Children can be rude sometimes.
But that’s because the social behaviors and ideas that make us good at people-ing are learned behaviors. Children are still learning, so of course they’re not that great at it all the time.
That’s where their adults come in.
Adults, however, don’t always agree on what values and ideas are worth being taught. Redditor SnooRecipes9487 took to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit and asked for people’s opinions on how he handled one such situation with his son’s teacher.
Before we get into the details, let’s go over the AITA response scale:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Now on to Dad’s post:
“AITA for telling my son’s teacher that it sounds like she has a personal problem?”
“My 7yo son’s teacher wrote me a nasty email on Monday about how he called another teacher ‘fat’. As I got more information about the situation, the more I realized that the teacher overreacted.”
“His class was walking in line and my son’s teacher from last year walked by. My son asked his current teacher if she was pregnant.”
“His current teacher said no and why would he asked that. My son said because she was fat.”
“She told him that she wasn’t pregnant and that wasn’t nice to call people fat. My son was confused.”
“I asked his current teacher what the big deal was. He wasn’t trying to mean or funny.”
“He’s 7. It was an honest and curious question that a 7yo would ask and that I would think a teacher who teaches them would understand that.”
“She said it was besides the point and I should discuss with him about how making comments about people’s appearances can hurt feelings. I told her she was stretching it a bit and if she was asking me to discuss bullsh*t like body acceptance or whatever with a 7yo. Get real.”
“Finally she said that people come in all sizes and kids should learn not to judge them or assume they’re pregnant. I told her I was busy and she sounded like she had a personal problem. And yes, she is a bit tubby.”
Redditors had issues with Dad and they weren’t afraid to let him know it.
“YTA. Your son’s teacher isn’t asking you to teach your son about the body acceptance movement. Your son’s teacher is asking you to teach your son about basic decency.”
“But judging from that last, entirely unnecessary, comment that you made about the teacher’s weight, I’m guessing no one has ever taught you about basic decency either.” – JDPGhost
“So many times when dealing with problem students, after talking with their parents it’s pretty obvious where the problems come from.”
“I’m sure OP’s son didn’t mean anything by his comment (he’s only 7!), but I can only anticipate how he may grow as a person if OP parents him according to his sentiments in this post.”
“Not only did he not try to approach the issue constructively, he instead fat shamed the teacher lol. What a piece of work.” – anchovie_macncheese
“Seriously? I mean all OP has to say to the kid is ‘I know you didn’t really understand and weren’t trying to be mean, but commenting on someone’s weight or looks is a bit rude and something we really shouldn’t do’.”
“That’s literally just a basic facet of parenting, teaching your kids not to be rude little twerps. YTA, op” – deep-fried-fck
“You had me until you started talking about ‘body acceptance bullsh*t’ and then making remarks about his teacher’s appearance.”
“Is it a fair question for a 7yo? Yes. Did he mean to be rude? No. Are you being mean and rude by bringing up his teacher’s appearance when it has no bearing on the situation? Yes!”
“Sounds like someone needs to have a talk with you about not making fun of appearances before you’d be qualified to have a talk with your son about it YTA” – Swampman5000
“YTA. Your son didn’t do anything wrong, per se, but that doesn’t mean you can’t discuss it with him. Instead you doubled and tripled down.”
“It would have just been easier to say, ‘Son, don’t tell people they’re fat and they’ll tell you if they’re pregnant.’ Which are two universal truths no matter his situation.”
“He’s your kid, it’s your job to help him navigate life and you literally refused to do so and insulted the teacher in order to avoid it.” – NomNom83wastaken
“YTA. Yes, kids do say inappropriate things. Yes, it is your job to explain to your kid that they are inappropriate.”
“Since you’re clearly not doing that, since it looks like you may have not been taught that yourself (judging by your discord) the teacher had every right to suggest it to you for your kids sake.”
“Whether or not the teacher is being ‘sensitive’ the truth is, if you don’t teach your kid not to be an asshole he will become an asshole who thinks he’s above learning to be polite to people like you apparently do.” – Zoklett
We’re guessing AITA didn’t work out the way Dad had planned—especially since he argued against the unanimous YTA judgment handed down by Redditors.
Listen, we’re not over here holding out hope that the OP changed his ways, sat with his kid and had any kind of conversation.
What we do hope is that someone reading realizes it’s their job to teach their kids to be good people and that somewhere along the way, in spite of his father, this little boy learns compassion, empathy and consideration.