Bob CollinsIf they told people how heartbreaking parenthood is from time to time, nobody would ever have kids.
You go into it with no experience, you suffer with an 18-year case of imposter syndrome, and on the first day after your kid asks you to drop him off a block away from school because of his embarrassment, some punk couple, expecting their first child in a couple of months, offers you advice on how you could be a better parent. I hear.
We will not join in the international chortling about the Syracuse, N.Y., couple — Mark and Christina Rotondo — who just wanted their grown son, Mark, 30, to move out of their house. So they sued him and went to court on Tuesday.
“Michael, here is $1,100 from us to you so you can find a place to stay,” a February letter to him said, according to court documents. They suggested he sell his stereo, some tools, and get the broken-down Passat out of the driveway.
“There are jobs available even for those with a poor work history like you,” the letter reads. “Get one — you have to work!”
They signed their names. Mom and Dad? No. “Christina and Mark Rotondo.” As if they’d never met.
Says Syracuse.com:
When asked if he considered spending as much time looking for a new place to live as fighting the eviction, Rotondo replied that he wasn’t ready to leave home.
Asked how he interacted with his parents under the same roof, Rotondo said there were no incidents, but that he did not talk to his parents. When asked if he lived in the basement, Rotondo replied in a bedroom.
In court, Rotondo noted that his parents did not support him by providing food or doing his laundry. But he insisted that they were providing for him with housing, in arguing why he should be granted another six months to find a new place to live.
Exasperated, the judge at one point mentioned Airbnb in pointing out how easy it was to find a place to stay on short notice.
After court, Rotondo said he had a business to support himself. But when asked about his business, Rotondo replied: “My business is my business.”
The judge, having failed to get the 30-year-old to talk to his parents and work it out, ordered him evicted.
Sure, he gets no sympathy from anyone and doesn’t appear to deserve any. Funny stuff, indeed.
But how horrible for the parents to have the world chuckle at their failure. We are bonded to our children by instinct, we love them without condition, we refuse to give up on them, and, for sure, we refuse to go to court to evict them. To the extent that a couple had to this week, it constitutes an American tragedy.
(h/t: Paul Tosto)
