Woman tries to get younger brother's teacher fired after he makes 'creepy' joke.
When this woman is upset with her brother's teacher, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for potentially getting a teacher fired over a joke?'
My brother (23) and I (22f) have raised our younger siblings together for the past few years (both our parents have died).
The kids’ teachers know our situation and are generally pretty good about it. Though we still get some comments at parents’ evenings and correspondence from school is often sent to “Mr and Mrs (our surname)”. We are used to it and it’s usually no big deal, sometimes pretty funny.
What I did NOT find funny was my 14yr old coming home from school saying he had a substitute teacher (the teacher works at the same school full time but doesn’t normally take any of our brother’s classes) and as they took the register and saw his surname, the teacher said,
“Another Flowers in the Attic kid! How many more of you are there?!”
Some of the kids laughed, most apparently didn’t really get it, and our brother was embarrassed but also didn’t get the reference. A bunch of the kids googled it in their next break and were laughing about it later on in the day.
(This teacher has taught our 16yr old previously (for a year) so we had met them multiple times at parents’ night. She has since told me they made comments to her too.)
When my brother came home and told me what happened, and asked me what Flowers in the Attic is, I was really pissed off.
We have had several similar comments before and I don’t find them funny, but it’s next level out of order IMO to say something like that to a young teenager. Let alone in front of classmates.
I complained to the school about it the next day. I went in a little strong but I was PISSED. I met with the principal and another senior staff member (waited over an hour for them to be free).
I told them at the very least I don’t want any of the kids being taught by that teacher ever again.
I think it will be dealt with after Christmas break, as this was right at the end of their last week. I got the impression they will likely be fired. My older brother followed up with an email to back me up and create a record of it.
We saw some friends yesterday and told them about the incident. They were horrified but not at the teacher, at ME for complaining about it. They said it was a joke and I may have just cost someone their job.
They think I overreacted and that it was pretty funny. They said of course people will make FitA comments because my brother and I are close and affectionate.
I don’t feel that I should need to say that it would never be anything like that, but to be crystal clear, there is nothing remotely sexual about our relationship.
Our 14yr old has been pretty embarrassed about it ever since. For the first time ever he asked me not to hug or kiss him when I dropped him off to meet his friends. He’s worried about kids bullying him when he goes back to school. AITA?
Let's find out.
cleanpatient8809 writes:
OP, maybe you should phrase it this way when your friends say that you're the one at fault here.
Because you are very much NTA, and perhaps some new friends are in order. Ones who take behavior like the teacher's seriously.
irishstormsz writes:
NTA that teacher opened that child up to being bullied which would violate child safe guarding laws which teachers HAVE to adhere too, and if they think thats a funny comment to make to a child who's lost their parents they should not be teaching in the first place.
BTW Love how everyone has just presumed it's a male teacher even though the profession is female dominated and OP never mentioned their gender.
emeraldbluezen writes:
This was not a 'joke' it was a comment designed to embarrass and humiliate. You did 100% nothing wrong and if your friends don't understand why this is so offensive, then maybe sit them down and ask why they think its ok for your younger siblings to be embarrassed and possibly bullied. NTA