SerpApi.Org
Recently, a self-described non-teacher who lives near a couple of schools posted a question on r/AskTeachers that hit a nerve. "Unsure if it's just the parents around me or if it's a common thing now," u/Mae_The_Gay wrote, "but are parents getting worse at parenting?" They described stepping in to tell kids to get out of the road, making anonymous tips to police about young children wandering alone, and feeling weird about doing any of it. The post asked teachers a simple question: Do you have to deal with parents who don't step in and do their job? Is it getting more common?
The thread got more than 200 comments. Here are some of the most eye-opening ones:
1."I had this exact conversation with a mother last week: Me: 'Your son has been really tired and is falling behind. You should take away his Xbox until after finals or he will fail. I suggest just taking the power cord away to make it easy.' Mom: 'Oh, I can't do that. He'd be too upset with me. Can you offer him a makeup packet instead?'"
2."A 16-year-old male student raised his voice at me because I told him to take his headphones out. When I emailed the parents, the dad wrote back, 'I am so sorry. He will be punished when he gets home. He is never to speak to a teacher like that, and especially not to a woman. We will definitely speak to him. I'm so sorry about this again.' When I tell you I almost fell off my chair. I couldn't believe how apologetic and supportive this dad was. My level of shock just shows you how rare this is."
Related: "Parents Reveal How They're Breaking Toxic Family Cycles"
3."I have several kids with snowplow parents in my class. I had a parent email me to say how upset their son was that I read two books about women in one month, which happened to be Women's History Month. They were short books that took only one class period. Such a fragile snowflake that he can't bear to hear about the accomplishments of two women."
4."At the school where I spent the most time, we always called them snowplow parents. They carefully run ahead of their kid in life, clearing every obstacle. Failed test? Bad teacher. Rude in class? Didn't feel good that day. Skipped a review session to smoke weed? His grandma has been really sick. Kids end up incapable of dealing with the consequences of their own actions when they hit college. I have a close friend who is a professor at a local community college, and for the first time in her career, she has been getting emails from parents, mostly moms, making excuses for their college-aged child's behavior or academic performance. When does it stop? Are moms going to be emailing patients who get ****** medical care because their son, the doctor, had a headache from allergies?"
5."I'm a community college instructor. I get the occasional email from parents. I shut that down immediately, saying I can't talk to them. FERPA. Have a nice day. My department chairs back me up 100%."
6."Many American parents have stopped parenting. It's a huge rot at the center of American culture, and school is one of the places where the results of that rot start to show. The scary part is that while it sucks that we have kids who don't give a **** because their parents trained them not to give a ****, the real cost comes later, when they hit adulthood, and our whole society has to deal with them. Being lazy, rude, and entitled is annoying when you're 16. When you're 26, it's lethal."
7."I have been teaching for over a decade, but I also think some parents have unrealistic expectations of teachers. We all have online grade books now that we update, and parents can see kids' progress, assignments and everything. The number of parents I have who tell me, 'Oh, just call me if he's missing anything!' I'm not going to do that. I have 100 students. It's on you to talk to your kid and look at the grade book. Don't expect the teacher to call or email you about every missing minor task. Some parents are great, but others will write me all the time and just say, 'I want my kid to do well.' Well, your kid doesn't try, is missing many assignments and turns in work that is half-done. You can't want it more than they do."
8."We literally had to expel a kid because her mom decided to use the kid's backpack for a weekend trip and accidentally left a gun in it that went off at our metal detectors. Her kid was actually pretty smart — average, but she actually cared, which is the best we get. And Mom just ruined the rest of her childhood because they'll literally have to move to another city to find a school outside our district that will take her. The parents are so bad that they ruin opportunities for their kid before the kid even has one."
Related: "These Parenting Trends Need To Die In 2026, According To Parents"
9."Parents are significantly more difficult than they were before the pandemic, and the parents of 2018 were more difficult than the parents from 15 to 20 years before that. I see it in so many aspects of how we interact with them, even in things as simple as morning drop-off. What used to be a patient, community-oriented process, where everyone tried to support everyone else getting safely into the building, has now become an unpredictable free-for-all of parents doing what they please and expecting others to wait for them. It's a microcosm of what dealing with parents has become in every situation."
10."Note to self from younger me: Admin do NOT like it when you tell parents they should stop sucking at parenting. I quickly learned to nod and smile and let them ruin their child because there's nothing I can do to stop it, and if I try to intervene, it will affect my career."
11."I just saw an article a few weeks ago about a school board in Florida that is dealing with parents sending kids to school who aren't even potty-trained yet. I can obviously understand some students who have disabilities, etc., but it sounds like a majority of the incoming class had not been potty-trained. I honestly thought it was a requirement for your child to be potty-trained before attending school. Teachers don't have time to change diapers. I remember wanting to go to school so badly, as my big brothers did, but my mom said I couldn't until I wore big-girl undies and kept them dry. I was potty-trained in two days because I wanted to go to school so badly."
12."I used to be a substitute teacher. But as a mom, I see so many parents not parenting that it makes me ill. Bratty behaviors, 6-year-olds with pacifiers, kids not throwing away trash when they can, etc."
Related: "20 Foreign Parenting Practices That Might Shock American Parents"
13."In California, we now have universal transitional kindergarten. At the start of the school year, there are some 3-year-olds on our public school campus. Can you imagine?! I have been in conversations with several parents who sheepishly joke about how their kids still sh— their pants and they're sending them to public school — like, 'Oh! Oopsies!' as if it's cute. I don't get it. It's disgusting and lazy."
14."We have kindergarteners and first graders who get sent in pull-ups, sometimes already soiled by the time they get to school. No one changes these kids during the day, so they sit in them all day. The parents somehow think they're sneaky. They end up being reported to CPS."
15."I wrote an IEP yesterday for a soon-to-be fourth-grader who needs to learn the alphabet. I also have a soon-to-be fifth-grader who is still learning phonemic awareness. Put down the bong and READ TO YOUR KIDS."
16."I wish someone would go knock on one of my students' doors. Her attendance is abysmal. Her mom kept her home the other day because 'she was too hot the last two days at school.' The days in question were 70 degrees and 57 degrees. I think it's because Mom doesn't work and doesn't want to get out of bed to get her kid going."
17."Teachers are not waiting for parents to figure it out; WE ARE LITERALLY RAISING THESE YOUNG PEOPLE FOR THEM. We're tired."
18."In my experience, the rot has touched every sector of American society. It's not solely economic. There are upper-middle-class and rich parents who have just totally thrown in the towel on raising decent people. It seems to me that even the parents who 'care' are prioritizing the child's immediate emotional impulses over their long-term emotional growth. I think sometimes it's laziness, and sometimes it's that they've bought a version of permissive parenting from the internet."
However, some teachers pushed back on the premise:
Related: "People Are Sharing Why This Generation Of Grandparents \"Sucks,\" And It's Pretty Nuanced"
19."One of the reasons parenting sucks so much is that the expectations have vastly increased. No one was watching their kids outside while they played in previous generations. Now, people immediately jump to judging the parents. It wasn't solely the responsibility of individual parents to watch their children every second of the day. Neighbors and other parents would correct children who were doing something wrong, and that was seen as normal. Calling the police? Pathologizing children for being outside and playing? That's what's ***** wrong with society today."
20."My hot take is that parenting isn't getting worse; keeping one's head above water is getting harder. I genuinely believe most parents want to raise decent people. I also believe that when a parent is working two or three jobs, working nights or the swing shift, or hustling for Uber and DoorDash, it's exhausting and saps parents' resources, making it hard for them to be fully present in their kids' lives. I also think this is by design and intended to distract people from the real reason they don't have the life they want: the unrelenting greed of the Epstein class."
21."It's not 'gentle parenting.' Gentle parenting is actually a form of authoritative parenting. The issue is that we have a ton of parents practicing permissive parenting, and everyone assumes that is gentle parenting."
22."Let's paint a picture of what life was like only 30 years ago. My dad worked multiple jobs, and my mom stayed home. Most of my friends in a middle-class suburban town had similar situations. Moms who wanted to work did so, but many or most worked part-time or were full-time caretakers. I remember how exhausting my friends and I were, even with her at home. When I think about today, the emotional toll of raising children while also giving it your all in a career is pretty daunting. I think, as teachers, as much as we complain about our jobs, we forget that we have every holiday, every weekend, all vacations and summers off, during which we are able to flip the script and dedicate ourselves more fully to parenting. Others don't have that luxury."
"Are there bad parents out there? Definitely. There were bad parents when I was a kid. But I think it's more about the societal burden placed on adults to maintain a certain lifestyle while also parenting children, focusing on a career, maintaining a home, and nurturing a relationship.
It's not easy being 25 to 45 today. I wouldn't say it's harder. There was probably more 'sacrifice' or 'going without' in generations past, but I empathize with today's parents."
23."They're either nonexistent, or they're too involved in their kids' business. I have students who barely show up to school and are obviously high when they do show up, and their parents don't care. On the other hand, I had a parent send me and my boss multiple-paragraph emails trying to get me to change her daughter's grade. The grade was a B+, and the final grade is an A-, but apparently, the only acceptable grade is an A."
Were you a teacher reading this and shaking your head? Were you a parent reading this and shaking your head? Tell us in the comments or in the anonymous form below, and you could be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community post.
Your daily brain workout: Your Brain Needs To Be Studied In A Lab If You Can Actually Solve These Word Chains
You Might Like: If Your Birth Year Starts With “19,” These 44 “Boring” Products Under $50 Will Probably Excite You
You Might Like: "I Splurged On A Viral Cat Tree, And I Love It As Much As My Cat"
Also in Parents: "My 6-Year-Old Son Drowned In Our Pool. Here's What I Wish I Had Known To Keep Him Safe."
Also in Parents: "\"Supernanny\" Shared A Video Discussing How Modern Parenting Is Ruining Kids' Independence"
Also in Parents: "19 Celebs Who Welcomed Babies Super Young"
