, and it’s generally a sacrifice for most parents. Excelling at university on the parents dime is frosting on the cake. Any moral issues belong, by now, with the daughter. Their job is over.
Did I miss something in this story?
Could be very true. Her parents get accused of controlling her life but Lanza's parents got blamed for not controlling his life more. Which is it? Make up your mind. Can't have it both ways. Just like Lanza's parents, these parents were going through the legal process of getting her treatment. Both these kids lashed out.
I know smart good kids who go off to college and totally spin out of control. Failing grades, loss of scholarships, can't be bothered to show up for class, in bed which whatever wanders by, drugs, spending like there's no tomorrow and lying to their parents about everything under the sun. If mom asks what they did the day before they go crazy accusing mom of spying on them. If dad asks how their grades are they go crazy accusing dad of spying on them. Excuse me, but it's the parents who have sacrificed to put them in college and give them a good future. The parents deserve their money back if she's pulling this bs. Not another dime to her and don't expect Christmas or birthday presents and don't show up on their doorstep acting as if nothing has happened begging her parents to pay her rent. I don't see her buying herself a new computer and phone that doesn't have "stalking" software on them. If she's really an adult who doesn't need her parents then get her own cell phone account instead of being on daddy's account. It's not exactly easy to drive 12 hours or more to stalk her like she's claiming. If/when she crashes and burns, so be it, but when she does the parents will be blamed.
I gather it was her who took this to the media. 'Nuff said.
At 17, or 18, you may be very correct about parental “standards”, but parents do owe their children gainful employment apart from the home,moral standards, if they can afford it at all. At 21, parents butt out of manipulating an adult child with their heavy handed threats and demands, stalking, especially with a student who fulfilled the expectations of academic excellence with mom’s money. Their haunting intrusion must have been a load to carry and still succeed under duress. (Unless the story is a crock, and I missed it.)
Years ago my mother told me when I started to have children......remember your children are only loaned to you for 18 years, Too many kids and parents today think they own their kids. As long as mom and dad pay the bills, its OK with the kids, they don’t need to grow up...
I think your advice is good. They are giving her the choice to return home to somewhat of a safety net to regroup/redirect, or to try to make it on her own and face the consequences. I agree with you. They should cut off the out of town college expenses now (do you know whether they decided yet for January semester? - just curious).
If she does come home, they need to sit down and put in writing, what they all agree to do... with the onus to be on the daughter to make progress/achievement checkpoints.
“I gather it was her who took this to the media..”
I wondered that myself. A young woman in theater and now her name/picture/acting clips are out there. Perhaps she has learned that any publicity is good publicity? With this case.. time will tell. If she makes it on her own then so be it. If she crashes and truly does have the beginning symptoms of a mental disorder then that will surface in time as well. I do hope she realizes though that she will go through the world without her parents. Sad...
Well, given that she is scoring these lead roles in musical productions, I don’t think she is necessarily the falling-apart type of student you described.
My first thought is that once you take the money (from the parents), then you give up your right to privacy (no different than when I’m at my job). So, if you want the privacy (at any age), then get scholarships and/or a job and stop asking mom/dad for bucks.
I say the above because I know way too many parents that pay for their kids’ college, but then are shut out of the lives of those same kids. If the parents are cool with that, fine - lots of people have $100k laying around to waste, and more power to them if they can be so loose with it. But most parents that I know don’t have that kind of extra money and would like to know what their kids are doing at college. I always tell them to set the terms: If you want money from me for college, then give me your Facebook (real account), E-Mail, and other passwords, along with access to your apartment, via a key. If you instead want your privacy, then you are free to finance your adult life yourself and I will treat you with the same respect that I treat the personal lives of my friends and coworkers.
But this goes further. First, unless the parents laid out terms and conditions from the outset, and she agreed to them (which isn’t stated either way), then any money they gave in the past is gone - they have no claim on it. Asking for it back, to me, is simply illegal. Next, once she was financially free of the parents, they are no longer her parents, but a pair of adults stalking a young lady - they simply have no claim to her and the school should have them arrested, even without the restraining order.
They should send her a letter stating
“Hi honey,
Thanks for the restraining order.
We wanted to send you a copy of our will but you aren’t in it!”
Lindsay Lohan, Robert Downey Jr., Amanda Bynes, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, the kids on Diff’rent Strokes, Jodie Sweetin, Britney Spears, Danny Bonaduce, Mackenzie Phillips, Michael Jackson....
“I wondered that myself. A young woman in theater and now her name/picture/acting clips are out there. Perhaps she has learned that any publicity is good publicity? With this case.. time will tell. “
Well she is trying to play an absolute psycho, Evita, and looking at the pictures, she’s doing a very good at it.
They have decided to let her go back and re-evaluate in the Spring. This issue really has caused quite a disrupt with the parents. Initially, the Dad suggested she come home and Mom said, “She isn’t doing anything that everybody else isn’t doing”. Then Mom wanted her home and Dad pushed to let her pull herself up for one more semester. What is somewhat unusual is this girl has always been bright, respectful, well behaved and wouldn’t go to a University that offered a partial scholarship because it was a known “party school”. I guess the child that initially leaves isn’t necessarily how the child will remain. I agree that they need to put it down in writing. That way, “I don’t remember that part” isn’t a factor, is it?
Just my two cents worth but I feel that parents that pay the tuition or other items have a “say” in what is expected. Don’t get arrested, don’t get on “academic probation”, do as well as you can grade wise and get a part time job to help with costs isn’t a huge list to ask for. Perhaps I hold this belief because I worked close to full time to help with costs and knew that my widowed Mother was busting her butt as a nurse to pay the tuition. With two younger brothers needing items, I knew my tuition was a family sacrifice. Thus, I tried to earn this “gift” with good behavior, grades and worked as much as humanely possible to pay for gas, car insurance, car tires/oil, my own clothes, food, etc.. I didn’t see my four years in college as expected... I saw it as an investment in my future and financially... it was a risk to my Mother and younger siblings.
The parents should look on the bright side:
They are saving $22,000+ for her final year in school, AND if she does suffer any negative consequences from the negative behaviour that they are alleging, then they are now off the hook per this judge’s order.
After watching a movie on ted Bundy the other night I can see the parents side on this.
“They have decided”...
Are you familiar with these people?
Really. It doesn’t sound like they’re in a position to “let” her do anything whatsoever, and that they may maneuver themselves into the slammer if they insist on the knuckledragger psycho routine.
They seem to need a couple years cooling off period.
“They have decided”.. was the rest of the story to another freeper. A completely different case but has some similarities. With respect to the couple in the article, I think they have probably lost any sort of relationship with their daughter. Perhaps in a couple of years, the daughter may want to re-establish a relationship but it will be in her court. (no pun intended). Sad case really. A couple loses their only child and a daughter loses her parents.
post #19 explains the current friend case with NEMDF.
I had a little of that with my son, his first year in college (although he had always done very well in school, worked part time jobs, was in sports) was a struggle for him to settle down and apply himself. But he was smart enough to recognize that, and enlisted in the USMC, did his four years and two Iraq deployments, came home and got married, decent full-time job, bought a house, got a dog, had a baby, then graduated college in 2011, a couple promotions. So maybe she will get her act together.
When my daughter was in college, struggled with some of the classes, and at one point suggested that she might take another year to finish. I told her it would cost her a full year’s salary that she would not yet be earning, plus a full year’s cost of college expenses on student loans (because I had committed a certain dollar amount to her college costs, however long it took). When put in that context, she got herself to an advisor and had a plan in place a few days later to retake a class at community college, get some hours in summer school, and graduated in four years (BRN).
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