She won? I thought she lost.
If she won, and I was Dad and Mom I'd be tempted to pack up, move to a more conservative state, and fight it. The kid can't get a job and try to get scholarships or financial aid? What a brat (I repeat). Maybe I'd go to Alabama and have her try to force the issue there. Even Wisconsin...this is what makes Americans not want to go too liberal and I do understand it. I take care of my kids very well, but if they don't follow my rules, they don't get the benefits they get when they do. I should say did because they are all grown up now.
I had children, with the expectation that we would be close and there for one another forever, but ideals can change when circumstances change. I simply refused to help my beloved daughter kill herself by supplying her with any money while she was using drugs. I knew I couldn't stop her drug use, but at least I didn't have to think that my allowance help fund her possible death. I'm glad the laws in our country give parents a lot of latitude. We certainly made sure she had the basics, but nothing extra. When she wanted to go to Cosmetology School, in which she got straight A's even while using cocaine, we helped her find the funding so that she didn't owe anything when she graduated. We did not give her a dime when she finally blew it on Chance #100 and we found her having a big drug party with her druggy friends in our home. Now that she is all straightened out???? Heck, I send her money from time to time and I am spoiling my future granddaughter silly!!!! We have a great relationship. I WANT to do things for her, knowing that even if I gave her not a penny, she would still be in my life by her own desire.
I do not think, and am grateful for, the laws in our country that don't force us to support grown children over eighteen who hit us, rob us, do illegal things in our homes (that can get us arrested), and that we get to decide our own rules in our own families. I'm not one of those people who are afraid of government, but I sure don't want the government in my living room telling me how I have to deal with a dangerous, impudent, lazy, drug using or just plain mean grown adult child.
I agree that there is a lot of ??? in what is legal age, but I sort of like it being eighteen. PCs are pretty settled at eighteen (Jumper is so incredibly grounded and mature at seventeen). difficult children are so difficult and so big and strong by eighteen that if the legal age of letting go was twenty one, a lot of parents would get beaten up and stolen from in their own homes because of having to house these adult kids until that age.
Most difficult children do not go to college. Well, they may START in college, but usually they stop attending classes or drop out.