Teachers Are Exposing The Most Entitled, Oblivious Parents They've Ever Dealt With, And I'm Exhausted Just Reading Them
It's no secret that being a teacher is a pretty tough job that requires quite a bit of patience. And while it probably seems like most of that patience is needed to get a classroom full of unruly kids to pay attention, a good chunk of it is actually required to handle another difficult group of people — parents.
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From Karens to helicopter moms, handling parents can often times be the hardest part of a teacher's job. So, I asked the teachers of the BuzzFeed Community to share their wildest encounters with toxic, entitled parents. Here are 21 of the most jaw-dropping stories they shared:
1."A parent put me as their emergency contact without asking so I could keep their kid if they forgot to pick them up."
— Anonymous
2."A mom brought her son into class throwing up and weak from the flu. When I objected, she told me she couldn't get any work done with him at home and asked if he could just sleep in the corner on one of the beanbag chairs all day."
"Then, she walked out. I brought the little boy to the nurse's office, where he was checked and had a temperature of 102. The mom refused to come pick him up. Not only did I catch the worst flu I’ve ever had, all the rest of my students got sick, too. To top it off, the mom called the principal to complain about me for asking her to take him home."
— Anonymous
3."I had a parent get very angry that their son got in a fight and that she had to miss work to come get him. She wanted the principal to pay her out of his own pocket the rest of her day's wages since she had to leave."
— Anonymous
4."A parent sent in a birthday treat and tore off the label showing the ingredients that clearly stated that there were peanuts in the cake. When confronted by me, she said that the kid who had a peanut allergy was probably just faking it, and she wanted to prove it."
— Anonymous
NBC
5."One student's parents took me to the superintendent and asked for me to be fired because I didn't schedule their daughter to give a 45 minute motivational speech to the whole school."
"When they didn’t succeed in getting me fired, they declared that 'her message was too big for this school.'"
— Anonymous
6."I had a parent tell me that I should lead by example and refuse to wear my mask in the classroom so I can teach students how to stand up for what is right."
"This is a school, city, and state mandate. So…no."
— Anonymous
7."A parent once sent a student's brother to class with him so I could watch him, because the brother didn't have school that day."
"One time, a boy who I'd never seen before came into my classroom and sat down. I asked if he was new or if the office told him to come here, but he said no. I was about to call the office when one of my students said, "Oh, that’s my brother. He doesn't have school today, so he came with me.” His parents had just dropped him off because they had to work!"
— Anonymous
8."A teacher I worked with next door was dealing with a parent that wanted the school to pay to have a bounce house available daily solely for their son to use to get his energy out."
— Anonymous
CBS
9."I'm a college professor, and a student failed my class because he didn't turn in any of the assignments. His dad emailed me, leading with, 'I’m the VP of (company redacted), and I demand you reconsider his grade.'"
"I replied and explained due to FERPA, I could not discuss his son's grade with him. He then emailed me to remind me he was a VP, and that 'he could make my degree disappear.'"— Anonymous
10."Pre-Covid, a mom told me that if I wanted to have a parent-teacher conference with her, I needed to stand outside the school office when she texted to say she was coming, and then come to her car window, because she wasn’t going to waste her time walking to my classroom."
"I did. Jokes on her, being pissed off made me a whole lot less diplomatic than I would have usually been and she had a very unpleasant 20 minutes."
— Anonymous
11."We got hit with a blizzard last winter, and I got an email from a parent asking me to come in to school and teach her son one-on-one so she didn't have to deal with him at home for the day."
— Anonymous
12."A parent once told me that my pregnancy and planned maternity leave was ‘extremely inconvenient’ for her daughter."
— Anonymous
Comedy Central
13."On the first day a father came in, handed me his business card, and said that I was his employee now and to treat him as if he were my employer."
— Anonymous
14."I'm an art teacher, and I had a student who didn’t show any interest in making Christmas gifts in class to take home. Somehow his parents find my unlisted home phone number and called me the morning of Christmas Eve, insisting that I meet their kid at school immediately so I could 'help' him make gifts for them."
— Anonymous
15."A parent wanted me to stop pumping during my breaks at school because her son didn't like the teacher on recess duty."
"I teach at an elementary school and was just returning from maternity leave. My times to pump were recess and during planning. A parent filed multiple complaints because she wanted to know why I was missing recess. My principal told her I was pumping during that time and would not be able to take the kids out. The mother demanded to know how much longer I was going to pump and suggested I find another time to do it 'if I absolutely had to pump at school.' She continued to make comments about my baby’s age and how they don’t need breastmilk once they can start solids…and continued complaining to my principal about me pumping all year long."
— Anonymous
16."I had a mom yell at me for asking her son to throw his drink away in my class, because 'frappuccinos are a vital part of her son’s nutrition.'"
"My student walked into the classroom with a Starbucks frappuccino, and I kindly told him that food and drinks weren’t allowed in the classroom, which he already knew. He threw the rest of the drink away without issue. Three days later, his mother approaches me and proceeded to yell that frappuccinos are a vital part of her son's nutrition and that I am required by law to allow him because of 'medical accommodation requirements.'"
— Anonymous
NBC
17."A parent asked if they could use my Zoom for a class birthday party, then assumed I would be planning and hosting the event on my day off."
"This mom asked if they could use my zoom for her kid's virtual party, since all the kids already knew how to log on. I said sure, thinking it would be right after class. About a week later, she sent me her idea for the invitation. It was on a Saturday and said I was hosting! I called and told her I couldn’t do a weekend, suggested it be after class, and asked what it meant that I was hosting. She said that she wanted to invite her kids friends from out of school and then asked me what games I was planning to play with the kids! I shut that down fast."
— Anonymous
18."A mother wanted me to learn Chinese so I could teach it to her first grade son, because he might get bored in my class."
"I don’t know Chinese — it was not part of the curriculum in the crowded, public school I was teaching at. I suggested I could teach a little Spanish to the class, but was told her son didn't like that language."
— Anonymous
19."A parent expected me to drive school materials to their house every time his son forgot something at school. When I explained I couldn't do that — but that he could drive back to school to pick up the forgotten materials — I was accused of not being concerned about his son’s learning."
— Anonymous
20."I had a parent who was upset because their daughter's best friend was also friends with other kids, so they wanted me to move all their other friends from the lunch table so she could have her best friend all to herself."
"I’m sorry, I’m not ostracizing other children because you don’t want to teach your daughter how to mingle with everyone."
— Anonymous
21.And finally, "I was fresh out of school in my first year teaching, when a mother tried to bribe me to pass her son in a course required for graduation. She sat with her check book out, asking me how much it was worth for me to 'tutor her son so he could graduate."
"It was obvious to both of us what she was asking. I know she wouldn’t have flinched on any number I named. But, I played dumb and claimed that — being a public servant — I’d tutor him for free. Don’t get me wrong — the money would have alleviated so much of my personal stress, but the thwarted look on her entitled face has kept me warm for years."
— Anonymous
Now its your turn! Are you a teacher who has some wild, shocking stories about entitled parents like these? If so, tell us about them in the comments below or via this anonymous form.
As for everyone else...please go thank a teacher today. They deserve it!