It taught him a lesson in personal boundaries.
A mother who attacked her teenage daughter's teacher for reading her private diary has received mixed reactions.
“Am I the right person to break into my daughter's teacher?” the 45-year-old UK-based parent wrote in a viral Reddit post uploaded to the platform's popular 'AITA' forum.
The woman – who goes by the name Lopsaid_Shine_7866 on the platform – said her 13-year-old daughter was struggling socially, so she encouraged her to keep a diary to process “bad feelings”.
“She loved the diary so much, she wrote it several times a day, and of course, I don't check what she writes, because it's her personal property,” the Redditor wrote.
Expressing her feelings worked wonders — until one day when the teen accidentally left her backpack and her teacher found her notebook.
The teacher, who was in his mid-30s, reportedly did not like what he read and decided to confront the student about “leaving her bag behind” and the “rude words she used in her notes” in the post.
“Now, I want to be clear that I don't encourage my daughter to use rude words, but if she chooses to do that in her private journal, I can't stop her—and shouldn't I?” The father explained. “And this is me, her mother – so imagine how inappropriate that is for a teacher!”
When her offspring came home crying over a teacher's tongue-lashing, the Redditor immediately called the school and demanded to speak to him.
She then proceeded to tear the teacher “a new one” and inform him that she was taking her child out of his class and informing the principal.
The mother then called a friend to “vent” about the ordeal but did not receive the sympathy she expected.
“To my absolute shock, she criticized me for treating a young teacher so poorly, that he was probably still learning what he was allowed to do, and I should be grateful that he took the time to treat my daughter special,” she wrote.
She added that some of her fellow mothers in her friend group added that “she wasn't supposed to attack her teacher because he was just doing his job.”
The Redditor explained in the thread that the teacher claimed he was worried about his daughter and wanted to check on her.
So, the mother felt like she was too biased to judge her actions fairly, and used the bustling Reddit community as a barometer of behavior.
They were quick to jump to her defense.
“You stood up for your daughter's privacy,” one online advocate declared. “He had no right to read her diary.”
Another defender said: “Leaving her purse behind was not an invitation to invade her privacy and read her diary.” “The point of a journal is to have a place to put your thoughts and a way to express yourself instead of other physical issues.
A third echoed: “You were absolutely right to stand up for your daughter.” “He should not have read her diary and should have known that it was an invasion of privacy and a gross breach of trust.”
Some even encouraged the woman to take legal action, but she noted they were in the UK, where “many civil liberties, provincial policies and Supreme Court rulings do not apply.”
