We all know students can say some crazy stuff, but who knew parents could be just as ridiculous? These parents definitely have no chill.
“She’s thick…”
At parents’ evening:
“Don’t worry about my daughter, she’s thick. She only needs to cook and clean. How is my son doing?”
The Egyptians
“How dare you tell my child that there were people before God existed!”
We were studying ancient Egypt and I mentioned that the priests they were reading about had similar roles to their priests and pastors, they just weren’t Christian, sinceJesus hasn’t been born and Christianity hadn’t started yet.
I reminded the parents that there were parts of the Bible that took place before Jesus’s birth. In Egypt.
Squashed dreams
Parents evening last year. Year 10 so 14/15 years old. Told a woman that her son was doing really well in English and was very bright. She actually scoffed and said, “really?” The boy was sat there too. I asked what he was thinking of doing when he left school and he said he wanted to go to college to do A-Levels. Kids at this school had ridiculously low aspirations so this was music to my ears. His mother interjected and said, “no no, you’re doing an apprenticeship. You’re gonna be a plasterer like yer dad”. Now I have no problem with kids taking the vocational path as opposed to the academic. But this kid had a chance. And he wanted to take it! But his own mum made him feel that there was no point. So sad.
Stereotypes
I was a 22yo female Asian middle school teacher in a district that was 99% black. You couldn’t find another person who looked quite like me in a 20 mile radius.
Had a parent tell me that I couldn’t possibly be a good influence on her child, after all, I do skanky things like nails and hair during my off-hours.
The community’s impression of Asian women were that we all worked at nail salons. The extremely skewed Asian stereotypes however worked in my favor for classroom management when my kids were convinced I knew martial arts. Any time I put on my “teacher face” when the students were misbehaving, one of the kids would exclaim “Oh shit, Miss * is about to kung-fu your ass”. I never had too much problems with the kids that year.
A teacher’s job…
“It’s not your job to teach my son lessons.” I kid you not
No homework…
Multiple times over the school year, she emailed me with something like “[My child] has been coming home saying she has no homework in your class. I believe she should be having homework from your class every day. Can you please give her some homework?”
1. There was actually homework
2. The kid was not turning in any homework that quarter
3. zeroes were all reflected in the online grade report, which the parent apparently refused to read
The helicopter parents
My mother is a retired college English teacher. Helicopter parents would regularly call to inquire about their kid’s grades.
Mom: “That’s confidential as per college policy. If you want to learn your child’s grade, you’re going to have to ask him/her.”
Parent: “But I’m paying his/her’s tuition.”
Mom: “It doesn’t matter. You child has a right to privacy. I can/will only discuss your child’s grade with him/her.
Parent: “I’m calling the Dean.”
Mom: “By all means.”
Rinse and repeat, over and over and over.
The bribe
My wife is an elementary school teacher and suspected that one of her students may be autistic. The kid wouldn’t communicate well at all, had issues with using the bathroom, and showed other classic signs of autism. My wife had a conference with the mother and explained that she would like him to be evaluated, but the mother refused and said that if her son did have autism, my wife was the one who caused it.
I’m not a teacher, but I coach my kids’ youth sports teams. I once had a dad approach me and bribe me ($50) to prevent a certain kid from playing in our upcoming flag football game. These were 6 year old kids. The kid did make a costly mistake in the previous game, but the fact that this random dad was willing to pay me to bench the kid was mind blowing.
The gluten rule…
3rd grader’s parents come in, with a notarized list of demands.
Children in my class must be prohibited from bringing in gluten, ever.
They said they didn’t want her to feel left out because other kids were eating gluten. No, she didn’t have celiac, it was just the family’s personal choice.
I let their daughter choose who she sits next to each day (the class had a carefully coordinated seating plan.)
She be exempt from history class because she was too advanced for our history class but not advanced enough for an AP class.
Long story short they switched her to a private school before years end.
The prom queen
My daughter’s senior class voted a medically handicapped girl prom queen. I feared they were playing a joke on her, but my daughter insisted they all truely wanted her to win. Her family was poor and the teachers chipped in and bought her dress, shoes, etc.
The summer after graduation, I ran into the mother of another student in the class. This mother had pushed her daughter to be popular, bought her the best of everything, pushed her into being a cheerleader and even went to the point of trying to set her up with boys in her class…..she actually chassed them on her daughters behalf. She’s also a bit nuts, so I try my best to avoid her if I see her first. This day I wasn’t so lucky.
Immediately she started complaining about the student that was voted Prom queen. She kept saying how her daughter should have been prom queen, the other students just voted for the other girl because they didn’t want her daughter to get it (which was partially true), it was so unfair, she was so mad……Then she started on how horrible it was to vote in a girl that was in special ed classes because she really didn’t deserve to graduate, she was so poor that the teachers had to buy her dress…as if it was a sin to be poor.
I finally got sick and tired of her crap, and I didn’t like her anyway, and told her what I thought. I thought it was a very nice thing for the students to do. This may be the only special moment this girl will ever have, her daughter will have many special moments, it was so nice for the teachers to make sure she was dressed as nice as the other girls, etc. she was stunned to say the least. She expected me to agree with her, but I was sick of her, how she was nearly prostituting her daughter out to any boy who would date her, told her daughter’s friends about her sex life, and her crazy tirades every time I saw her. Now when I run into her(we live in a small town) she speaks and goes on her way….thank goodness.
Restricted playtime
This family was incredibly well off. The little girl wore Matilda Jane clothing every single day, which is expensive. The individual pieces are between $40-$60. She almost never wore the same thing twice. Compare her to a little boy in my class. His dad was in and out of jail, he always wore dirty jeans and the same pair of boots. His mom cut his hair and you could tell. But he was full of personality. All the kids wanted to play with him. He got a little rowdy and did say some lightly inappropriate things like “that’s badass!” or “what the hell!?” But I would never peg him as a “behaviorally challenged” kid. Well, the rich mother approached my lead teacher and flat out demanded that her little girl never have contact with this boy because he was a bad influence. She wasn’t to sit by him or speak to him or play with him. When we refused, she gave all these instructions to her daughter, who would approach the little boy and announce over the whole class “you have to leave here so I can play” People never cease to piss me off.
The phases of the moon
“Oh yeah, her behavior and aggression vary with the phases of the moon.”
(Publicly threatened to kill me over unplugging her phone charger)
The athlete who couldn’t even cheat right…
Had a star athlete who was being recruited by Ivy League schools failing my English class. On top of his general poor academic performance, I also caught him cheating on a homework assignment which he vehemently denied. His mom scheduled a meeting with an administrator and proceeded to berate me and to accuse me of discriminating against student athletes (I was the Pep Club sponsor at the time). Then she said her son would never cheat. I pulled out his homework and proceeded to read one of his answers, “I, as a 16 year old girl,…” Mom then begins yelling at him, “You can’t even cheat right! What’s wrong with you? How are you going to get into college if you can’t cheat?”
Hot for teacher
My SO is 23 and just started recently as a high school English teacher. He’s teaching summer school right now and a parent asked if he could stop dressing so well/if there was an older teacher available because his daughter won’t stop talking about how handsome her teacher is.
The forged signature
Here’s my favorite ridiculous parent story with a happy ending. Kid obviously forges signature of dad on a failed test. Teacher calls the kid out on it, dad comes in and insists that it is in fact his signature; his little prince can’t get in trouble after all. Two weeks or so later the dad comes into school outraged that he hasn’t been informed of the big project causing the lil’ prince so much stress. But you have been informed, says the teacher, here’s the slip I sent home for all the parents, and that’s your signature, right? Right, says dad.