Let's be honest here — teachers do NOT have it easy. They are often very underappreciated (not to mention underpaid), yet they have such important jobs.
On top of dealing with discouraging factors such as unsupportive administrations and difficult students, teachers are also forced to deal with rude and overbearing parents. We asked teachers from the BuzzFeed Community to share their parent horror stories, and the responses were truly shocking. Here are some of the wildest ones:
1. "One child’s married father swiped right on me on Tinder. I had Tinder Gold and could see who had liked me. Obviously, I didn't match with him. He then requested a meeting with me to ask why I hadn’t matched with him. When I explained that it would be impossible for me to date a parent, he was furious. He filed a complaint about me every week for the rest of the school year, which was funny because he’d been singing my praises up until when I rejected him. He must have bad-mouthed me to the other parents, too, because they suddenly became very cold toward me. His poor wife and child!"
2. "I was new to the district and was set to replace a drama teacher who was a town legend and had worked at this school for over 40 years. The mom of a senior student came in my first week with a five-page list, front and back, of all the things I was doing wrong and questions about how I was going to highlight her 'star' of a child that year."
3. "I phoned a parent to tell them that their child hadn't attended detention. The parent shouted at me, called me stupid, and said her child didn't 'do' detentions. I said goodbye and hung up. She then phoned me back to shout at me again for speaking to her in my 'hoity-toity voice.'"
4. "On the first day of kindergarten, we had the parents give hugs and then leave so we could start storytime with the kids. One mom was found peeking in the windows, and the assistant principal had to ask her to leave. She claimed that her son was upset and still needed her, but he was doing great and making new friends. We thought she had left, but at recess, we saw the bushes start to move. She literally hid in the bushes to 'check on her son.'"
5. "I’ve got a hedge around my class's outdoor space, and I’ve had parents peek through the hedge to watch their kids. This outdoor space is off of a private road owned by the school and has a locked gate on the end, but parents will jump the gate just to come spy on us."
6. "I once scheduled a conference with a mom and dad because their daughter was having some issues getting her work done. The dad showed up in a shirt that said, 'Beer drinkers get the most head.' He then proceeded to slam his fists on the table and storm out of the room when one of my colleagues mentioned that his daughter had missed turning in a project. My school ended up going into lockdown because they had lost track of him somewhere in the building. The mother acted totally unfazed. The school eventually filed a restraining order against him. I cut their daughter a lot of slack after that."
7. "A parent threatened to call the police because her son lent out his fidget spinner to a classmate. At the end of the day, he decided that he wanted to retract the loan and asked for it back. The other student said he’d borrow it for the night and bring it back the next day. The parent yelled in my face and said she was calling the police over the 'stolen' toy, then proceeded to hunt down the child in question before he boarded the bus. The kids were in kindergarten."
8. "I was seven months pregnant while we were having our parent-teacher conferences. I had a parent look me up and down and say, 'You knocked up?' Yeah, obviously I was. Then she proceeded to tell me that I needed to send video messages to her son and to the class daily while on maternity leave because it would be too hard for the students to learn while I was gone."
9. "One time, a mother somehow got my personal number and proceeded to harass me all summer through phone calls and texts. She was mad because I gave her child an A- instead of an A+. Needless to say, she was blocked and her child was never put in my art class again."
10. "I was teaching senior English, and for a final paper, a student turned in something he had printed off the internet. He didn't even fix the obvious formatting errors from the copying and pasting. When I confronted him, he said that he had written the paper, but his mom had edited it, so she must have done the plagiarizing. I called the mom to tell her that her son was getting an F on his final, and she flipped out. When I told her that he had blamed her, she said, 'Well, if I did it, you certainly can’t fail him!' She went all the way to the superintendent of the county, but my grade stood."
11. "We had a student whose mom made him wear pull-ups until second grade. His mom would come up to the school and change his pull-up every day at lunch. The poor kid was visibly embarrassed every time. He was the youngest of four kids, and Mom couldn’t handle that he wasn’t a baby anymore."
12. "One of the most difficult parents I've dealt with was the father of this 15-year-old girl. She was a lovely student and really smart, but under a ridiculous amount of pressure to be perfect. She got over 90% on every test or assignment that year, but he always came to my class demanding that I explain my grading and show him why she didn't get 100%. He'd even ask to see other students' work to compare, which I obviously never let him do."
13. "High school teacher here! One day, I caught a student smoking in the bathroom, and he got suspended. His enraged mother called me to say I was a huge liar and a bully. She also said she knew for a fact that her son didn't smoke because she 'smelled his fingers every day when he got home from school.' WTF."
14. "I coach high school swimming at an all-boys school. This one particular boy had a peculiar relationship with his overbearing mom. One day, he sent me a message that he couldn't make it to practice. I simply asked why, and he said, 'I already took my shower for the day, and my mom doesn’t want me getting dirty again.'"
15. "When I busted a senior for plagiarizing, his mom came in for the obligatory parent conference. Mom said, without any hesitation or humor, 'I don’t understand. I saw him typing, and then when he clicked on a new tab, his thoughts were there! On the internet! It’s reading his mind!' I had to stare at the picture directly behind her rather than look at her or the administrator because I could barely contain my laughter."
16. "When I taught elementary school, a parent once asked me if I had kids of my own. When I said I didn’t, she said, 'Oh, that’s why you don’t know how to discipline your class.'"
17. "I had a 10th-grade student whose mother texted them constantly, all throughout class, even though the students weren't supposed to have their phones out. Once, the student randomly told me they had to leave in the middle of class. I asked why, and they said their mother texted them that someone was there to pick them up. I hadn't heard anything about it, had no note saying the student was leaving class, and no call from the office that someone was there to pick them up. So I told them they couldn't leave. Next thing I know, the mother called the principal and complained that I wouldn't let her kid leave class based on a text message she sent them in the middle of a lesson. Guess who got in trouble? Apparently, I should just let any kid leave class at any time for any reason."
18. "I had a parent threaten to fight me. I had been their child’s teacher for three days, and she called the principal to inform them that my 'days were numbered.'"
19. "I've been teaching preschool for 13 years, and I once had a mom who would 'study' the following week’s lesson plans with her 2-year-old daughter over the weekend, then make her recite it all to us on Monday morning."
20. "I worked at a school with a student whose parents would pick him up every day for lunch, then bring him back for recess and watch him play. This kid was in first grade, but they insisted on coddling him. Once, he got into a minor disagreement with another child (over kid stuff) and started crying. His mom immediately marched up to him and insisted on taking him home, even though he was fine two minutes later. The principal had no issue with this because the mom was also the president of the PTA."
21. "We’ve been doing virtual learning this year. I have a parent who sits just off camera during every single Zoom lesson and does her son’s work for him. She also answers questions in the chat for him and whispers to him to ask me questions about what we’re learning. She probably thinks I can’t tell, but it’s pretty obvious. Meanwhile, he just sits there in his pajamas, with a snack, looking at his phone in his lap."
22. "I used to teach at a Catholic school. I am a big Harry Potter fan, so I had a few posters up in my middle school classroom. I had a parent tell me that Harry Potter is demonic and that she believed reading aloud the spells from the books would summon demons. I refused to remove the books or posters from my room, so she reported me to the priest. As a compromise, I got to keep the books but had to take down the posters. I think this parent genuinely thought I was a witch teaching sorcery."
23. "I teach preschool, and we usually take the kids outside about half an hour after they are dropped off. Before heading out, we try to encourage the children to practice learning some practical life skills, like getting their coats and boots on (with adult support, of course). One mother was convinced that her child could not put on his own coat or dress himself. Most days, he was absolutely fine, and usually one of the first kids to get dressed. Some days, his mom would hide in the cubby area until we headed out and yell at me and the TA about how her son couldn’t dress himself and how we needed to do it for him. It usually ended with her son in tears, her undressing and redressing him, and us trying to explain to her that her behavior was inappropriate and she needed to leave, all while the rest of the kids stood and watched in shock."
24. "I’m a university professor, so my students are almost universally 18-plus. I've had parents complain to the dean because they don’t like the way I run my class. I’ve had parents send me 10 or more emails in a day because I wouldn’t let their child take a makeup exam. It’s wild to see how far some parents will go, especially when I've heard nothing from the actual student."
25. "I had a 10-year-old student who chose to wear T-shirts to school in the winter. When he was cold, he would put on his heavy winter coat but then complain he was too hot. His mother insisted that my classroom was both too cold and too hot. The head of maintenance came into my room every hour to check the temperature, and then called in a heating service to go over the entire system. This wasn't enough. I suggested that if he wanted to wear a T-shirt when it was 30 degrees out, he could bring a sweatshirt to put on when he was cold."
26. "My mom used to be a college professor, and one time, she talked to one of her students in class about something they'd discussed previously over email. Well, the student had no clue what she was talking about. Turns out, the student's mom had hacked her student email and university account and was impersonating her. Apparently, the daughter wanted to handle her classes and grades on her own, and her mom didn't like not having access to all of her daughter's information."
27. "One afternoon, my principal pulled me out of the classroom to inform me that a parent had complained to the administration that I was pregnant, and she demanded to know what the school was going to do about it. The administration told her that they would support me however they could. I would have 100% appreciated their support had I, in fact, been pregnant. Apparently I was just looking a little tubby."
28. "I was a relatively new, young teacher and gave this kid detention. Her dad called me to to talk about it, though we'd already discussed why. I stayed pretty calm, but the dad got progressively more angry until he screamed through the phone, 'How old are you, anyway? I’ve got a pair of trousers older than you!'"
29. "My kindergarten classroom has two doors — one inside the school gates and one outside the gates. My policy is that parents need to drop off at the back door so students are inside the gates. I politely reminded a mom of this rule when she tried to drop her daughter off at the wrong door after arriving late and not checking in with the office. She started yelling and calling our school a prison, then said I was a 'fat, ugly bitch.' She did this in front of all of my kindergarten students and had to be removed by campus security, all while still yelling."
30. "A mom once tried to sneak into the school after school hours to confront me about the scores her daughter got on her progress report. We'd already had several conferences where I had let her know that her daughter wasn’t meeting the benchmarks. I had to lock my door and turn my lights out so she thought I had left."
31. "During at-home learning this year, a parent said to my face that he should be getting a paycheck for helping his child too."
32. "I'm a college English professor, and on more than one occasion, I've had the parent of a failing student find my phone number and call to scream at me. It's always fun when all I can do is repeat, 'Legally, I cannot disclose any information about this student to you. No, I don't care if you pay their bills. No, I don't care what you think about me. Your college-aged baby is legally an adult, and that means, by law, I can't talk to you about them.' It's always the parents of sons."
33. "I had a parent who wouldn't talk to me. Literally. She came in for a parent-teacher meeting and brought her mother with her. She didn't say a single word to me the entire time. Her mother asked questions, but a few times, she leaned over and whispered something to her mother, who would relay the question to me. Afterward, she went to my principal and complained that I wasn't informative enough and hadn't answered all of her questions. I checked, and she didn't bring her mom along to compensate for a communication barrier or issue. She spoke directly to my principal 10 minutes later and had spoken to me on other occasions."
34. Finally: "I had a parent ask me to call her just so she could call me a bitch and hang up on me. No other reason."
Are you a teacher with a story of your own? Tell us about your wild parent encounters in the comments below!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.