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Her daughter was the only one assigned a buddy.
By Nia Tipton — Written on Feb 10, 2023
"My daughter Bryn is going on a trip to a nearby water park with her class next week," a mom started her confessional post to the subreddit "r/AmItheA--hole" (AITA).
The subreddit is an online forum where users try to figure out if they were wrong or not in an argument that has been bothering them.
"She loves water and has been talking about it for months, so I was a bit thrown off when she came home crying a few days ago and told me she didn’t want to go."
Bryn's mother was angered after learning that her daughter was paired with a kid who 'pick his nose' for their school trip.
In her Reddit post, the mother wrote that she had to coax the reason why her daughter was suddenly not looking forward to going to the waterpark with her class.
At her mom's insistence, Bryn revealed that her teacher, Mrs. N, had "forced" her to pair up with another kid in their class, Ben, who complains about having to do work, and constantly picks his nose, wiping his "boogers everywhere."
"She was to ride the bus with Ben to and from the trip, eat lunch with him, and go on all the rides with him instead of spending time with her friends," she wrote.
Her mother was immediately "horrified" at learning that her daughter's teacher was forcing her to be buddies with Ben on the school trip.
"Unfortunately this wasn’t my first experience with Ms. N, as she frequently used my soft-spoken, intelligent older daughter as a 'behavior buffer' for the naughty boys until I threatened to report her to the superintendent," the mother explained.
She immediately sent her daughter's teacher a worded email about the entire situation.
It didn't take Bryn's mother any time to send Mrs. N "an email condemning her actions," pointing out that her daughter was the only one assigned a buddy, while her other classmates were "free to do what they wanted."
In response, her daughter's teacher didn't budge on Bryn being partnered with Ben, telling the mother that "if Bryn goes on the trip, she has to be Ben's buddy."
At the teacher's lack of a solution, she decided to pull her daughter out of the trip completely, and instead booked "VIP tickets" for that same day so her daughter would still be able to go the waterpark and see her friends.
On top of that, she told the other mothers in her daughter's class about what the teacher did, and they all decided to pull their children out of the trip as well.
"In total, eight kids (out of a class of twenty) are either not going, or going with us."
Her daughter's teacher eventually sent a follow-up email, telling her that "almost half of the class isn't going" and they will "either have to raise the cost for the other students or not go at all."
"She practically begged me to let Bryn go and tell all the other parents to let their kids go, promising she wouldn’t make Bryn do anything she didn’t want to do," she continued.
Bryn's mother refused to allow her daughter back on the trip, telling the teacher that she shouldn't have tried to make her daughter "do her [Mrs. N]'s job."
After learning about the entire trip debacle, the woman's husband confronted her, pointing out that their daughter shouldn't be deprived of going on the trip, and that her teacher clearly feels bad about everything.
"The thing is if this wasn’t Ms. N’s first offense I probably would have agreed, but she has a pattern of this type of behavior and hopefully this will put a stop to it," she concluded.
Most people who commented on the woman's Reddit post agreed that she was NTA (Not The A-hole).
"I was used as a behavior buffer as a kid many times. Well-behaved kids should not be punished...and made to feel guilty about not wanting to. I would have done the same thing!" one user wrote.
Another user added, "I think the whole situation sucks."
"Ben doesn't have anyone to go on rides with, so instead of putting the kids into groups of 4 where everyone could be with friends and still include Ben, she doubled down and tried to force her hand."
A third user chimed in, "Bryn is nine. Ms. N should be the one helping the boys in the class learn better behavior. What a terrible precedent to set for the young women of the future."
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Keep up with her on Instagram and Twitter.