We all know being a teacher isn't easy, especially when it comes to dealing with parents who refuse to see the evilness in their children.
Crazy Mother
“I once had a mother tell me that her son, who was 18 and one of the brightest in class, was the most stupid kid in the class, because ‘she knows everything and her son is a lazy idiot.’ She’d come to high school to check his grades every few weeks and to talk to the principal and with every teacher she’d see on the hallways about how stupid and lazy her son is” (source).
Dishonorable Behavior
“I am a middle school teacher. There’s been problems in the school where a bunch of parents are buying teachers edition text books and having their kids memorize the answers at home so that they pass all the tests at school (not to mention that they do their homework for them). Us teachers started to suspect this was happening, so they would change around the order of the questions/answers on the tests. Surprisingly a bunch of the straight A students started bombing every test. When we brought in the parents parents to talk to them about it, one parent literally said: ‘You don’t understand, it’s more dishonorable to have bad grades then to be caught cheating.’ They really do not understand how this is setting their children up for more than just failure after graduation”(source).
Parents With “High” Hopes
“I once had parents tell me that their daughter ‘Doesn’t have to be smart, she just has to be pretty. She will find a rich man, marry him and never use chemistry again.’ Well, she wasn’t smart and she wasn’t pretty, so there goes that” (source).
Birds Committing Suicide
“So this evil child in my classes realizes you can kill birds by throwing potato chips in front of cars that race down the highway beside the school. After some effort, this child gets the timing perfect and succeeds. The kids cheer, child becomes Lord of the fFies, and I’m tasked with calling the mother to tell her that this isn’t acceptable behavior. At first the mother was just silent. She absorbed the story before saying ‘Alright, I’ll talk to my child about it tonight.’ I should have known it couldn’t have been that easy. The following day I receive a call that I will never forget. His mother starts going off on be about how there was no way her child had killed that bird and how I was a idiot for thinking her child was at fault. I argued about witnesses and facts for a bit before her logic went fully AWOL. She asks me if i knew anything about birds and I tell her that my knowledge was just as good as any other person. She then proceeds to tell me: ‘Well I know a lot about birds, they’re very shrewd creatures, and if that bird went under that car tire it was because it wanted to commit suicide.’ You could have heard a pin drop. Most awkward phone call I’ve ever had” (source).
“Flirtatious Private Meetings”
“‘This parent told me that clearly the reason their son was making inappropriate, sexual comments towards me was because I was ‘enticing him with flirtatious private meetings.’ They were referring to the times I had to keep him back after class to lecture him on his behavior. I actually could not believe the words that were coming out of their mouths” (source).
…. but I’m Mexican…
“I had a student tell her parents that I was picking on her because I tossed her a piece of candy and she didn’t catch it so it hit her on her forehead. When the actual event happened, I apologized immediately and the student had said it was totally fine. You guys should also know that before I tossed it to her, I asked her to come get her piece of candy. Instead, she said ‘just toss it,’ and she wasn’t so far away, maybe a few feet. Anyways, parents came in, called me every name in the book, and I couldn’t care less. What got me fired up was that they called me racist for picking on their daughter because she’s Mexican. I looked at them and said ‘Are… Are you serious? Is this some sort of a joke?’ And the mom proceeded to say ‘Absolutely not. I can tell you’re racist by looking right at you.’ To which I responded ‘I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m Mexican’ (source).
Grading on the Parent’s Scale
“I had a parent who insisted I re-do all the report cards using a grading software he created, rather than the software used by the school board. This particular parent also complained that it was unfair his child was given 0 on assignments the kid didn’t do, because nobody had explained that not doing the assignments would affect the overall grade” (source).
Reconstructive Surgery
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“This student’s mom told me, in detail, about her vaginal reconstructive surgery. Apparently she had it done because, after having children, her vagina ‘just kept falling out!'” (source).
Robot Child
“I had a student who I swear was the anti-christ. He would come into class screaming on the top of his lungs. He would constantly get up out of his seat and just start picking fights with other students. He almost punched a kid who was sharpening his pencil because he ‘looked at him funny.’ He refused to do any work so he was failing all his classes. One time he ‘wrote’ a research paper and left all the blue wikipedia links in it. I obviously gave him a zero. Anyways, the other teachers and I immediately set up a parent teacher conference. We state his behavior and our concerns with his grades. The parent sits there listening to us tell story after story how her child is from h_-_ll and she responds with ‘Well, I don’t want him to be a robot!’ This women didn’t care about one thing we said, she just didn’t want him to sit in class and ‘act like all the other kids'” (source).
Like Father, Like Son
“I had an incident of bullying in my class a few years ago. Because of this, I called this kid’s father because he had been bullying another student. When I informed his father that his son had been harassing another student and calling him names like ‘loser’ and ‘nerd,’ the father replied ‘Well, is it true? Is the other boy a loser?’ I was so flabbergasted I didn’t even know how to respond” (source).
President Obama
“An angry parent told me that I was a racist because I did not give her child an A on a paper that she chose to write on President Barack Obama. This parent also felt the need to point out that the fact that the was poorly written, unsupported by factual evidence, and completely disorganized should not be taken into consideration” (source).
Dollop of Sunshine
“Apparently one of my little dollops of sunshine who had a Napoleon complex told mom that I called him ‘retarded.’ I obviously did not, but his mom came up to the school that day with three other kids in tote and yelled at me. This was a very, very large Latina woman with several face piercings and tattoos. She told me, ‘My son is only allergic to shellfish, so I know for a fact he is not retarded!’ She then proceeded to send me several messages on Facebook later on after he was suspended/failing all of his classes begging me to call her and help them” (source).
Dumb Parents with Dumb Kids
“This came from the parent of a high school freshman: ‘My son is struggling so much. Can you send home a copy of the test ahead of time so he can prepare?'” (source).
Therapy… for a hamster…
“A parent last year apologized for her son’s 45% attendance because she’s had him in counseling for the past 6 months to help him cope with the loss of their hamster. 6 months of therapy. For a hamster. Never in my 19 years as an educator did I ever feel guilty for feeling zero sympathy for a chronic attendance excuse” (source).
He Sounds Serious
“My mom was pregnant with my sister in 1971, teaching high school English. Some kid pulled a knife and put it to her obviously pregnant belly and demanded a better grade. She called the parents. The boy’s mom said ‘Well he sounds serious, can you give him a B?’ My mom couldn’t get out of there fast enough” (source).