Teachers Share The Worst Cases Of 'My Child Can Do No Wrong' They've Ever Seen
![Teachers Share The Worst Cases Of 'My Child Can Do No Wrong' They've Ever Seen](https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMDU1MzM2Ny9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTcyNjQ3ODc3Mn0.LCdNvB8Z6bksM-MnSntNT_mbAxzJR8Z8fjCwGcCgf7E/img.png?width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=41%2C0%2C42%2C0)
Parenting isn't always easy, but most parents recognize that their kids are going to mess up and need to be taught how to behave. Some, however, have deluded themselves into thinking that their little angel couldn't possibly misbehave or do anything wrong.
These parents can be a nightmare for teachers to deal with because the kids often just need a bit of redirection and some reinforcement of that at home, but the parents aren't willing to see that their kid needs help.
Reddit user u/Will-I-Am_No9 asked:
"Teachers of Reddit, what is the worst case of 'my child can do no wrong' have you seen?"
10.
I had a student in 5th grade. He had a history of misbehavior dating back to the first week of kindergarten. He would regularly shout insults at other students, threaten them, refused to do any work, and on several occasions, yelled at me and once threw a chair. One day, while we were taking a test, this student was talking. I quietly reminded him that it is against the rules to talk during a test, and that he needs to be quiet. He kept talking.
I told him that this is his last warning, and that if he talks again he will need to go in the hall. He talked again. So I told him to go in the hall. He gets up, walks out, and on the way out says, "You're autistic." to me. I wrote him a referral and contacted the parents, explaining the situation. They didn't pick up the phone, so I sent an e mail (oops) and I ended the e mail saying that I hope we can work together to help (student) be successful.
I received a rage-filled e mail back saying that MY behavior is unacceptable, that I am targeting her son and am out to get him, and that I will be hearing from her lawyer. This woman is a cop. She went all the way to the district level to complain about me, and made up all kinds of lies about me and told the other parents.
Oh and once, after a different incident where he physically assaulted another kid, he was suspended for a day. Mommy took him to Disney World.
9.
My first year of teaching I taught early elementary, but had to teach a single grade 7 options class where I saw the students 2x a week for 40 minutes. I had one student who didn't hand in a project and marked him accordingly. Parent-teacher night came and mom shows up. She closes the door, spends 5 minutes addressing her sons marks and asking about whether he could still hand in the project to which I replied "sure". She then spends 20 minutes telling me her son thinks I hate him and how everyone and I mean EVERYONE loves her son. She went on long rambling stories about former teachers, coaches... etc and how everyone really loves him and I just really need to spend some time with him so I would see how special he was.
I finally told her I couldn't possibly hate her child because I barely knew who he was because I spend 98% of my time teaching on the opposite side of the school (not a smart thing to say, but the rambling stories, that we were 25 minutes into what was suppose to be a 10 minute interview, her passive aggressive nature and the fact that she was so high on her son was starting to irritate me.)
I asked her what type of reasonable solution she wanted and she told me my personality was clearly the problem. She then got up to leave but returned to tell me that though she wasn't a teacher and wouldn't tell me how to do my job but... and spent 5 minutes telling me all the ways I'm personally failing her child.
Anyway, that was an important first year teacher moment. Never again would I let a parent treat me like that.
8.
I've wanted to get this off my chest for a while now: Taught previously, but this is as a parent:
Our son, who is 3, is in school. His classmate "Winnie" and her mom "Louisa" are the worst people you've ever met. First, Winnie has a restrictive diet for no other reason than her parents want to try it. They will send a list of "approved" foods and quantities for her with the expectation that all leftovers are to be put in tupperware and given to Winnie to take home. The food is so odd and weird that we wouldn't eat it anyway, but that's the expectation.
If Winnie is at a party, Winnie must win at least 50% of the games, even if there are 20 kids. Winnie must be served first. She must have extra time when playing with children and Winnie must not be, under any circumstances, told what not to do.
The kids of this class have parties and Winnie was invited twice and then not. Her mother flew off the handle and sent a nasty letter to parents about how this was unjust and her Darling Winnifred was crying at being left out. Her daughter has no boundaries, is unruly, rude, difficult and eats what can only be described as pre-vomit. Her mother runs a small "health consulting" business and will constantly try the hard sell with you. It's intrusive, invasive and really tone deaf, but she won't stop continually begging for service. She's awful. Her daughter is awful and they're always at social events.
7.
Once I had a piano student whose mother made him take lessons, even though his heart wasn't in it. For several weeks, he'd come back with exactly the same mistakes as the week before and with no sign of improvement.
I made it comfortable for him to describe weekly practice and his thoughts about taking piano lessons. He said that he had no interest in the piano (or any other instrument) and that he "pretended to practice to get his mother off his back."
I told his mom that forcing him to take lessons was a mistake - that his heart wasn't in it and that it might turn him against music forever to persist. She said, "He's a gifted student and he'd never waste practice time."
I simply said that I have his best interests in mind and that he needs to pursue something he's genuinely interested in, and not be coerced into studying as a result of parental pressure.
The boy gave me an appreciative hug. But his mom looked daggers at me as they walked away.
6.
"We have this kind of meeting every year with his teachers, we know (son's name) can't do multiplication."
He was a freshman in high school in pre-algebra. How he passed 3rd - 8th grade is beyond me besides teachers just passing him to get rid of him. These people had money, they had resources, they could've gotten him tutoring YEARS ago to help him. Instead they preferred we just pass him and excuse his acting out because he refused and couldn't do the work because he didn't have the basic foundation. He couldn't do multiplication so he couldn't do division, and it all spiraled from there. They were so calm about it, like, "What's the problem with that? So what?" I was floored.
5.
I was a TA in a kindergarten classroom and had reminded this little kid (5M) in April (over halfway through the school year) about our rule that we only have healthy snacks at snack time. He started whining and crying about how his mom lets him have cookies whenever he wants.
Anyway, the teacher steps in and mentions that he has a delicious looking apple in his lunch bag. He then gets up, throws a chair and begins to flip tables and tear the class apart while telling the teacher his mom is going to bring a gun and shoot her.
At this moment a threat has been issued so we bring in the principal. She gets there and begins an effort to talk the student down to no avail. He just keeps going on and on about how his mom has a gun and will shoot everyone at the school and if we call the police she is going to shoot them too.
The mother is then called... No answer. Of course.
So we send this kid with the principal and go about our day.
After school is over the teacher, principal and I start putting together an email to the parent. The kid was in after school care so we couldn't have a chat after school. We just hit the major points of defiance and handling his anger in a more positive manner.
I get to school the next day and the teacher shows me the response. The first line read "Why didn't you just let him have the cookie?!" and it went on to say that "you as educators are not doing our job if her child is getting as angry as he is. It is our job to keep him from getting mad and we failed at it today."
That day he came in and told us that mommy bought him a new Lego set...
4.
While I've never been a traditional teacher, I did give swimming lessons for a short time while in high school.
Most of my students (and their parents) were very appreciative of how I conducted my classes, but there was one woman who seemed utterly convinced that I was doing her child a disservice. The boy in question was afraid of putting his head beneath the water – which is a common-enough problem – so we had been slowly working through various ways of helping him overcome that fear. Unfortunately, every single time that his mother was nearby, she would scream about how I had "no right" to "force" her son to do anything, after which she would loudly address him as though nobody else was within earshot.
"Are you okay, honey?" she'd ask. "You remember what Mommy said, okay? You do not listen to that man. You are perfect, and you do not let anyone tell you otherwise! Okay? Tell me that you hear me."
The poor kid would mutter his acknowledgements, then sulk near the edge of the pool until his mother finally left. The good news is that the woman would almost always disappear not long after dropping off her son, leaving me to start undoing the damage. I'd like to think that I still had a positive impact on the boy's life, but something tells me that someone had mistaken swimming lessons for a particularly wet babysitting service.
TL;DR: In which I take on the role of a monster in the pool.
3.
I taught at a school in a mega-affluent community. Colossally wealthy families that lived in castles; very powerful and influential people. Most of the kids were lovely, but there were plenty of brats, and some were just downright unbelievable. It wasn't the kids' fault, mind you - they were just spoiled to the point of being devoid of common sense and reality. One particular boy, who we'll call Francis, had basically given up on school. He knew he was set for life and put zero effort into anything. His grades were so poor at one point that his parents - completely aloof and dependent upon Francis' team of au pairs (Francis called his parents by their first names, mind you) - proposed buying passing grades so that Francis could move on to the next grade. Basically, dad pulled out the checkbook and asked for the amount.
Looooots of Francis stories.
2.
I taught 6th grade at a private school. Since we're private we have a specific testing week every spring to assess our students. I sent home an informative sheet describing the rigid schedule we have and when our tests will be administered. Doors have to remain closed and no disruptions were allowed (a little harsh, but it's what we were told to do by administration). If anyone was late, I assured them they can make the test up, but they would have to wait in the office. This kid asked to go to the bathroom, obviously as a teacher I can't say no.
I told him he had 5 minutes until the test and he will need to be quick. Needless to say, he was not back in time, so he was sent to the office until the testing time was finished. I received a L E N G T H Y email that begun with, "What is your issue with my child?" They never read my weekly newsletters and just believe whatever their child told them when they got home instead of asking the adult for their perspective. He's an only child with a single parent. He's everything to her. I get it, but was a real tough year.
1.
First year teaching, I gave a kid detention. Kid was talking too much in class, wouldn't stop, and school policy was to give detention if a kid acted up after a verbal warning. Detention wasn't much, about 30 minutes after school, but since it was a middle school, giving after school detention means I have to contact the parents, since the kid won't be on the bus (yes, there were other transportation options at this school). Now, he was talking to another kid, so that kid got detention too.
So, throughout the day, the kid is begging me not to give him detention, but I remain firm. He broke the rules, I followed school policy and it's my first year, I'm looking to other teachers to be a guide and they say I should stand firm. So, I call mom.
Mom is totally crazy. The kid is Indian, so she accuses me of racism, but that's not so bad, I can understand where she's coming from. That's not what makes her crazy. She then assumes that there was no way for her boy to be talking in class because he is, and I will remember this quote until the day I die, "a perfect, Christ-like child." Kid was perfect, you see, so anything he did wrong, I had to have made up. Here's the worst part, I was a traveling teacher which means I have to use other classrooms while that teacher is on plan. It sucks for both of us, but it also means, I don't have a classroom phone. If I call a parent, I have to call using my cell phone. She spends the rest of the year harassing me.
Kid gets a B on a test that was written for all of the 7th grade English teachers and done on a scantron? Impossible, he needs to get an A. Kid gets in trouble in another class? Calls me to complain about how he couldn't have done anything wrong. Kid has to do homework in my class? No, that's not acceptable, I'm targeting him. Kid gets detention again? Couldn't have happened, he's perfect. He's Christlike. I had so many 30-40 minute calls from this woman that I had to have the Principal intervene because it turned into harassment.
The worst part was, I really liked the kid. He was a great kid, he was just a 7th grader in a class that had all of his friends and was too big. Also, for some reason, lunch for 7th graders was at 1 pm, which was freaking last for some dumb reason, and his class was the one just before lunch. Kid was hungry, tired, overworked and all of his friends were in class, I totally got it. He just couldn't disrupt class.
Also, when I say "talk in class," I don't mean whispering. He and his friends were pretty loud, they would interrupt me and other kids and, I was a first year teacher, too. Like, I made a lot of mistakes, especially with that class. So, I'm not exactly blameless in this scenario.
The Best Real-Life Examples Of 'You Can Have A PhD And Still Be An Idiot'
Reddit user mariababexoxo asked: '"Never confuse education with intelligence; you can have a PhD and still be an idiot," stated Richard Feynman. What are some real-life examples of this?'
The saying "it's not brain surgery" hasn't meant the same thing to me ever since Ben Carson took his place on the national stage.
The saying "it's not rocket science" doesn't hit the same with me ever since one of my life-long friends became a rocket scientist.
I don't know Ben Carson—just his many public blunders—but in the case of my friend, he's an absolutely brilliant guy.
However I often wonder how my friend managed to survive this long and apparently this isn't an unusual phenomenon.
But more about my friend later at the end of this article.
Reddit user mariababexoxo asked:
"'Never confuse education with intelligence; you can have a PhD and still be an idiot,' stated Richard Feynman. What are some real-life examples of this?"
Chemical Engineer
"I had an intern with a PhD once. She was trying to be a chemical process engineer. VERY book smart."
"I spent the Summer teaching her how to use basic tools like screwdrivers and wrenches for simple tasks like opening containers and adjusting clamps. She had zero practical skills and couldn’t figure anything whatsoever out on her own."
"She’d get lost in a building and call me and I’d tell her to find the exit, but she’d get lost inside and we’d have to go in and get her. This routinely happened, and she would just find somewhere random and sit until we collected her."
"When her car’s GPS lost signal once she didn’t know what to do so she stopped in the middle of the road and texted me where she was and that there was something wrong with her car and to come help. I figured there was a breakdown or something based on the text and drove out to check on it because she wasn’t responding."
"She was crying sitting on the side of the road and a cop was yelling at her to move her car which was still in the lane."
"If you told her to pick something up from a store she’d ask where it was and if you didn’t know, she would never find it "She refused to ask an employee because she knew they weren’t as smart as she was."
"She’d just walk in random directions looking for things. For example if you said 'go to Walmart and find some work boots because you lost yours' she would send me pictures of random aisles in Walmart with 'is this close? which way from here?'.”
"Book smart but utterly dim."
~ captainofpizza
It's The Milk That Makes Them Healthy
"My wife once had a roommate who was working on her PhD."
"At one point she went on an Oreo diet because they're vegan."
"She was later surprised to find her health wasn't improving."
~ educational_palmeira
Squirrel!
"I am a graduate student at the University of Oxford."
"I recently had to explain to another grad student the concept of animals hibernating. She's British and English is her first language, so it wasn't a vocabulary issue. She just didn't know that animals did that."
"When I explained it she said 'Oh! like squirrels!' Squirrels actually don't hibernate, but I just nodded."
~ slider501
Have You Tried Turning It Off...
"Ask literally anyone who's ever worked for a university's IT department. I've never met a group of people more unwilling to learn anything new—outside of their small specialization—than university professors."
"These people would rather argue with you for 10 minutes that 'I did restart my computer' than just spend the 2 minutes to restart the computer when the logistics software is showing the machine with a 45 day uptime and all of us can see that sh*t."
"Department heads do this."
~ Mammoth_Clue_5871
It's One Banana, Michael
"My roommate in college was/is an academic genius, 35 ACT in med school right now."
"I brought him to Walmart with me because he wanted to buy an 8-pack of Gatorade. At the self checkout he scanned one, saw the price was 7 bucks, and decided that must have been the price for EACH Gatorade."
"He ended up scanning the pack 7 more times and paid 56 bucks for some Gatorade, all while thinking that was a fair price."
~ Royal-Character-2035
And Vampirism!
"The nurse I used to work with during the pandemic was constantly bragging about how rich and important and highly educated she was.
"Only for her to suggest to our director of nursing that the kitchen start putting extra garlic in everyone's meals because garlic cures COVID."
~ GlassPeepo
History ≠ Geography
"I know someone with a PhD in History who went to the Caribbean with only long trousers and jumpers/sweaters to wear."
"He was so hot he had to cut his jeans down to shorts."
"Then, as part of the same trip, he went to Washington DC, and had to wear jean shorts the whole time because he cut up all his trousers."
~ RexEverything_
And On The 7th Day...
"I met a PhD molecular biologist who was an evolution denier. I found out years later that he was somewhat infamous."
~ whittlingcanbefatal
"I’ve met two PhD students who worked on bacterial evolution and one who worked in biochemistry."
"All three believed that human evolution was not a thing, all three were religious."
~ D-g-tal-s_purpurea
Nobel Disease
"There are a ton of laureates that go conspiratorial batsh*t later in life."
~ hacktheself
"Kary Mullis is the worst one and he really emboldens other conspiracy theorists."
"He won the Nobel prize for helping invent the PCR test... then he denied AIDS existed while in a government position leading to 330,000 deaths and said climate change wasn't real because his astrologer told him so."
"Oh, and ghosts."
"Anti-vaxxers love him."
~ AstonVanilla
Members Around The World
"Heard about a mechanical engineer who is a flat earther."
"So yeah, him, or any engineer, physicist, or astronomer that believes in that."
"The fact that a single one can get their degree and then turn around years later and believe in something fundamentally incompatible with the BASIC physics required to make sense of their degree is baffling."
~ QuanticWizard
What Did They Do With The Couch?
"Helped some mates move house. One was a Uni Student doing a double degree in Computer Science and something else very challenging."
"While we were packing boxes he asked if he could could borrow a saw. When I asked why, it was so he could shorten the legs on the dining table so it would fit out the door."
"The look on his face when I grabbed one of the legs and started unscrewing it was priceless. As was the look when I asked him how he thought they got it in the room in the first place."
~ cruiserman_80
New-Fangled Gadgets
"In my old university in Germany in the early 2000s. The university was old, really old."
"And when I started they just began modernising the lecture halls etc... The German department got a new, fancy, state of the art lecture hall with any kind of technology you could wish for."
"The professors got extensive training on how to use it."
"There were some of them who after three months still didn’t know how to switch on the lights. Don’t even talk about the microphone or how to open and close the blinds on the skylight."
They didn’t originally plan on having an old-fashioned overhead projector there, but after a few weeks they relented and provided one because the professors didn’t know any other way."
"In their defence, the other lecture halls were so old that they still had the hole for the ink well in the tables."
~ moosmutzel81
Do No Harm
"I work in mental health and have known sooo many healthcare professionals with advanced degrees who I wouldn’t trust to take care of a goldfish and can’t believe counsel people on a regular basis."
~ DeadSharkEyes
What's That Burning Smell?
"My MIT PhD. friend complained his dryer was taking forever to dry his clothes."
"I asked him if he was cleaning the lint trap—'it doesn't have one'."
"Spoiler alert: it did have one, way in the back and I took out a sweater's worth of lint."
~ arbiterror
It's Not Rocket Science...
I chuckle whenever someone uses this saying to indicate something isn't complex like rocket science ever since my friend became an aeronautical engineer.
Why?
Well, we'd have to go back to the mid-1980s when we were both teenagers in high school. As many teens with cars in rural America did, my friends liked to drive around on the back roads as a form of entertainment.
One sunny, Summer day two of my friends came to visit me with a tale to tell.
It seems they were driving on a stretch of road with a speed limit of 35mph [56kph] because of a cluster of homes and farms. When the car slowed to this speed, Mr. Future Rocket Scientist looked down at the pavement passing by below his window on the passenger side.
Upon studying the passing blacktop for several moments, he came to the conclusion he could easily run as fast as the car was moving, so...
...he undid his seatbelt, opened the car door and STEPPED OUT of the moving car.
According to the driver, one moment our friend was sitting next to him and the next he was gone. Or mostly gone.
After a brief moment of panic during which he slowed then stopped the car, he noticed Mr. Future Rocket Scientist's right hand gripping the door's armrest and his left hand gripping the side of the passenger seat.
He was probably only dragged for a few seconds which wasn't long enough to do more than scuff up his jeans, jean jacket and the toes of his shoes.
He escaped with only minor road rash and a few bruises.
After the driver told me what happened from his perspective, Mr. Future Rocket Scientist interjected:
"It worked!"
"I was doing really well until I tripped over that rock."
Luckily an understanding of things like velocity, speed, trajectory, friction, drag, inertia and gravity aren't needed for aeronautics.
Needless to say, we've never let him forget his "experiment."
He still claims the only problem was that rock on the road.
And I now use the saying "it's not rocket surgery" instead of either of the original sayings.
Back in the 1980s the threat of nuclear war was pervasive in daily life.
That fear and paranoia made the TV films Threads and The Day After particularly effective. People were genuinely terrified or traumatized.
Both told the story of an atomic apocalypse, with Threads set in the UK and The Day After in the United States. I wasn’t familiar with Threads until about 5 years ago, but The Day After was a TV event everyone seemed to be talking about in the USA.
But fear inducing isn't quite the same as creepy.
For creepy, you need something like The Twilight Zone, Creepshow or Night Gallery.
Reddit user juliacorco asked:
"What is the creepiest tv episode or movie you’ve ever seen?"
Haunting of Hill House
"Haunting of Hill House on Netflix."
"Scary as hell."
"Bent Neck Lady makes the hair on my neck stand up on end every time."
"Same with the ghost looking for his hat. Or whatever was down in the cellar."
~ Pretend-Cucumber-711
Hereditary
"Hereditary"
"That one scene near the end in the dark bedroom…is essentially a reverse jump scare. Something is there the entire time and it’s just a matter of when you notice."
"Sent chills up my spine."
"That movie stuck with me for days."
~ Plus-Statistician80
Doctor Who/Torchwood
"I have two contenders, from the Doctor Who universe..."
"'Blink' from Doctor Who."
"'Children of the Earth' from Torchwood (all 5 episodes)."
"Both are the stuff of nightmares, but in very different ways."
"'Blink' will make you not sleep at night, while 'Children of the Earth' will deeply disturb you."
~ Common_Sense_Dudd
"The first few seconds I was exposed to the Weeping Angels in 'Blink' I thought it was a dumb, silly conceit."
"By the end of that episode I knew I would have nightmares for months."
~ codyish
"'Children of Earth' was amazing. There was so much complexity to it, and the way they solved it was downright horrifying."
"The 456 just felt so real with their motives, and were really dark compared to other Who-niverse villains."
"It wasn't that they were trying to build a galactic highway, or were trying to save the universe. Just that (SPOILERS) they were drug dealers/addicts and would kill millions if the didn't get their supply of children."
~ NinjaBreadManOO
Paranormal Activity
"Paranormal Activity."
"I was not prepared and only 12 years old."
"Traumatized for years!"
~ Sudden-Star-7190
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 'Hush'."
~ Malk_McJorma
"The gentlemen were some of the best villains."
~ Sudden-Star-7190
Room 1408
"Room 1408 creeped me out."
"I usually don't find hauntings or ghosts scary, but this one was something else."
"Left me really uneasy when trying to sleep after."
"I had to keep a light on. I'm 46."
~ hartschale666
The Twilight Zone
"I find the The Twilight Zone episode titled 'Living Doll' to be particularly creepy."
~ Ill_Fisherman5547
"Talky Tina was so creepy."
~ peachesfordinner
"The Twilight Zone episode—'Mirror Image'—with the woman at the bus station who has a doppelganger still creeps the sh*t out of me."
~ BurningSlash88
Ghost Ship
"Opening scene from Ghost Ship."
~ teslatinkering
"This movie is 21 years old, I’ve only watched it once and I still remember this scene vividly."
"Props to the creators because I can’t say that about many movies."
~ PainfulPoo411
X-Files
"The X-Files."
"Episodes 'Home'—inbred family in Pennsylvania—and 'The Host'—the Flukeman."
~ True-Mousse4957
"I was going to say season 3, episode 12—'War of the Coprophages'."
"Only due to one little thing."
"Mulder is in a lab with some scientist looking at the weird cockroaches. They're just chatting away when a cockroach walks across 'your' TV screen."
"It's made to look like it's an actual cockroach walking across your in real life screen. We don't even have cockroaches like that in my region of the world, but it still freaked me out for a second."
~ STROKER_FOR_C64
The Blair Witch Project
"Not gonna lie."
"I saw The Blair Witch Project in the theatre after watching some MTV documentary on it the day before."
"I thought it was real and I was afraid to walk to my car."
~ heavymetalsculpture
Are You Afraid of the Dark
"There's an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark—'The Tale of the Dead Man's Float'."
"It's about a school that was built on an old cemetary and there is some sort of creature thing thant comes into the pool while some kids are swimming."
"I still think about that episode every so often."
~ streetsoulja31
"There’s that one episode—'The Tale of the Frozen Ghost'—where a kid froze to death at some point and the ghost kid just appears and says 'I’m cold' in such a weird inflection…."
"It still creeps me out now. And whenever I am cold, that’s the only way I can say it in my head."
"Man that series had no business being that scary!!"
~ mistresssweetjuice
For me, children in horror can always produce the creepiness factor.
Who doesn't feel unsettled after seeing the twins in The Shining?
So what movies or TV episodes creeped you out?
People Break Down What's More Emotionally Painful Than Being Cheated On
Content warning: abuse and suicide.
There is a level of devastation caused by being cheated on by a partner, especially if it's someone you trusted and have been with for a long time that people who haven't experienced it can't understand.
I've been lucky in that I've never been cheated on myself, but I've had friends who have gone through it. My college roommate told me it was the worst pain she's ever been in when she found out her boyfriend cheated on her, and she couldn't imagine anything worse.
It was indeed horrible. My confident, strong roommate was crying all the time and wondering why she wasn't good enough to keep her boyfriend's interest, even though that had nothing to with it.
Redditors agree that being cheated on is painful, but also are prepared to share things they think are emotionally more painful.
It all started when Redditor Darkterrariafort asked:
"What is something more emotionally painful than getting cheated on?"
Medical Helplessness
"Watching your most precious person die a painful and scary death and knowing there’s nothing you can do about it. F**k cancer."
– coastalliving40
"This. I watched my husband starve to death from gastroesophageal cancer."
"It was like watching a nightmare repeat of my dad all over again. 😞"
– NedsAtomicDB
Mama Who Bore Me
"Death of your child."
– NBA_Fan_76
"I truly cannot imagine a deeper pain."
– theawkwardmermaid
"Your child being serious injured by your ex, and custody court keeps forcing the kid into contact with their abuser."
"You spend years of your life dealing with court homework where you recount every excruciating detail of your own abuse at the hands of this person, in addition to the crimes against your child."
"It costs you about $100,000 in legal fees, and you still aren't able to protect your child. It keeps going on indefinitely, and perversely, your ex tries to send you to jail because the child runs away from them."
– JadeGrapes
"Being responsible for your childs death directly."
– Kanulie
"My father passed very suddenly and unexpectedly two summers ago. It was the deepest, unimaginable despair that it was almost like a dream. Being walked to the little room at the hospital where they let you know he didn’t make it on the ambulance ride was surreal and up to that point the worst moment in my life."
"One month after he passed, I was in a four wheeler accident with my then three year old. And we were alone as my husband was out of town. I wasn’t being negligent- it was just a terrible, terrible accident. But, in the chaos of being thrown off and being in complete shock, I thought the four wheeler was pinning her down. I was screaming at the top of my lungs and crying and trying everything I could to lift it up. Remaining calm simply wasn’t a possibility when you think you’re killing your own child."
"She wasn’t pinned-and actually didn’t have a scratch on her. EMT checked her out and I went to the hospital because I had ripped the top part of my thigh off trying to lift the ATV."
"The whole thing was eye-opening in the worst way possible. Because, I could never, ever, ever, ever imagine losing my daughter- especially to my own fault. What if she had been hurt or died that day? I would be living in my own constant hell. I didn’t think there could be worst pain that when I lost my dad, but now I know there is. Just the thought alone of losing my daughter brings tears to my eyes."
"Life is really rough sometimes. But it gets better."
– BoredMillennialMommy
Going Down
"Seeing a loved one go on a downward spiral and you can do nothing to stop it."
– New_me_old_self
"Extension of your comment: Seeing a close one(wronged by their protectors) going down the spiral."
"You tried to help them a lot but they dragged you down with them and left you not just empty but drained."
– Sullen_Wretch
So Hard
"Suicide bereavement."
"I lost my best friend in 2022. Found him. Everyday is a struggle to not be in my grief."
"I’d take 100 heartbreaks, 100 nights of going to bed hungry, and 100 punches right to the face just to have him back."
– KatastropheKraut
"It does. I got wasted and said far too much about myself once. One of my friends verbally smacked the f**k out of me, got me to see that people do care about me and that my relationships aren't all just superficial, really just hit my sorry a** over and over again with the idea that I'm deserving of love not because other people get something out of being with me but because I am a human being, and it slowly does get better."
"It stopped me, I was going to kill myself in two months on new year's."
"When I can't live for myself, I live for other people, even when I start doubting other people actually like me, I still don't do it or hurt myself at all, because there's always, no matter what I feel in the moment, a chance that they do truly just care about me."
"If I end myself now then I give so many other people survivor's guilt, I leave all the people I care about wondering for the rest of their lives how it all could've been different if they had just tried a little bit harder to help me. I won't elaborate now but I feel a similar sort of regret when it comes to a number of aspects of my own life. I could never leave someone with something so unfathomably more painful than that."
– pissandsh*tlord
Sounds Awful
"Mental instability. It's cruel because it's your own mind killing you, you can't run or hide and it's long-winded. I couldn't say a single event has been more emotionally stressful than what's happening."
– Country-Road--
"It’s like you’re dead in your twenties but haven’t been buried til you’re 65."
– Gmr33
Tragedy You Never Get Over
"Having your mother pass away in your arms."
– Repulsive_Cricket923
"Something similar happened to me when i was 4. My parents sent me over to get babysat by my grandmother and she sat on a chair and passed as i was sitting on the floor playing with my toys. I only thought she was sleeping at the time, but later learned the truth as i never saw her again."
– Lucidnuts
Just Done
"As far as relationships go, being abandoned by your former partner is pretty damn painful."
– heyitsvonage
"Mine did this to me after 2.5 years and it was f**king devastating, it took years to get over. He acted as though everything was fine, I was his everything, we were actively planning how we would elope after I finished my degree that term, and BOOM NO DO-OVERS YA DONE."
"It was immediately what came to my mind when I saw this post."
– paprikashi
My Work
"When someone steals your research, hands it in first, gets the high distinction, then everything you submit is plagiarizing that a**hat."
– StaunchMeerkat
"This is two steps worse than, "hey can you put my name on your paper too.""
– karmagod13000
Rather Be Cheated On
"When the person stays with you but they secretly still yearn for that other person (even if no cheating occurs)."
– Deleted User
I actually didn't think there was anything worse than being cheated on after watching my friends go through it.
I stand corrected.
Do you have any stories to share? Let us know in the comments below.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Mistakes happen, but when the world is watching, those mistakes are magnified.
When those mistakes have a major impact, those minor mistakes become major.
Reddit user UltraAirWolf asked:
"Who made the stupidest and most embarrassing mistake in history?"
Rudy, Rudy, Rudy
"Low stakes, but high embarrassment: Four Seasons Total Landscaping."
~ kategoad
"You just know that SOMEONE demanded they use a high-class location like the Four Seasons Hotel, and incompetent hilarity ensued."
~ SpooSpoo42
"On November 7, 2020, four days after the United States presidential election, Rudy Giuliani hosted a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."
"The event was held at the company's garage door and parking lot to discuss the status of the Trump campaign. Many observed a comical aspect to its location—near a sex shop and a crematorium.
"The Trump campaign likely meant to book the upscale Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia, five city blocks from the Pennsylvania Convention Center where Philadelphia's ballots were being counted."
~ Milk_and_Cougar
"Günter Schabowski—the guy that accidentally brought down the Berlin Wall by declaring at a press conference that the right of freedom to travel was effective immediatly."
"Which was not at all what the GDRs political party had wanted, but led to thousands of people rushing to and overwhelming the borders and in the end to the reunification of Germany."
"It was a small mistake but with a great outcome."
~ GrouchyMary9132
💩 Happens
"The captain of German submarine U-1206. During WWII, it was fitted with a high pressure toilet system that was so complex flushing it required a trained technician to do it."
"So one day it was out on patrol when the captain needed to use it. Unfortunately, the number 2 he deposited was of considerable stench, so out of embarrassment, he attempted to operate the flushing mechanism himself."
"Unfortunately he botched up the sequence of valves needed to successfully operate it, and ended up causing water to leak onto the batteries used to power the ship whilst underwater which causes the ship to begin to fill up with cyanide gas and as a result they have to surface to re-circulate the air."
"To add insult to injury, this all takes place off the coast of Scotland and they are promptly spotted by RAF Coastal Command, who then proceed to send a welcoming committee and the captain is forced to order the ship scuttled.
"Four crewmen die, the rest are captured."
"All as a result of the captain not wanting to admit he did a stinky poo."
~ StarbuckTheThird
Why Guam Is A U.S. Territory
"During the Spanish-American War, the US decided to take Guam—colonized by Spain—so they showed up with a bunch of gunships and fired a warning shot to say 'This is your last chance to surrender peacefully'. There was no response."
"Then, a small Spanish boat started rowing up to the American fleet and when they got there, a representative said 'Hi! Welcome to Guam! We saw that you fired your guns to salute us and we would have saluted you back but unfortunately we ran out of gunpowder and nobody has been by to restock us'.”
"Nobody told Guam that the US and Spain were at war."
"When the Americans informed the representative that they were at war and were there to conquer this island, they asked again if Guam would like to surrender. The representative, having already given away that they had no gunpowder, agreed to surrender."
~ Not-sure-wtf-I-am
Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em
"Whoever lost Special Order 191."
"In 1862, during the American Civil War, Robert E. Lee decides to invade the Union. His outnumbered army is secretly marching in several divided columns into Maryland to attack Washington DC."
"He sends out this secret order to his top commanders, detailing where and when everyone should be during the march."
"A few days later, a Union soldier finds a couple of cigars lying in a field. With a copy of these orders wrapped around them."
"Some idiot had dropped it."
~ brainsewage
No One Will Remember...
"Hegelochus was an actor performing the play Orestes by the famous playwright Euripides. In the dramatic climax the king he was playing lay dying and is supposed to say 'after the storm I see again a calm sea' as he expires."
"He mispronounced the word galḗn as galên changing the line to 'after the storm I see again a weasel'.”
"This embarrassing mistake happened in 408 BC. It is the only thing we know about Hegelochus."
"It was so humiliating and so widely mocked that we’re still talking about it two thousand four hundred and thirty one years later."
~ aunomvo
Bye, Boy, Bye
"My personal favourite is New Zealand prime minster Robert Muldoon getting drunk in his office one night in 1984 and then calling a snap election."
"Two weeks later, his government was voted out of office."
~ Fresh-Hedgehog1895
Tale of Tails
"The Vietnamese city of Hanoi had a rat problem so French colonial city officials decided to pay people for each rat tail they brought in. It seemed to be a huge success because thousands of rat tails were being turned in."
"Turns out the people just started breeding rats and bringing in rats from other areas to cut off the tails. City found out, stopped the program, and everyone released their rats since they wouldn’t get paid for them anymore."
"Rat population boomed making the initial problem worse."
~ droooo0
The Cobra Effect
"Almost the exact same thing happened in Delhi, India, while the British were in power."
"They started a reward program to get people to kill cobras."
"People just bred or imported and killed cobras and turned them in for the reward."
"The British eventually figured it out, and stopped the reward program, which lead to people releasing their breeding stock."
"It's the origin of the phrase 'the cobra effect' coined by German economist Horst Siebert. It describes how incentives designed to improve a system can lead to unintended—or sometimes perverse—consequences that can make issues worse instead of better."
~ Relevant_Change3591
Bird Brained
"Mao Zedong ordered an eradication of sparrows from China in 1959."
"Sparrows were believed to be pests that ate grain so the authorities started a campaign to eradicate them, along with some other perceived pests. The eradication worked."
"Unfortunately the sparrows, while they do eat some grain, also play a critical role in controlling the insect pests that cause crop disasters of a biblical scale."
"The next year, locusts boomed without their sparrow predator and took the crops, initiating a famine that killed 15 million people."
"China ended up having to import sparrows from the Soviet Union."
~ meganetism
There are certainly plenty of boneheaded moves from history to choose from.
What's your choice for the worst historical mistake?