Teacher faces backlash for giving away child’s parade favours

‘As a fellow teacher, I would never do something like that’

The age-old rule in schools is if a student brings in something, they have to bring enough for everyone.

In a recent Reddit post shared to the popular “Am I the A**hole?” subreddit, a mother explained she normally provides her second grader with “everything he needs” for school, including favours to throw during his Mardi Gras parade.

“I bought him $80 worth of throws for the parade so he will have stuff to throw throughout the whole ride but that wasn’t the case,” she wrote in her post.

She continued: “A girl in his class threw all her stuff at once at the beginning of the parade and the teacher made my son (share) his stuff with her and she threw his stuff all at once leaving my son with nothing for the rest of the parade.”

This led to her contacting her child’s teacher to ask why that happened. “She said with a nasty attitude ‘Well the girl had nothing left so I was not going to let her go without, it’s not fair’. Me: but my son deserves to go without!” the mother recalled.

The Reddit post concluded with the mother asking whether or not she was overreacting with her response to the incident.

“Shouldn’t she buy extra instead of taking away from other children or am I overreacting? She could’ve asked for donations. I do not know how to feel about the situation because I believe in sharing but this wasn’t sharing this was taking away from my son.”

After posting, many people took to the comments to point out the teacher’s mistake in giving out the child’s items.

“The girl needs to learn to make things last and if the teacher expected sharing then she should have asked for class donations for it not taken from another kid,” one comment read.

“Why SHOULDN’T the girl learn that actions have consequences? A natural consequence of throwing out all of one’s things at the beginning is that she has none to throw out throughout the rest of the ride.  So why did the teacher feel it wasn’t appropriate for the girl to suffer the consequences of her own actions? Why was your son made to suffer the consequences of her actions instead?” another commenter agreed.

“I’ll tell you why. The teacher didn’t want to put up with hearing the girl whine about not having any more things to throw. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. It was easier to take from your child & give to the whining girl to shut her up than it was to tell the girl that that was the consequences of her actions & make her be quiet.”

“Your son’s teacher is a lazy bum & deserves to suffer consequences herself for her laziness & overall poor behaviour.  She owes your son & you an apology – as well as whatever you paid for the items that she stole from your son &/or forced him to give to the whining girl,” the comment concluded.

Even a teacher chimed into the comments section to defend the mother. “As a fellow teacher, I would never do something like that. Teacher should have bought extra beads for the class if they were so concerned,” they wrote.

“You can ask the student if he wants to share some, but you can’t force him to surrender his own for another student like that.”