Being a teacher is not easy. You have to wrangle a full classroom of students all day long, handle pressure from parents and the admins, and actually teach those young minds something in the process. Sadly, many teachers face terrible working conditions. In fact, according to one Australian survey, 80% of teachers experience bullying and harassment from students and parents.
Not every parent is a bully, but some say and do such out-of-pocket things that they need to be kept for posterity. Last year, teacher and creator @AmyThingGoes asked fellow teachers to share the most outrageous things parents have messaged them. And the teachers delivered: from ridiculous demands, entitled behavior, and straight-up disrespect, these parents did more than just make the teachers raise their eyebrows.
#1
My first year teaching PE I had a students parent at an open house tell me that I don’t know the first thing about basketball because I’m a girl. So I challenged him to one V one and I beat him while wearing my Birkenstocks. I know ball
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81points
#2
“I want to homeschool my child. When will the teacher be at our house and which teacher will it be?”
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72points
#3
"It is so unprofessional that you took 3 days off and didn't tell the parents you would be out and why. This impacts my daughter's learning. You need to tell us where you were" and cc'd my principal...so I gave my principal permission to go into detail about my miscarriage.
68points
#4
Imma flip it and reverse it, I’m a parent and I told my son’s teacher “please, if he’s acting a fool YELL AT HIM! By all means I give you permission to reprimand my kid, I will not be upset! And if he doesn’t listen, you can use calling me as a threat bc he KNOWS if I have to leave work bc he’s acting up
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62points
#5
Parent messaged me “why are you picking on my child, I only ever hear about things she is doing”…ma’am why would I tell you about the other children??
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56points
#6
“Please don’t teach about voting, it doesn’t seem appropriate for them to learn..” as I stopped reading and laughed because my kids were voting about oreos or chocolate chip cookies.. they’re 3
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56points
#7
“Why did my child not hand in this assignment?” I don’t know why your 15 yr old didn’t hand it in. ASK THEM.
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54points
#8
“You have a Black Lives Matter symbol in your classroom. What does this have to do with ELA? Stick to the curriculum.” Lots to say about that, but mostly, it is a Star Wars rebellion symbol, so…
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54points
#9
“With technology today I don’t really care if my child can read.”
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53points
#10
I got told there was no reason for me to be teaching about the rainbow and "promoting gay culture" I teach elementary art
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52points
#11
“Why is Obama’s picture hanging in your room?” — my response was “I’m a history teacher and he’s is (2010) the President”.
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50points
#12
“Can you make sure to call my house at 6:30 to wake my son up for school. I work.”
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46points
#13
In 2013 I got divorced, a few other teachers knew. I never told students, just quit wearing my ring. A parent emailed me and asked I keep wearing my ring so her son didn't learn about divorce. Her son was a senior in high school.
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46points
#14
had a CHILD (9 or 10 at the time) interrupting my lesson by saying hawk tuah LOUDLY, emailed home about it, the response from mom was that i was “projecting my adult views onto her child” and now she had to “have a weird adult conversation about what it means what he didn’t know what he was saying” like ma’am. YOU HAVE TO PARENT?!!? REALLY…
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43points
#15
Had a parent email and accuse me of teaching sexual orientation when I was actually teaching asexual reproduction in unicellular organisms… (I teach biology) lol
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42points
#16
"Miss can you please send homework. it's 1 week into holidays and he's driving me insane"
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41points
#17
“Hi, this isn’t school related, but I was wondering if (students name) dad is single?”
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40points
#18
"Please stop marking my son's work in red ink. It's very aggressive and we're trying to encourage him to try hard." Went right into my trash bin
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40points
#19
“Please remove my child anytime there is talk about ghost, monsters or demons, as we don’t want the devil to infect our child” I was reading a fantasy book in my curriculum
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35points
#20
Screamed at me for 10 minutes on the phone. How dare I ask her son to stack his chair on his desk, throw away his trash, and plug in his computer at the end of the day. 🙃 I’m not exaggerating. “It’s your classroom! It’s YOUR job to do that!”
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35points