Mom shocked by kid’s ‘inappropriate’ incident at school — but principal initially defended the teacher
She taught him a lesson in personal boundaries.
A mom who ripped her teen daughter’s teacher for reading her private diary has received mixed reactions.
“Am I the a–hole for ripping into my daughter’s teacher?” the UK-based parent, 45, wrote in a viral Reddit post uploaded to the platform’s ever-popular “AITA” forum.
The woman — who goes by Lopsided_Shine_7866 on the platform — said her 13-year-old daughter had been struggling socially, so she encouraged her to keep a diary to process “bad feelings.”
“She’s loved the diary, a lot, writing in it multiple times a day, and of course, I do not check what she writes, as it is her personal property,” the Redditor wrote.
Spelling out her emotions was working wonders — until one day when the teen accidentally left her bag out and her teacher found the notebook.
The educator, who was in his mid-30s, reportedly did not like what he read and decided to confront the student about “leaving her bag behind” and “the rude words she used in her diary,” per the post.
”Now, I want to be clear I don’t encourage my daughter to use rude words, but if she chooses to do so in her own diary, I can’t stop her — nor should I?” the parent clarified. “And that’s me as her mother — so imagine how inappropriate it is for a teacher!”
When her progeny returned home in tears over the teacher’s tongue-lashing, the Redditor “rang the school right away and demanded to speak to him.”
She then proceeded to tear the educator a “new one” and inform him that she’d be removing her child from his class and informing the principal.
The parent then rang one of her friends to “vent” about the ordeal but did not receive the sympathy she expected.
“To my absolute shock, she criticized me for treating a young teacher so poorly, that he was probably still learning about what he was allowed to do and that I should be grateful he took the time to treat my daughter specially,” she wrote.
She added that some of her fellow moms in her friend group added that she “shouldn’t have ripped into her teacher as he was ‘just doing his job.'”
The Redditor clarified in the thread that the teacher claimed he had been worried about the daughter and wanted to check on her.
So, feeling like she was too biased to judge her own actions fairly, the mother used the ever-vocal Reddit community as a behavior barometer.
They were quick to jump to her defense.
“You stood up for your daughter’s privacy,” declared one online advocate. “He had no right to read her diary.”
“Leaving her bag behind was not an invitation to violate her privacy and read her diary,” argued another defender. “The point of a diary is to have. Place to put your thoughts and a way to express yourself instead other physical issues.”
“You were absolutely right to stand up for your daughter,” echoed a third. “He should not have read her diary and he needs to know that is a breach of privacy and a gross violation of trust.”
Some even encouraged the woman to take legal action, but she pointed out that they were in the UK, where “many civil liberties, district policies and Supreme Court rulings do not apply.”
