http://nypost.com/2013/11/07/psychologist-called-dad-unfit-parent-for-refusing-son-mcdonalds-suit/

Quote :

"A Manhattan dad is not lovin’ McDonald’s right now. Attorney David Schorr slapped a court-appointed shrink with a defamation lawsuit for telling the judge deciding a custody battle with his estranged wife that he was an unfit parent — for refusing to take his son to the fast food joint for dinner. “You’d think it was sexual molestation,” Schorr, 43, told The Post Thursday. “I am just floored by it.” Schorr says in his Manhattan Supreme Court suit that E. 97th Street psychiatrist Marilyn Schiller filed a report saying he was “wholly incapable of taking care of his son” and should be denied his weekend visitation over the greasy burger ban. Schorr, a corporate attorney turned consultant with degrees from NYU and Oxford University, had planned to take his 4-year-old son to their usual restaurant, the Corner Café on Third Avenue, for his weekly Tuesday night visitation last week. But the boy threw a temper tantrum and demanded McDonald’s. So he gave his son an ultimatum: dinner anywhere other than McDonald’s — or no dinner. “The child, stubborn as a mule, chose the ‘no dinner’ option,” the disgruntled dad says in the suit. “It was just a standoff. I’m kicking myself mightily,” Schorr said. “I wish I had taken him to McDonalds, but you get nervous about rewarding bad behavior. I was concerned. I think it was a 1950s equivalent of sending your child to bed without dinner. That’s maybe the worst thing you can say about it,” he said. Adding insult to injury, he said: “My wife immediately took him to McDonalds.” Upon reflection, Schorr said he should have remembered that mother knows best. “The first thing I did was I questioned myself,” he recalled. “Had I done something wrong? I did what any 43-year-old Jewish man would do — I told my mother. I said, ‘My God, did I do something wrong here?’ “Even my mother, the strictest mother in the world, said, ‘Why didn’t you just take him to McDonalds? What were you thinking? You know that this is a divorce situation.’”"

Unbelievable. So much for disciplining your children these days.

11/8/2013 9:55:17 AM

Was he ruled an unfit parent for not taking the child to McDonalds or for not feeding the child dinner at all? Sounds like giving the kid options backfired on him and he should have just made the decision himself. If the kid was throwing tantrums it might have been a good night for a homemade meal or takeout. I don't think sending a kid to bed without dinner was a smart move during divorce proceedings, but one relatively minor parenting mistake certainly shouldn't make a person unfit.

Shame on the mother for her actions as well though. She undermined his decision making ability as a parent and blew a minor parenting mistake way out of proportion IMHO.

[Edited on November 8, 2013 at 10:05 AM. Reason : l]

11/8/2013 10:03:52 AM

I would have done the same thing. One night without dinner won't harm a kid.

11/8/2013 10:07:21 AM

If a missed dinner is all there is to it, then I can't imagine the court will take this psychologist seriously.

11/8/2013 10:11:42 AM

He might die of beaties if you send him to bed without dinner.

11/8/2013 10:12:44 AM

^ false, you are a heck of a lot more likely to die of beaties if you fast food than if you don't eat.

11/8/2013 10:17:43 AM

I meant if he already had beaties and his blood sugar got too low from skipping dinner.

[Edited on November 8, 2013 at 10:21 AM. Reason : l]

11/8/2013 10:19:52 AM

Ah I see... but what did our friend Diamond mean?

has die of beaties = has died of Diabeetus
or
has die of beaties = has Diabeetus

11/8/2013 10:25:11 AM

yet another reason why I will never have children.

11/8/2013 10:35:46 AM

My daughter is really stubborn. I've done pretty much the same thing.

It's taken a couple of years (since I've been down here with her livng with me half the time), but she rarely throws a tantrum with me now (as opposed to nearly every day when I first got half-custody of her). It's taken a very, very hard-nosed, near-fanatical consistency; I honestly can't think of an instance where I've given an inch due to bad behavior. She's screamed nonstop for a couple of hours at a time in her room on several occasions. She nearly got suspended in kindergarten for throwing a chair and shoving a table.

It's been a gradual process, but she's actually consistently very well behaved now. It's been a combination of finding something she really loves (riding horses) as a reward for consistent, ongoing good behavior--and being absolutely unyielding no matter what when she misbehaves. She's missed meals a few times. Once she threw a tantrum and wouldn't take a shower, so I bathed her in uncomfortably cool water for a couple minutes until she agreed to do it.

[Edited on November 8, 2013 at 10:52 AM. Reason : ]

11/8/2013 10:37:43 AM

My personal opinion: if they dont want to eat what you offer then they dont eat. A kid with medical problems is a different story, but if they are healthy they will eat at the next meal.

11/8/2013 10:40:38 AM

^^^ yeah if you can't raise them right, don't.

11/8/2013 10:42:18 AM

Solution: never take your kid to McDonald's to begin with.

11/8/2013 10:46:50 AM

My kids have occasionally thrown a shit fit about not wanting to eat what my wife prepares for dinner. Sometimes we give them the option of making their own supper (usually PB&J) and sometimes we tell them to at least try some of this. But yea same as Duke, I've had to send them each once or twice to bed with no food. Don't like having to be mean like that but at the same time they have to understand that its not a damn restaurant and their mom isn't a short order cook. We have never just made them everything they want, but our mother-in-law who used to live a block away from us would fix them anything they wanted anytime they asked because she said she would not tell either of them no, ever. And when she is the one babysitting while you and your wife are working, they get really fucking spoiled. When we moved to Carrboro and got away from the MIL, it came with a big dose of reality.

11/8/2013 10:48:47 AM

^^ yeah, that too.

^ specifically with the food issue, when i first got down here and got half-custody of her, all she ever wanted to eat was fast food, or maybe Applebee's or Chili's or something. she pretty much subsisted on hot dogs and chicken fingers, etc. Now she'll eat damn near anything, and prefers good stuff to shitty food. i never feed her off a kid's menu; I order enough "real" food to share with her or make food at home.

she loves Indian food; she'll eat Thai, too, as long as it isn't super spicy. Loves Mexican...chili...all kinds of vegetables...we had a duck/mushroom/artichoke pizza the other day, and then a chicken/pineapple/spinach/feta/onion pizza a few days after that. She ate duck and sautéed spinach at a restaurant the other night. Hell, she'll drink coffee and even espresso (I only give her very small amounts). Loves all kinds of nuts, fish, boiled eggs, you name it. I would say that she has a more adventurous palate at 7 years old than most adults.

The coolest thing is that I can almost always get her to at least try just about anything...she'll balk at first if it's something new and unusual, but then I just tell her "Hey, do I ever feed you bad food? How many times have you not wanted to try it, and then ended up loving it? You don't have to eat it if you don't like it, but you have to try it." ...and then she'll almost always take a bite. If she doesn't like it, I never force her to eat it; it's not like she's a picky eater. If there are a few things she doesn't like, then fine. She'll eat some things I don't like (olives or shellfish come to mind).

[Edited on November 8, 2013 at 11:04 AM. Reason : denying them food is one thing, but they'll fucking eat and stop throwing fits when they get hungry]


[Edited on November 8, 2013 at 11:10 AM. Reason : ]

11/8/2013 11:03:16 AM

I have mostly just gone with the here are your options... oh you dont like any of those options? Guess you aren't really that hungry then... oh you do want one of those options? That's what I thought.

11/8/2013 11:10:59 AM

Yeah, I think everyone does that. The difference is that a few kids won't cave.

Well, they'll cave...but they might miss a meal.


When mine used to refuse a meal (not because it was something crazy that she didn't like, but because she wanted something else), I just put that shit in the fridge and told her that it would be the next thing she would eat--be it in 10 minutes or tomorrow.





and the mother here is the unfit one--for (1) yielding to a kid's tantrum and enabling that behavior, let alone with something as awful for you as McDonald's, and (2) using this bullshit to deny the father his parental rights.

[Edited on November 8, 2013 at 11:20 AM. Reason : ]

11/8/2013 11:14:28 AM

Quote :

"I just put that shit in the fridge and told her that it would be the next thing she would eat--be it in 10 minutes or tomorrow."

Haha. I have done exactly that. Let's just say cold oatmeal for lunch is not his favorite and he decided it was better to eat the meal that was prepared for him.

11/8/2013 11:43:54 AM

Well that kid learned a valuable lesson in life, gg mom. The dad learned a lesson too:

Quote :

"Upon reflection, Schorr said he should have remembered that mother knows best."

Quote :

"Even my mother, the strictest mother in the world, said, ‘Why didn’t you just take him to McDonalds?"

I feel bad for the guy. He's getting crapped on from all sides because he dared to try and raise a kid to be a functioning member of society.

Quote :

"What were you thinking? You know that this is a divorce situation."

There's the rub. I think in a divorce situation the average case is you'll see one parent try to do the right thing and the other parent try to placate a child at every turn in an attempt to score points with the child, to be the most loved, etc. but in so doing ruin a child's development.

Quote :

"Solution: never take your kid to McDonald's to begin with."

This. I hate McDonald's so much. The food is disgusting and for whatever reason McDonald's is the end-all-be-all for children. Maybe the playground, maybe the cheaper and cheaper with every year that goes by toy, or maybe tastebuds change more dramatically than I thought. It's a mystery.

Once a parent, at some point in your life you will say:

Quote :

"dinner anywhere other than McDonald’s"

And good luck with never having your kid introduced to McD's in the first place. A grandparent will just come along and toss a wrench into the system.

11/8/2013 12:14:16 PM

that's a bitch right there.

11/8/2013 12:28:19 PM

Never taken my kid to a fast food burger or pizza or fried chicken place, and never will.

11/8/2013 12:47:09 PM

Nobody cares.

11/8/2013 12:47:55 PM

that's cool, forbidden fruit tastes sweeter

11/8/2013 12:56:08 PM

Quote :

"Never taken my kid to a fast food burger or pizza or fried chicken place, and never will."

Hello, Freshman 50!

11/8/2013 1:04:04 PM

Never taken my kid to a female bodybuilding competition, and never will

11/8/2013 1:06:08 PM

^The LOL caught me off guard for some reason.

11/8/2013 1:26:32 PM

I never take the kid to McDonalds.

I think I got her to finally like wendys or Burger King better. While the fact that she is still eating fast food, it's not mcdonalds.

11/8/2013 2:32:21 PM

Quote :

"Don't like having to be mean like that but at the same time they have to understand that its not a damn restaurant and their mom isn't a short order cook."

I say, "I'm not a short order cook!" all the time

dad was in the right. we've done the same ourselves around here.

11/8/2013 3:03:27 PM

You fools are wrong.

I barely had fast food growing up, like once a month, and I didnt go on some fast food binge as an adult. I despise fast food, and have it now perhaps 3-5 times a year, and everytime I have it, it makes me feel heavy and terrible for the rest of the day and gives me nasty burps.

I did have the Freshman 20, or maybe 25, but not 50. However, my Freshman 20 actually made me normal-sized, as I was a 120 lb stick when I started college. After ONE month I was 140 or so. That was 1.7 decades ago, and I am still 140 lbs.

Daughter was invited to her classmate's birthday recently and they had burgers there. I actually was trying to get her to eat it, but she wouldn't. She took a bite and then said she didn't like it, even though she was hungry. So again, y'all are wrong. Oh, and she has had burger meat and pizza several times, just never from fast food places, but from places that serve real food.

11/8/2013 5:01:18 PM

But has she had cook out? This changes everything.

11/8/2013 5:08:17 PM

It amazes me today the type of shit that ends up in court. This is really sad. The mother has put the father in a terrible situation. The mother has set the precedent of no matter what dad says I'll ensure you get what you want. I grew up with kids like that and when they got older they became the biggest assholes to both of the parents.

[Edited on November 8, 2013 at 5:33 PM. Reason : .]

11/8/2013 5:33:11 PM

^^^something something different culture

11/8/2013 10:36:15 PM