Parent happy to pass buck

If anyone runs into New York attorney Samuel Hirsch for me, I have something to say to him.

Hirsch recently filed a suit against McDonald’s saying it’s their fault that children who eat there get fat like one of his young clients who is 5 foot, 3 inches and 200 pounds, and a second who is 5 foot, 9 inches and 270. He says families are lured by the chain’s Happy Meals, playgrounds and toy promotions. And McDonald’s hasn’t stated clearly that its food can be hazardous.

So he’s suing.

In this age of frivolous lawsuits, here’s what I’d like to say to Mr. Hirsch.

Count me in.

Let me start with a confession.

My family probably accounts for at least 5 percent of McDonald’s annual revenues. And 3 percent of Burger King’s. Sometimes, I’ll take my children to one or the other several times a week. It’s only a question of time before all those shakes show up on them. Not to mention that they all “supersize” the fries.

For years, I’ve felt guilty for feeding them so much fast food. It may be a child’s job to ask for it, but it’s a parent’s job to say no. What a weak, lazy father I was to keep caving in. I blamed myself.

But thanks to Mr. Hirsch, I now see it’s not my fault.

It’s McDonald’s fault.

It turns out my kids and I are victims, and we have every right to be compensated for being entrapped into eating all those cheeseburgers.

If it’s not too much to ask, Mr. Hirsch, I wonder if we could add a few other complaints to our class-action suit.

First, I’ve been further victimized by McDonald’s drive-through windows. I use them all the time. I know I shouldn’t, since it denies my kids at least the meager exercise of hoisting their back-ends out of the car and walking inside. But the blame lies with McDonald’s for making drive-throughs so convenient.

It brings me to yet another claim. McDonald’s should also pay customers for interior car cleaning, since my kids are constantly dropping French fries and McNuggets down the back seat. This wouldn’t happen if they weren’t allowed to eat in the car, but why should I, as a parent, be expected to enforce that?

I’m also still angry about those Teenie-Beanie promotions of a few years ago. For weeks, my daughter made me drive to McDonald’s franchises all over the state buying Happy Meals that came with the hardest-to-find stuffed animals. I felt indolent about that, too, until Mr. Hirsch made it clear it wasn’t my fault. What, I was supposed to tell her exercise parental responsibility and tell her “no”?

I used to agree that my generation of mothers and fathers have been bad at drawing a line. I was about to vow to end that declaring it’s time to be my children’s parent and disciplinarian, not their buddy. I was going to start by saying no to fast food.

Thank goodness I don’t have to.

The fault lies with perpetrators who sell things, not helpless victims like me who buy them.

I fully expect we’ll win this lawsuit. When we do, Mr. Hirsch, I say we victims celebrate together. We should do so at a venue everyone knows how to get to.

Like, oh, McDonald’s.

Happy Meals will be on me.

Mark Patinkin is a columnist for the Providence Journal. His e-mail address is mpatinkinprojo.com.