An Illinois appeals court recently dismissed a lawsuit filed by two adult children against their mother for "bad mothering."

According to news reports, siblings Steven II (23) and Kathryn (20) sued their mother, Kimberly Garrity, for more than $50,000 in emotional damages, claiming that their mother failed to buy toys for one and sent another a birthday card he deemed offensive and which didn't include cash or a check.  Allegedly the front of the offensive card contains a picture of tomatoes spread across a table that are indistinguishable except for one in the middle with craft-store googly eyes attached.  "Son I got you this Birthday card because it’s just like you ... different from all the rest!" the card reads. On the inside Garrity wrote, "Have a great day! Love & Hugs, Mom xoxoxo."

The children further charged that their mother failed to take the daughter to a car show, told the then 7-year-old son to buckle his seat belt or she would contact police, haggled over the cost of party dresses and enforced curfew on homecoming night.  The children, raised in a $1.5 million Barrington Hills, Ill., home with their divorced attorney father, were represented by their father and two other attorneys.

The two-year-old case, with a court record nearly a foot tall, was dismissed on grounds the mother's conduct was not "extreme or outrageous."  To rule in favor of her children, the court found, "could potentially open the floodgates to subject family childrearing to ... excessive judicial scrutiny and interference."

—Source:  Chicago Tribune