It’s Back To School Season, which means we now get AITA posts about classroom etiquette. Move over, weddings!
Redditor u/Bluecarrot002 recently took to Reddit’s famed AITA forum to wonder if she was wrong “for buying personalized stationery for my daughter so it can’t be redistributed in class?”
And Imma get up here and say NOPE loud & clear, but you know how this goes — sometimes the story reveals an inner jackass waiting to be spotted.
OP’s nine-year-old started school and had the normal BTS shopping list, including little extras like crayons.
My little girl, Mia (F9) has started a new school recently. We moved started and she had to start new school. I got a list of supplies that the teacher required plus extras like extra packs of crayons, etc. You know the deal.
OP doesn’t like buying supplies “for the class”, though I’d point out that the solution here is that the poor underpaid teacher has to purchase everything, so, you know, suck it up OP. And she does. Kind of.
While I don’t necessarily agree with this, it’s not a hill I, willing to die on so I got everything on that list. However, I also got my child her own supplies. Now, the list didn’t say to not label them.
Apparently Mia likes stationary, so OP went ahead and got personalized binders, notebooks, and pencils with her name on them so Mia wouldn’t have her gear redistributed.
Mia is very particular on what type of stationery she likes. I’ve heard horror stories of kids stuff being redistrubuted and them ending up with crappy supplies so I sat down with Mia and we got her personalised binders and notebooks and pencils with her name on etsy. It’s all part of the item so can’t be removed and given to another kid (like I said, as requested, I bought extra binders, etc.).
The teacher evidently did just that (which is… weird…) and tried to share the supplies around. OP stood her ground.
It turns out that I was right to do so. When Mia got home, she brought a passive aggressive note from the teacher about Mia’s supplies. Apparently, she tried to gather all supplies and have kids pick another one.
She requested that I switch Mia’s supplies to generic ones which I’m refusing to do.
The teacher now requested that I stop by to have a chat regarding Mia’s supplies.
Now OP has to “have a chat.” So it’s up to us: Is OP an asshole?
I posted in local fb group and parents are divided so I need another opinion before I go meet with Mia’s teacher. Am I the asshole for buying my child personalized stationery so it cannot be taken away from her?
Here’s where I fall: if OP was doing this on things like tissues, extra boxes of crayons, etc, then YES. But OP did it on things that are pretty standardly bought for one kid. So ??? What is this teacher smoking?
Vix682 asked, “NTA- you bought extra as requested and then personalized for your daughter. I don’t know what the teacher has a problem with. She purposefully didn’t mention that she was gonna switch up the kids supplies and is mad you foiled her plans?? Then what are the extras for?”
And HintOfMalice asked the real question: “NTA. What the hell is going on this school? Why aren’t parents just buying supplies for their own children..? Am I missing something?”