Another one joins brat pack

                              My brother had had enough of my parents, who he viewed as reincarnations of Stalin and Lenin.  The rules and restrictions had pushed him over the edge.  One can understand how being repeatedly reminded to lift the toilet seat puts a wrench in an 8-year-old's day.
                              So, on an early summer evening, my brother stood at our front door holding his Batman suitcase, wearing a scowl beneath his Buster Brown haircut, and announced he was leaving home.
                             "Where ya going?" my father asked, barely able to contain his laughter.
                             "I'm running away," my brother said defiantly.  "You boss me around too much."
                             "I see," my father said.  "Well, come back and visit us every so often, OK?"
                             With that, my parents waved him goodbye, and we began to eat supper.  No more than a minute later, the screen door opened and our wannabe runaway reappeared.
                             "Hey, you're back," my father said.  "Did you miss the bus or is your bike tire flat?"
                             My brother bowed his head, dropped his suitcase, dragged himself toward the dinner table and mumbled, "I got hungry."
                             After wolfing down his first forkful of food, he looked at my parents and warned boldly, "But I'm leaving right after I'm done eating!"
                             My little brother was only 8; he didn't know any better.  But when you're 18, you should.
                             Rachel Canning should know better.  The 18-year-old New Jersey high school senior is suing her parents, claiming she was forced to leave home in October after being verbally and physically abused.  Her parents refute the charges, stating she chose to move out because she didn't want to follow the house rules.  An investigation by a state child protection agency into the teen's allegations of emotional abuse concluded her claims were unfounded.
                             Canning eventually moved in with her best friend, whose father, an attorney, represents her in the court case against her parents.  Her lawsuit, filed in February, requests her parents pay the remaining tuition for her last semester at her private high school, pay her living and transportation expenses, and commit to paying her college tuition and the $13,000 in legal fees she accrued.  Essentially, she's seeking a court's official declaration that she is non-emancipated, meaning her parents would be required to support her financially even though she's 18 and living out of the home.
                             Rachel Canning is attractive, popular, a cheerleader and a n honor student.
                            Another thing she appears to be is a spoiled brat riddled with a false sense of entitlement:
                            Rules?  Hey, I'm 18, and rules don't apply to me.  I'm 18 and everybody likes me, so don't tell me what to do.  Curfew?  Hey, I'm 18; I can come and go as I please.  You don't like my boyfriend?  Hey, I'm 18; I can date whomever I like.  And why isn't my laundry done, and why isn't dinner on the table?  Hurry it up; I have a date tonight.
                            I'm certain Canning's parents played a major role in their daughter's disposition.  They gave her a car and sent her to private school.  They stroked her until their stroking molded her into a brat hoping to sue their parental pants off.
                            Despite the lawsuit, Rachel moved back home last week.  Why?  No one's saying.  Maybe she realized following a few basic rules isn't so bad.  Like some 8-year-old many years ago, maybe she just got hungry.
                            Or maybe, just maybe, she never realized life on her own wouldn't be the picnic she thought it would.
                            Most brats don't.