Teaching can be one of the most meaningful and rewarding careers out there. But like all jobs, it comes with its downsides. Without question, one of the biggest challenges to being a teacher is having to deal with difficult, angry, or dissatisfied parents. Whether they’re going crazy over their kid’s grades or they’re just crazy in general, these situations often make it easy to see where a student’s behavioral issues may come from. Here are 50 must-read stories about some of the worst parents that teachers have ever had to deal with on the job.
1. And Then There Was One
We had a parent who invited all the boys in the entire third-grade class to a professional baseball game and backstage tour of the stadium for their son's birthday. There was just one problem. He left out one kid. Just one! To top it off, it was a school day too. So the one boy who wasn't invited had to go to school and be the only boy in the class. No emotional scarring there at all, right? What horrible parents!
2. Noticeably Bad Parents
The parents that bothered me the most were the parents of a boy with special needs. Every day, they sent him the same lunch: macaroni with nothing on it. I asked them at the first conference why they did this. What his mom said broke my heart. She told me, "It's not like he'll notice." It was sad because he really did notice.
When we had special lunch days, he would get so excited about hot dogs or pizza. It's indicative of how they treated him overall. They didn't try to engage or stimulate him at all.
3. Setting A Bad Example
I was a humanities teacher very briefly. I once had a meeting with the mother of a boy due to his ongoing behavior problems in class. Bright kid, very creative, just couldn't stop distracting some of his classmates. No biggie really. His mom brought our meeting to a premature end by announcing that "reading is for losers" before storming out of the room and yanking her kid along behind her.
4. A Vast Conspiracy
There was a student who I’ll refer to as D. I was one of four teachers in a conference with D's mother and a school counselor. I was the last of the teachers to talk, but I said much the same as the other teachers: D skips class all the time, yells out constantly, never does his work, and regularly calls you over to ask questions before intentionally passing gas in your face.
D was awful. Who behaves like that in 10th grade? Anyway, after all four of the teachers said essentially the same exact thing, D's mom looked at the counselor and shouted, "I don't understand why all these teachers are lying about my son!" D's older two brothers were both behind bars. Sadly, I assume that D has since followed in their footsteps.
5. Ain't That A Kick In The Head
During a conversation with a student’s mother about a violent outburst in class one day, the mother angrily shouted at me, "My child would never kick a teacher!" With all due respect, ma'am, I believe that the bruise on my shin would beg to argue otherwise. It’s amazing how some people are just totally unwilling to deal with reality...
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6. Are People Really This Crazy?
My stepfather was having parent-teacher conferences and he was talking to this one kid's parents. The parents had a question about when my stepfather was going to go over the Civil War. My stepfather said it would happen in about a week or so. The parents then said, “Great, because we will be pulling our kid from class during that unit.”
My stepfather asked why, and their answer was completely jaw-dropping. They said: “We believe the Civil War never happened, and we are still living under the Confederate government." My stepfather was flabbergasted and didn't know how to respond—and then, somehow, it got worse. Then the parents got up and said to him, "We will also be pulling our kid out for the WWII unit because the Holocaust was made up and never happened."
7. Picture Perfect
My mom is a kindergarten teacher. She had this one terrible student who not only kicked her in the face while she was helping him with his work, but he also actually swiped her digital camera from her desk drawer. She keeps it at work to take pictures of kids' projects and events and stuff, to share with their parents.
His parents suggested that my mom shouldn't have bent down to help the students lest she be within kicking range, and that she should leave her valuables at home.
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8. A Special Kind Of Stubbornness...
My mother is a teacher. This is only the worst parent story, but there are so many other bad ones too. She was teaching a class in elementary school that had a severely mentally handicapped girl in it. I'm talking constant drooling, unable to form words, just grunts and moans and yells. She clearly belonged in special ed, but her parents refused to put her there.
They INSISTED that she be put in a “normal” class because she does not need special ed. The classes were completely useless for her, and her noise and mess seriously disrupted the education of the other 30 students. The school even had to pay for an aide to be with her all day, because she could not take care of herself.
When the school finally decided to go ahead and put her in special ed, the parents sued the freaking district! Because their 12-year-old with the mentality of a three- or four-year-old DID NOT belong in special ed in their minds. Teachers had to spend their days in court instead of in their classrooms, and my mom had to deal with lawyers and parents telling her she had no idea what was best for their kid.
9. A Change Of Heart
After 25+ years in the classroom, I can tell you that awful kids generally have truly messed up parents at home. It's pretty shocking, really. Frequently horrible, in fact. We have had teachers physically attacked during parent conferences in our nice, little town in the heart of America. And the parents barely even get a slap on the wrist from anyone in the administrations.
I like teaching and have had a rewarding career, but I would not do it again. And I do not want my kid to become a teacher, either.
10. A Hole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On
My mother was a school psychologist in a town made up mainly of trailer parks and an outlet mall. One year, during a parent-teacher conference meeting about a particular child's behavioral issues, the kid’s stepmother unabashedly proclaimed, "Well, she didn't come outta my hole!" Lady, was that really necessary? Like at all?
11. Dress Code
My dad is a principal and once suspended a girl for wearing a "shirt" that showed her whole stomach and then refusing to put on another shirt to cover herself up. This was not her first nor her worst offense, and he was fed up. The parents come in to discuss the situation. The dad didn't want to believe his daughter should be suspended, so he attempted to lunge at my dad and fight him.
He called him a bunch of nasty names and made threats about wanting to physically harm him. I can't remember exactly how it all ended, but I think an officer may have been called in and the dad ended up getting thrown behind bars. Why do teachers have to constantly deal with parents who are completely in denial about their children's abilities and have insane expectations?
12. Sometimes, Laughter Is The Worst Medicine
I have a student who does nothing in class and laughs at me when I try to talk to him about it. His parents wouldn't answer my phone calls, so I made sure to talk to the dad at parents' night. I had 120 kids to see in 2.5 hours, so I cannot always see everyone. When I did talk to his dad, what does he do? Snicker at me like his son does and says nothing else!
At least now I know where the kid gets it from!
13. When Things Get Heated
I’m a Senior Government Teacher. I asked a little punk to sit at his desk and not on the heater. No big deal, I don't really care, but those are the rules. He pulls his desk back to the heater and perches himself on the seat back with his butt hovering over the heater. Classic "I'm not touching you" stuff. I give him detention.
He informs me that he isn't going to serve it, on “principle.” He says so with a level of disdain as if he had just discovered that I was responsible for the rise of the Third Reich. I shrug. As if I care about his “principles.” Don't serve, and let it roll into a suspension eventually for all I care! Cut to his mother barging into my class at the end of school.
She is threatening a lawsuit against me for “picking on her boy,” and demanding that I remove the detention or else she is going to my boss. Two things went through my head when I heard this. One, I kind of wanted to watch her give this ridiculous helicopter mom act to my boss, as this kid is a constant discipline issue.
But number two was that she said the word “lawyer.” Our school policy states that if someone brings up the "L" word, we are not to speak about the subject. Period. I go completely silent and she goes apocalyptic. She starts screaming at me for disrespecting her. All I would say is, "You will have to take this up with the administration."
She was ready for and wanted a fight. But she didn't quite know how to handle it. Good stuff. A meeting is called where she rails about respect and how we are all mistreating her boy. She claims that our school’s actions were giving this “good Christian boy” a bad name. The administration listened solemnly, nodded along, and ultimately maintained that he had to either serve the detention or get suspended.
The mother stated that she would not allow her poor son to serve such an unjust 45-minute sentence and that they would be taking the suspension option instead. The family, after failing to get their letter to the editor printed, took out a ½-page ad against the school in the local newspaper. I still have a copy of the ad saved to this day.
It came out later that, while this was all going on, that same kid had managed to knock up a girl from another school. He cheated on his good Christian girlfriend in order to do it, too. They had a nice little wedding and everything. Apparently, the marriage didn't work out in the long run. Now there’s a shocker...
14. Walk Away
I honestly did not believe this story at first, as it was told to me by another teacher. Then I met the children involved. A mother of two children had both of her kids in all-day special education classes, as they could not walk and could not talk in anything resembling a recognizable language. The reason that they could not walk was that their mother refused to let them learn to walk.
She would insist on strapping them into a double stroller at all times whenever they were not sleeping. The reason that they could not talk is that she would not talk to them in anything but some crazy made-up language involving a lot of grunting, a language that she apparently invented herself. She was collecting large amounts of social security and disability payments for both of her "disabled" children.
They lived in a private gated community, and she drove a nicer car than any of the staff at the school did. The kids responded well to the special education program, as they were actually very smart, but they will probably always have issues for the rest of their lives as a result of their development being stunted on purpose.
15. Desk Job
I once had a seriously unstable boy in my class. One minute, he would be perfectly pleasant and happy. The next, not so much. One day, we're playing Jeopardy! to study for a test and the teacher gives candy to the winning group. The boy wasn't in a winning group, but wants some candy anyway. He goes up to the assistant teacher, and asks for some.
She says no. He continues to demand some. She still says no. This kid absolutely flips his lid. He grabs the nearest desk and throws it. My assistant teacher starts yelling at us to get down and cover our heads. He's throwing everything he can reach, and has just broken the window. Another male teacher overhears the commotion and comes in to restrain the kid.
He's taken down to the principal's office to meet his parents. We go back to class for 15 minutes when, all of a sudden, the kid’s dad comes bursting into the room. He starts screaming at my assistant teacher, saying that she upset him and that he is going to get her fired for being incompetent. Then he runs out of the room.
We go back to class and pretend this never happened.
16. A Lie Of Historical Proportions
Some of these stories are just really sad. For me, the most laughable experience I've ever had with a kid’s parent was with a plagiarism case. The kid had ripped his entire essay off the internet. I'd googled a few sentences from his assignment and very quickly found the page he got the stuff from. I then printed it out so the kid could see that the two copies were word for word.
He vehemently denied ever having seen that article, so his mum got called in for an interview. We showed her the submitted assignment and the web page printout, and her answer was that her dopey 15-year-old son had actually written the Wikipedia entry on the Treaty of Versailles, so it wasn't plagiarism at all. Nothing like supportive parents…
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17. Daily Routine
This happened last week. A kid comes to my classroom with picture money on a Monday that was due on the upcoming Friday. I tell him to put it in his book sack and bring it back on Friday since we were told not to collect it until then. He picks it up and tries to turn it in again on Tuesday. This time, he is trying to impress everyone by flashing the $15 so that we could clearly see it up against the light.
I tell him to make sure that he puts it in his book sack so it does not go missing, and to make sure he does not turn it in until Friday. Wednesday rolls around and, you guessed it, the little genius takes it out again to turn it in. This time, he is verbally bragging that his envelope contains $15 so the whole class can hear. I tell him to pick it up and hide it.
Thursday morning, I am pulled into the office by his irate mom asking why I let his money get swiped. I looked at my principal and told her my side of the story. She looked at the mom and told her there was nothing we could do. The mom left, furious, and I am sure she will try to take this to the Central Office. Nothing great, I know, but just a recent example of what we deal with on a weekly basis.
In case you're wondering, this is a class of third graders.
18. Phoning It In
Parent-teacher conference. Father pulls out his phone and looks at it for the entire 25 minutes that I’m trying to speak to him. I could visibly see the kid’s demeanor deflate as his father found his phone more important than his son. I felt awful and developed a whole new understanding of the boy's bad behavior in class.
19. Taking Things Way Too Far
A divorced dad at my local high school thought that the school's track coach was hitting on his former wife. After a team party at a local restaurant, the coach was walking around and standing outside with all the parents. I still can’t believe what happened next—it’s so horrifying. It's at this moment that the dad, who wasn't invited to the team party, came up behind the coach with a baseball bat.
He cracked the bat across the coach’s head. The coach crumpled to the ground, hitting his head on a parking block. He instantly passed on. It was a huge tragedy. We've held memorials for him yearly ever since.
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20. See You In Court
My mom is an elementary school principal. A teacher at the school she worked at read a book to the kids in her class that had a gay couple in it. We live in a liberal area. No biggie, right? Except not. This one set of parents freaked the heck out, saying that the parents should be allowed to opt their kids out of a curriculum that "affirms the correctness and the normalcy of homosexuality."
They freaking took the school to FEDERAL COURT, and my mom was one of the defendants. The father was also taken away by law enforcement when he came to the school and made a big scene about the whole thing. My mom stood her ground, and the parents lost. But the experience was really emotionally taxing on my mom, and on everyone else at the school.
As a result of all the attention that the parents brought to the school, the Westboro Baptist Church hate group picketed on the lawn of the elementary school with their filthy signs. The buses had to go in through the back entrance so that the kids wouldn't be exposed to it. Bill O'Reilly ripped on my mom by name on his show.
People posted photos of her online mocking her, and she received a ton of hate mail. Eventually, she quit because she couldn't take it all anymore. Thanks, jerk parents!
21. Missing In Action
A mom asked me why her son, who is absent from my class almost every single day, was failing my class. I said he needed to come to school in order to pass the class. She insisted that I was responsible for his failure and that I needed to try harder to teach him when he was there. Isn’t it amazing the lengths that people will go to in order to deflect responsibility?
22. Whatever Happened To Motherly Instinct?
We once had an over-attentive and incredibly enthusiastic parent of a four-year-old girl who suffered from Shaken Baby Syndrome. The child was very emotionally stunted. She couldn't walk and could barely speak. It was sad, and she wasn't making much progress. Whenever we would get time to talk to the mother about her daughter's care, she would immediately change the direction of the conversation to be about herself.
There also were several stories floating around in regard to how her child got this way. Absolutely none of them made sense, and they were constantly changing. Without giving away a lot of personal information, over time it became pretty obvious that the mom had some kind of mental issues, but we had no proof and just had to watch the little girl for any other signs of mistreatment.
We tried to look out for things like incorrect medications, cuts, bruises, etc. Anything suspicious that we saw, we would report to a nurse and guidance counselor who would alert Child Protective Services. I left the teaching profession about a few months after this drama, and I got no word on whether anything ever came of this situation. Honestly, screw everything about this situation!
23. Show And Tell
One of my friends teaches first grade at our local school. She saw a couple of kids playing with something at recess one day and it caught her eye. When she walked closer to see what it was, her blood ran cold. It was a pipe used for illicit substances. She asked the girl where she found it, and she said that it belonged to her mother.
My friend said that this was not surprising because the little girl always wore raggedy clothes and looked like she was from a poor family. Anyway, to make a long story short, the authorities got involved. Turns out the mom had a warrant out for her arrest. And literally, a week earlier, her dad had been taken in for swiping some goods from a store.
As far as I know, the little girl ended up in foster care. But I'm not sure about all the details, though.
24. Tackling His Dreams
I went to a school football game to support my students, as well as to meet some of the parents who didn't get to see me on open house night. At the game, one parent came up to me and started accosting me about their kid’s grades. "Hi, could you make your class a little easier? We know X isn't going to be anything when he grows up, so we want his senior year to be the best year of his life."
That was an actual quote that they really said. He wasn't even a party-goer kind of student. Like, really? The next 70-ish years are all just downhill? You’d be surprised how often I heard parents say things like that about their kids…
25. Facing The Music
My ex-boyfriend was a high school orchestra teacher. For those who were never in a band or orchestra class, let me assure you that it takes far more effort to fail one of those classes than it does to pass them. Showing up every day with your instrument and sheet music is pretty much a guaranteed "easy A." Well, one of the violin players was determined to fail my ex's class.
She often skipped class. And, when she did show up, she was always either missing her instrument or her music. She often talked and disrupted class, and was an all-around pain in the butt. On her first report card, she got a big, fat F. And that's when the phone calls started. I'm not sure who at the school gave this girl's mother my personal phone number, but she somehow found it.
The phone was under my name, not my boyfriend’s, and I purposefully had it unlisted so that no crazy parents could find me. I swear if I ever found out who gave it to this woman, there would be a massive price to pay. This mom began to call my house every single night. She screamed at my boyfriend, screamed at me, and screamed at my answering machine when I finally decided to stop answering the phone.
She called administrators. She called the school board. If she called her local representative or Senator, I wouldn't be surprised. She was a loud, foul-mouthed jerk who wouldn't and couldn't understand that her daughter had earned a bad grade. After a quarter of her phone calls, the administration finally caved and ordered my ex to raise her to a passing grade.
He gave her a D.
26. Aunts At A Picnic
Not a teacher, I'm a juvenile counselor. But on Monday, I saw a kid who was brought in by her aunt and uncle since the dad was behind bars and the mom had a substance problem. I kept trying to help them come up with rewards to offer for good behavior, such as a trip to the zoo, a family picnic, an hour of outside playtime together, etc.
Instead of cooperating, the aunt just kept repeating that no one likes her and that she hates everything. The worst part was when I was asking the kid what happens when you swipe something that doesn’t belong to you. Her response was, “You get abandoned.” Alright then. This was just a highly productive session all around…
27. Parents Just Don’t Understand
A friend of my mom's once told me that when she worked briefly as a headmistress at a school, two sisters, each about seven and eight years old, both showed up at school one day with scars, bruises, and blood on their clothes. The authorities were called in and tests were run on the little girls. It turned out they both had been attacked several times, possibly by their father.
She told me that she didn't know why, but the girls weren't taken away immediately after this. The mom was called to the school. The principal told her that she wanted to know what was up with her girls, because they suspected they had been attacked by their dad. The mom’s reply was so disturbing that it’s impossible to forget.
She scoffed and answered, "Well, they better learn from their dad before they learn from some random dude they met on the streets." Every time I remember this story, it makes me sick to my stomach. How could someone be so messed up and heartless? After this, my mom's friend stopped working as a headmistress and instead went back to being a teacher.
She said that you still get crazy parents from time to time, but at least she doesn't have to deal with them directly.
28. Break A Leg!
We recently had two children that just couldn't seem to get along, and it was leading to a bullying situation on the verge of a physical fight. We brought the families in to discuss, and immediately got some great backstory on why the children were aggressive. The parents were ten times worse. To make a long story short, right at the crest of the conference, one of the mothers took off her left shoe and hit the other mom with it.
Best conference ever.
29. Baby Face
Not me, but my mom. My mom has been teaching for darn near 30 years. Right now, she is supervising a school-funded daycare center at one of the high schools in my county. The point of this program is so that girls with children can go to school and get their diplomas without having to worry about paying for daycare.
My mother told one of the girls to be careful about letting everyone hold her newborn, for obvious reasons. The girl flipped out on my mom, and my mom had to have a special parent-teacher meeting with the girl and her mother. The girl's mother precedes to go off on my mom and tells my mom not to tell her daughter how to raise the granddaughter.
She also yelled that my mom doesn't know anything about raising kids. My mom is a single mother, who has one kid getting an advanced degree in a few days and another graduating from high school in a few months. Meanwhile, this poor excuse for a parent is defending her daughter who has a 1.6 GPA and a baby at the age of 16.
30. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
My mom is a special ed teacher. She had a parent-teacher meeting with the parent of a severely disturbed young man who had multiple problems. During the conference, the mother casually remarked: "I'm not really sure, but do you think that maybe the reason my son has so many problems is that I smoked substances every day while I was pregnant with him?"
The whole room was in stunned silence for about 30 seconds, before my mom piped up with: "Umm, yes."
31. Dressed For Success
I once had a parent volunteer to assist with our after school program. She showed up to school one day high as a kite, walking barefoot in the snow in a bikini top with a new baby in her arms and a backpack that was stuffed with random objects. She was escorted off the property immediately. She sent me a message later to apologize.
The message claimed that she thought she took an energy pill, but accidentally took a highly dangerous substance instead. She made clear that she still wanted to help out at school, even after all of that. Yeah, thanks but no thanks. This kid lives with her grandmother part-time, but still lives with her mom too. I definitely worry about her home life.
32. What’s In A Name?
This is my 13th year teaching, and I've had some doozies! I think this one takes the cake though. I once had a parent go through the phone book and start calling all of the people with my last name because she was upset that her child may need to be retained for the first grade. The only reason I know about this is that she reached my parents, who refused to give her my phone number.
My parents then called me in a panic about this crazy lady trying to find me.
33. The Early Bird Gets The Worm
I had a student that didn't show up to my class for three quarters of the year. During parent-teacher night in spring, her mom came in. I tell her that her kid rarely comes to class and that it may be beyond the point of being saved. The mother explains to me that her kid thinks the class is too early and that I needed to give up my lunch later in the day to teach her so that she won’t have to wake up so early.
I told her that I wouldn't be doing that and that I would buy her kid an alarm clock if it came down to that. She took offense to that and said that I was being a selfish jerk. Other than that, though, my students' parents have generally been pretty awesome!
34. Old Tricks
My friend, who is a teacher, had a parent sit in on his earth science lesson. When he was telling his students about the age of the earth, the parent rudely interrupted him, made him stop the lecture, and went into a rant about how the world is really only 6,000 years old, according to his personal beliefs. He completely derailed the rest of the day's lesson…
35. Sympathy From The Devil
My mother had been terminally ill for two years. She had a heart attack and went into a coma. I lived 500 miles away, so I packed up and hurried through the long journey to make sure I got there before she passed. Unbelievably, she hung on for another four days, so I was gone for two full school weeks. I did all of my sub plans electronically, and I had an assignment for each day.
Each assignment was supposed to be turned in by the end of each day while I was gone. I had one child, with an Individualized Education Plan, who did absolutely nothing the entire year. Well, you can imagine what he did while I was gone. If you can do less than nothing, he did less than nothing. His mother called to speak with me after she saw that he had zeros for the assignments that were due while I was gone.
I gently explained the reason for my absence, that my mother had passed, and that I was not in the classroom to monitor his instruction during that time. His mother proceeds to rage on me. She tells me, “I don’t care if your mother passed or not, my boy does not deserve zeros!” Umm, excuse me? What the heck is wrong with you, madam?
36. Let’s Get Away From It All
One of the guys in my class wanted to go on a trip that had places given out on a first come first serve basis. He didn't bring in his reply slip, and therefore didn't get a place on the trip. When he found out that he couldn’t go, he lost his mind. His parents then showed up with two lawyers to complain so that he could go.
37. A Puzzling Reaction
I was holding a parent-teacher conference. This one kid’s mom was fuming with anger. Right in front of me, she screamed at and belittled her daughter for 25 minutes straight. The daughter was crying all the time and felt completely annihilated. The daughter's mistake? She had done a crossword puzzle in class when I asked her to read.
She generally acted like a normal kid and this was the only time she had ever misbehaved in any way. That mom was way too harsh on her.
38. Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater
Here’s a story from my friend who's a high school teacher. A student once turned in an exam with suspiciously similar solutions to a person who sits near them. From past performance and the seating arrangement, it was clear which one of them was copying. My friend had some other teachers look through the exams to see if they would notice the same thing, and they all did.
The student's mother came in and said that the teacher "just didn't like her daughter," and was just accusing her of cheating for that reason. When the principal said that several other teachers agreed with the assessment that her daughter had cheated, the mother said "Well then the teacher put my daughter next to a good student to force her to cheat so that she would get in trouble!"
39. Mixed Messages
How's this for a facepalm? I work as a teacher. One morning, we had meetings with two parents of kids from the seventh grade. One set of parents, whose child was very bright, falsely heard that the teacher was using corporal punishment. Naturally, they were FURIOUS about this, and they threatened to pull their kid from school.
We assured them that what they had heard was not true. Then, the very next meeting we had was with the father of a troublemaker who was failing. He heard that we had not been using corporal punishment, and told us that if his son was failing then we needed to smack his butt into shape. He added that he didn't know what he was paying us for if we couldn't do something as simple as hit his child.
40. Other Priorities
I had a student whose mother had divorced his father, and both had remarried. He lived with his mom and stepdad, and his bio dad was not in his life. Just before his freshman year of high school, his bio father allegedly took advantage of his stepdaughter and was facing possible time behind bars. For reasons that are a complete mystery to me, my student's mom started giving all the money she could to the father to help pay for lawyer’s expenses, etc.
No clue why she would do this, and especially why the stepdad would agree to it. My student had no winter coat and received nothing for Christmas because they couldn't afford it. All the money went to his deadbeat dad instead of to him and his siblings. And he had a five-year-old sister with special needs. The saddest part was when he told me he was sure his father was guilty of the attack.
41. Chain Of Command
Some parents are so ridiculous when they try to defend their kid for acting like a moron. I once had a parent go nuts on me, saying things like: “Who's your boss? Who else can I talk to?” I responded: “Well that would be the Vice Principal, Mr. X.” The parent then said: “And who's their boss?” I replied: “The Principal.” They replied: “Who's their boss?” I said: “That would be the Superintendent.”
They said: “Who's in charge of them?” I replied: “God, I guess?”
42. Dating Herself
I'm not a teacher, but my wife is. In her first year teaching, she had a parent-teacher conference about one of her students that was failing algebra. The kid's mom claimed that the only reason her son was failing was because my wife didn't announce tests ahead of time and, because of this, he couldn't be expected to prepare properly.
My wife explained that she writes the test dates on her board at least a week ahead of time, and also posts the dates on her class website. She even showed the mom where on the website the test dates were posted. Instead of recanting her story in the face of overwhelming evidence, this mom went ballistic and yelled at my wife.
She called her a liar and a whole bunch of other awful things. This was my wife's third parent-teacher conference ever, and so she had no idea how to handle this situation. She ended up crying her eyes out in front of the parent. She was so upset over the whole thing. If I ever meet this woman, I promise I will destroy her.
43. Race To The Finish
One of my best friends is a French teacher who came over from France and became an American citizen. He is of a different ethnicity than the majority of the kids who go to the school that he teaches at. After he had taught there for a few months, a mom decided to play the race card with him. She came storming angrily into his classroom.
She claimed that her daughter said he was the biggest racist she had ever seen. She threatened to get him fired. He let her rant and rave in front of the class and, when she finally paused for a breath, he turned around to point everyone’s attention to his wedding picture. He is married to a woman of the very race that this mom was trying to claim he hated.
He said her mouth dropped open when she saw that but no sound came out, and she kinda slinked out of the classroom. His kids were crying with laughter.
44. Take Me Out To The Ball Game
I coached my school’s baseball team for one year. The kids were around the ages of 10 to 11. They were all awesome and they loved the sport. But the parents were absolutely terrible to deal with. They were always yelling at the kids on the other team and taking the games way too seriously. They demonstrated terrible sportsmanship.
It was so bad that we had to have a professional security guard present at the playoff games. I no longer coach baseball as a result of these parents.
45. A Question We All Want Answered
My mom is teaching second grade. She has a student who is threatening to punch her in the stomach since she's pregnant. When she confronted the girl's father about it, he threatened to shoot her in the stomach. All because this woman felt the little girl ought to be held back. What the heck is wrong with people these days?
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46. Deal Or No Deal
My wife and I used to run a children's play place business. One time, we made the mistake of running a Groupon special. We had to deal with soooo many irate parents who were furious that they "missed" the deal. As a result, this quickly became, by far, one of the worst mistakes we ever made. Screw Groupon and all of their users!
47. Twist And Shout, Gone Terribly Wrong
My mother has been a special education teacher for over 20 years, and I've heard quite a few sad stories about parents severely abusing their kids. It's just sickening how terrible these people are, and terrible how poorly social services handles these situations. Recently, a student was found to have had a specific type of fracture in her spine that could only be caused by severely twisting the spine.
She's wheelchair-bound and there was no other way of her receiving this injury than the parent physically twisting their child like one would wring out a wet cloth. It was utterly disgusting and heartbreaking to hear about.
48. Spreading The Good Word
I once had an eighth-grade student who had to wear a GPS ankle bracelet at all times. After having him in my class for a while and seeing his awful behavior, I’m not surprised one bit that he had somehow gotten himself into that situation. When his mom came in for a meeting, she was so intoxicated that she started making up Bible verses that don’t actually exist.
I guess a bad upbringing really does have adverse effects on a child! Who knew?
49. She Was 100% In The Wrong
I could list ALL of the terrible phone calls, conferences, and emails where parents blame everything except their child's actions for the reason they are in trouble. They are so numerous, I can't even begin to count them. But there is one that is different from all of those. It’s the only one like it that I have ever encountered. It was with one of my AP English students.
Typical parent-teacher conference. AP parents were flying in and out, since almost all of the kids are doing well. This one super sweet girl and her mother come in and sit down. I tell them she has a 99% in the class. 99% total. As in an A+. Without missing a beat, the mom looks at her daughter with a big-time attitude and says "What can we do to get that up to a 100?"
My mouth dropped. I said "Well, we still have half a semester left, so there is time for extra credit..." and then I made the mistake of adding "...but you know, a 99 is really great!" That...was...a...mistake. The mom jumps out of her chair and starts yelling at me that I should mind my own business and that she has high expectations for her daughter.
To add insult to injury, she added that she wants her daughter to become something more than, "Just a high school teacher." I hate parents, which is why I don't plan on ever becoming one.
50. Baby It’s Cold Outside
A first-grade student of mine came to school every day without a jacket. When I asked him about it, he told me that his jacket was too small and that his family couldn't afford a bigger one. When winter came around, I raided the closet in the front office for a donated jacket to give him. He lucked out, and there was a brand new jacket with matching hat and mittens in there.
So I put them in a box I had laying around, and tucked them into his backpack. They were a little big, so I hoped he'd grow into them. I told him there was a present for him in his backpack, but to wait until he got home to open it. That was so as not to leave him vulnerable to questions and taunting from his classmates.
The next day was warmer, so I wasn't shocked to see him without the coat. However, what was shocking was that his mother showed up at pickup in the family's SUV. She was wearing the jacket! I had to have a talk with the poor guy and arrange for a "recess jacket" for him that he left in his cubby so his mom wouldn't take another one.
Sources: Reddit,
