Free Republic

The New Jersey teenager who sued her parents has received a domestic violence restraining order against the boyfriend her mom and dad always hated. Rachel Canning, 18, made headlines last year when she moved out of her family's Lincoln Park home, then demanded her parents pay her child support. The family had been fighting for months over Rachel's wild behavior.... .....

The New Jersey teen who made headlines when she sued her parents for child support after moving out of their home was back in court Wednesday, this time to obtain a temporary restraining order against her boyfriend, The Star-Ledger reported. Rachael Canning, the honor student who sued her parents earlier this year for $650 a week, the remainder of her Catholic school tuition and attorney fees, obtained the order against her beau, Lucas Kitzmiller, 18. He was the teen her parents reportedly asked her to stop seeing at the time of the initial suit. Canning' father said Kitzmiller choked her...

Blogging for the Ruth Institute, Jennifer Johnson recounted her experience of growing up with five parents. The piece responds to claims by Masha Gessen, a prominent LGBT activist who was recently honored by the state department, who has famously celebrated her own unorthodox family as the shape of things to come: I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally… I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage....

The parents who were stranded at sea with their two young daughters and had to be rescued by a U.S. Navy warship say they plan to sue their satellite phone carrier and hope any monetary winnings will allow them to help repay the government's cost of their rescue. “To see people show up to help you like that is pretty amazing,” Eric Kaufman told ABC News, referring to the team from California Air National Guard’s 129th Rescue Wing that parachuted out of a plane into the frigid waters off the coast of Mexico to save his family. Kaufman and his...

President Barack Obama does not believe his temporary amnesty program for illegal immigrant children has exacerbated the border crisis even though the number of illegal immigrant kids crossing the border spiked the year after he unilaterally enacted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in 2012. In fact, Obama thinks programs like DACA and a comprehensive amnesty bill are ways to solve the border crisis. Addressing the press Wednesday after meeting with Texas Governor Rick Perry to discuss the border crisis in Dallas, Obama, when asked if programs like DACA have caused or contributed to the crisis,

The orphaned Florida teen whose impassioned plea for a family to 'love him forever' prompted an outpouring of sympathy from around the country has been removed from his foster home following a physical altercation with another child and the father. After 16 years of floundering in foster care, after taking the pulpit at a St. Petersburg church last September asking someone - anyone - to adopt him, after his story was shared around the world and 10,000 people offered to help or take him home, Davion Only moved to Ohio in March to live with the parents who had promised...

"A crowd of 300 angry protestors forced three buses carrying 140 undocumented migrant children and their parents to turn around in Murrieta, California, on Tuesday after they blocked the road. The dramatic confrontation between the flag waving protestors and the Homeland Security buses came one day after Mayor Alan Long urged residents to resist the federal government's plan to transfer the Central American migrants to California to ease overcrowding of facilities along the Texas-Mexico border. Holding up banners that said 'Return to Sender' and suggesting the children should be sent to the White House instead, the irate protestors succeeded when...

(CNN) -- As the controversy surrounding Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl release gains growing attention, Bergdahl's family is now the target of recent threats, according to an FBI spokesman. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl family have received threats following his release after five years in captivity at the hands of the Taliban, an FBI spokesman told CNN on Saturday. "We are working jointly with our state and local partners and taking each threat seriously," FBI Special Agent William Facer said in an e-mail. Facer declined to detail the nature and severity of the threats. Additionally, the military spokesperson for the Bergdahl family...

The father of one of the girls accused of brutally stabbing a school friend to pay homage to an eerie horror story character, apparently encouraged his daughter's sick obsession by proudly posting a sketch the 12-year-old drew of the scary figure on Instagram. Morgan Geyser, 12, drew the sinister stickman, inspired by an online ghost story about a ghoulish child killer called Slender Man, on a napkin and left it in the family home while she was out with her parents were out for dinner. But far from being alarmed by the disturbing sketch, Morgan's father Matt seemed to find...

On Valentine's Day 2013, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families took into emergency custody then-14-year-old Justina Pelletier because the doctors at Tufts Medical Center and doctors at Boston Children's Hospital collided over the diagnosis of her rare medical condition. But when medical egos and battles lead to a child's being torn from her parents by judges ruling on dubious grounds, isn't it time to confess that something is seriously askew in society and even under the stethoscope? Fox News recently summarized the 15-month custody catastrophe by explaining that Tufts was originally treating Justina for a rare mitochondrial disease affecting...

"The biological family of a little girl taken from her foster parents and returned to her jailbird father have branded her adoptive mom and dad, ‘selfish’ for fighting to get her back and vowed never to give her up again. Sonya, aged nine, had been in the care of Kim and David Hodgin, from Dickson, Tennessee for more than seven years, but she was recently handed over to ex-con John McCaul in Omaha, Nebraska. The Hodgin family have released a heart-breaking phone conversation, revealing Sonya’s desperate pleas, begging to be reunited with them."

Kindergarten show canceled so kids can keep studying to become ‘college and career ready.’ Really. By Valerie Strauss April 26 at 11:59 am An annual year-end kindergarten show has been canceled at a New York school because the kids have to keep working so they will be “college and career” ready. Really. That’s what it says in a letter (see below) sent to parents by Ellen Best-Laimit, the interim principal of Harley Avenue Primary School in Elwood, N.Y., and four kindergarten teachers. The play was to be staged over two days, May 14 and 15, according to the school’s calendar....

Common Core indoctrination has become an issue in coming elections as parents target politicians who support the Federal government imposed program on school districts.

As parents in Germany have protested a new pro-homosexual “sexual diversity” curriculum in their schools, homosexual activists have attacked them by hurling feces and destroying their property, according to the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians, which documents anti-Christian incidents in Europe. "Protesters were physically attacked and it was felt that the police failed to protect the parents’ basic right of assembly," said a statement from the Observatory describing incidents at recent rallies in Baden-Württemberg and Cologne. According to eyewitnesses, says the Observatory, "Christian parents were shouted at with obscenities.” "They were spit at, eggs were thrown, and little...

There is growing evidence that charter schools are empowering parents, pioneering fresh teaching methods, encouraging state and local innovation and help students escape underperforming schools.

A New Jersey cheerleader who sued her parents for child support after she moved out was today pictured leaving her family's home with her mother after returning to the house this week. In an apparent sign that the family were attempting to return to normality after their embarrassment, Rachel Canning, 18, climbed into her car to head to school on Thursday while her mother Elizabeth climbed into a separate vehicle. They were followed by her father Sean and a younger sibling. Rachel returned to the Morris County home with her tail between her legs on Tuesday night after a judge...

Students and parents rejecting costly college loan burdens Higher education accompanied by student debt is losing its appeal for many college-age Americans and their parents. The result could be a move by many colleges and universities to find ways to cut costs and even offer tuition discounts.

Rachel Canning, 18, of Morris Catholic High School, was denied her requests for child support of $654 a week as well as thousands of dollars in attorney fees and immediate reimbursement of her high school tuition. Morris County Court Judge Peter Bogaard also ruled that Rachel’s parents must keep her on their health insurance policy and keep status quo on all college savings accounts set up for her. *************** “This whole thing is just destroying our family,” Sean Canning told The Post. “We love our daughter. She’s our pride and joy. The door is wide open. We want her to...

Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC and former Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville said that children belong to all of us. No, they donÂ’t. IÂ’ve seen what happens to children when they are owned by the state. State ownership of children leads to neglect. It cripples children, so donÂ’t do it. That is so glaringly obvious that I wonder why Harris-Perry and Reville say otherwise.IÂ’ve cleaned up the mess of state owned children. My son came from an Eastern European orphanage. Many children died there. He was examined by a foreign doctor before he was given an immigration visa. His medical...

Culture Challenge of the Week: No Future for our Kids? President Obama recently warned Americans that too many members of our society never climb the ladder to success—they’re defeated before they even begin. When children have no future, it poses “a fundamental threat to the American Dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe.” He actually got that right. According to a recent Pew study, “[m]ore than 40 percent of Americans raised in the bottom quintile of the family income ladder remain stuck there as adults.” It’s a tragedy to see human potential go to...