Welcome welcome welcome to armchair anonymous i'm dan buck roger shepherd and i'm joined by monica monsoon heaven today we're talking school days yes parent teacher conference. Which people probably just had some year and probably yeah i don't know any last ones i participated in were spring i have a weird take trying to float this with some of the teachers we talked to none of them were buying it i learned in this episode i'm off base. But my thinking is this is the thing we make them do where they have to come and tell us how great kids are feels exhaustive and like page entry like there's a problem call me let me know let's deal with it right but all the like your kids so perfect feels a little. Tanderine i agree they should say your kids are perfect but they should say strengths and weaknesses you know i just think parents are there just to hear how great their parents are parent problem i just feel bad for the teacher yeah i get that well you will after listening to the story that i feel that the teacher yeah these were great there's no blood or duty this one everyone can listen to i can confirm yeah unless you have.
A trigger about losing your hair i guess that's the only one we should be careful of even that i think well i don't want to assume that it's not safe to listen to this okay no one should listen to this okay we should shut this thing down i think please enjoy parent teacher conference. I'm coming home. I'm slow. I'm.
One thing you gotta know china morning how are you i'm i'm going to go off just bad you slept to 11 10 oh wow that's impressive 10 10 whoa i know but it was bad did you do that wrong yeah yeah maybe you should try it i'll try it i would love it i'm envious you feel judged. Well little oh genuinely i would fucking kill i would like to see kids i could have with the kids but even when i'm on vacation i'm like i'm going to 10 tomorrow morning and then i just when you're in a routine that's hard but i bet you could get yourself to get there i worked hard at it made it a goal okay mary and mary and's her name not everyone can see you with my knee brace on is pretty lucky for them make sure it looks right yeah you want the hole in the wrong spot no that's creepy hello hi interesting name picking mary and tell us why actually it's my bestie girls name and she just loves you guys i'm like well i at least gotta give a shout out to her if i'm not gonna be me i'll be her. okay lovely so you're fully anonymous in this and i hope this question won't reveal too much about you but there's a very interesting background behind you what on earth am i seeing i am teaching summer school right now and so i'm in someone else's classroom but i can't fully get under this desk baby they're so good at co-six here don't you worry about that i'm too big for the children size desk oh my gosh but those are a million tiny little pieces of paper is that what's going on it's called border it's made to look like wood but it's indestructible so the kids can't tear it up oh my god should we get that everywhere yeah it looks like maybe it was a history class and they're trying to create a log count oh that would be great or an engineering class okay so presumably you're not a parent you're a teacher in the situation you may be a parent but we're talking on behalf of you as a teacher yes okay great so you had a wild parent teacher experience yes so this is my second year teaching so i'm a baby wait currently it is or this is when that story took place when this happened when i was teaching that year i was teaching kindergarten that was my first time working with the little ones and do they tend to start people there where do they think it's easiest to jump in that is not easiest no my first year i taught third grade and then they just had to do some shifting around the building and i was like i'll teach anywhere even kindergarten and bless those people they are so so so amazing that is not the great for me right right i mean it's really borderline babysitting you have to teach them and line up there's one rolling around the room this one's climbing up something this i'm hungry oh some kids got us clothes off all of a sudden some can read and write some squiggles for names oh my god it's not the good for me okay so i'm terrified about parent teacher conferences you know you have to tell the parents the good the bad and so i had a mom that was coming up her baby was struggling academically and i knew i had to have some hard conversations with her as we start going first i tell her all the great things about her little love and then she starts telling me about how she had started seeing another student classes father okay that mom told you this she started telling me and i tried to redirect the conversation because you know conferences are quick we've got a time to get it's time to get it's time to get back to the mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom we have to get in a short amount of time yes please note that this dad is married sure and i know he's married and i don't know if she knows that he's married oh my god it's not my place the same thing you guys do your thing and really quick is she telling you this in the same way tom cruises jumped on that couch like she was just so in love she wanted to share with anyone that listen or did she think it had something material to do with her child's education had not a bit to do with her child's education i think she thought we were friends and i was a safe space okay okay and she started telling me that they're seeing each other and so i'm like well so your son hahaha these are the letters that he knows these are letters he doesn't know she's like my friends call him my shoulder daddy okay why she's really on one just really can't get off top it these are the numbers that your son knows this is what we're working on we're working on addition and she's like you know what he pays me he'll come over i lift up my shirt showing my titties and he jacks off in the corner oh my god oh here we go where's the foremost thing guys a woman telling you this story yeah but man telling you about this we gotta call someone how old are you i'm like 23 yeah she's probably roughly my age maybe a few years older i live a very sheltered sweet life and so i don't know that people do these things no wonder the kid is struggling this is all going down in his house that's real she can't even pay attention to the kids and she's like oh my mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom she's a kid's numbers i wasn't disagreeing with you i was more thinking even further upstream with like okay so genetically she's one who takes money to show titties to a classmate's dad maybe genetically there's some stuff i don't think that's a genetic thing okay okay so at that time i was horrified but if this we're going on now i would be like girl give me all the details about your kids later like tell me everything but if i can't get back just just kidding they're like okay, good oh christy girlfriend and it gets even weirder i told him just to stop comin around he knocks on my door he comes on his back door knocks. Nak, thanks.
And he is. I know you're in there and then he'll eventually leave now again if she told me these things i would've prayed to help her. I'm just in shock. I'm floored.
They don't prep you for this in education courses. In fact, do you have any section on parent teacher conferences, that aspect of the job? They teach you to sandwich the information, give them some good, give some things to work on, but they don't tell you all the wild curveballs that can come your way when you're having such conferences. Wow, wow, wow, wow.
Well, it would be a great ending of the story is that you guys have been now best friends for 10 years. And I know everything. No, no, no, no. At that point, I'm like, okay, well, we've got to wrap up this conversation.
Like I've got the next family that's coming in. I'm so sorry. I call my mom. I'm like, oh my God, this just happened.
And then I go tell my teammates because I've been teaching longer than I have. And they're like, this is not normal. This is not right. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to take this one with me.
I'm going to let it go. I'm going to move on. And the next day my boss calls me into his office. He's got a twinkle in his eye.
He is smiling from ear to ear. And he's like, how are parent teacher conferences yesterday? I was like, you know everything. Don't you?
And he's like, tell me all of it. So I'm again, a baby. I am like a latchey purple, horrified, but I tell my boss everything. And our conferences go two days in a row.
So then shortly after that, I get to have the conference with that man and his wife about his kid and the whole time during that conversation. I'm just thinking about him being in the corner doing his thing. Oh, got nachis, you know? Wow.
He was with his wife, but did he seem normal? Yeah, like if you were to force yourself to imagine you didn't know that detail about him, would anything have... Red flag. No, not a bit.
Now that we're talking about it, I have been in many parent teacher conferences and I like to think I'm really good at policing myself because you get disgusting as a parent because you love hearing good stuff about your kids and then you start bragging about your kids and then you're mining for more. And I realize after one or two of these, I'm like, oh, this is so gross. It's just like, oh, this is insane. So mostly when we have these, I'll say, look, I know your day is so hectic, if you want to just tell us a couple of things we got to work on, you don't have to do the whole thing.
And some of them have been like, oh my God, thank you. Yeah, I would love the extra 10 minutes. I try to shut them down early unless there's something going on. Was that something you would appreciate?
I want to tell you about your babies. We spend all day with them. We see the good, the bad, the ugly. We think your kids are fabulous.
Of course there's things they need to work on, but I want you to know that I see that in them too. So that way if we have to have hard conversations moving forward, you know that I love them so much. Okay, so you don't feel like you're placating the parents so much? No, this job is all about relationships.
And I like to talk to parents within the first few weeks of school, build that relationship and the conference at that time where we get to really dig in and form that bond because there will be hard things that come up during the year. Wendy has also said, Wendy Mobo, it's really good to hear what teachers say about your kid. Positive and negative, but positive is important because sometimes they behave in school as much different than the way they behave at home and to know how they are in a school environment is important. Right, that's a good point.
A couple of child therapists, their first question is do they do this at school? And if they don't, then really you're like, oh yeah, then they're just blowing off steam at home. Right, cause there's so many things that parents will tell me that kids do at home. And I'm like, never have I seen anything like that at school.
And that's what I tell them, home is their safe space where they get to let lose, they get to be themselves fully. And so it's fun having those conversations. When you have to suggest that the child might need some additional assistance, how is that met? Like if you had extreme defensiveness, at some point someone had to tell my mom, like I think he's dyslexic.
He probably needs to go get some testing. And people I assume teachers have to tell parents, I think he needs to get tested for a spectrum. I don't know, I'm assuming that's happening. For sure, but we have to be so delicate in the way that we say stuff because we are not doctors and we cannot diagnose anything.
So like if we think that a kid has challenges with their attention, we couldn't ever suggest that your kid might have ADHD. We could say that they have a hard time focusing, here's the things that we see. And then you might want to talk to their pediatrician about that. People don't bristle at that, that's fine.
And then that's on them. And I've had a lot of parents tell me, if I could have an ADHD, I don't want the medicine, but I don't know. I just want you to know, these are the things that I see. These are the challenges that they have sometimes.
And I just want you to take that information and do what you will with that. Oh boy. Okay. You guys have.
Marianne, I really wish we could get an update on my mom. I want to know what's happening now. This seems like an exciting. It seems like it was a, now it's feeling sad.
Like a cryfer. Yeah. She needed to be able to say all that. And especially he was coming to the door and stuff and she wasn't answering.
This is a little dark. It had to be me now. It would have gone completely different. But that's not your role.
You're not there to be your therapist. That's not your fault. But it just feels like like like, lady. I would dig right in.
I'm like, wow, interesting. So he's paying you're in love though. Okay, but you're still charging for the view. And I do have a counseling degree now.
So I mean, I could have really turned it into a session. And like, let's dig in. I wrap this up at seven. Come back and let's really roll up our swings.
Let me in. Hey, before I let you guys go, I have one quick story for you. I wanted to let you know how you all helped me find out that I was pregnant for the first time. Wow.
Okay. This is going to be interesting. So my husband and I, we hopped on the train to come see, we live in the Kansas City area. We went to Chicago.
You were out one here, Chicago shows. So I'm excited. So pumped to see you live. The music starts playing.
You all walk out. I start bawling hysterically. I've seen people do this with Elvis and the Beatles. I love you so much.
But I did not expect that I would be. Crying and trying. My husband looks over at me as what is going on with you. I don't know.
I'm just so happy to get it. Oh my God. I love it. The next day, we're like, maybe we're going to pregnancy tests.
Maybe my hormones are just a little bit off. And we found out and it was all from Wow. So how old your baby now? She's a little bit over four.
Oh, wow. Wow. Well, I'm glad we're a part of that story. Yeah, me too.
Very flat forever. Well, nice meeting you. So nice to meet you guys too. All right, take care.
I want to go back to school. I thought you were about to say I want to go back to sleep. I do. Oh, I want to go back to sleep.
Well, it was just it was so heck. You're trying to get out of the house. Well, once you see that it's 10, 10, you like throw the phone. I missed a meeting.
Oh, gee. It wasn't that I slept through it. It didn't go off. You didn't set it.
I must not have, but I did set it for eight 30. No, but the phone doesn't make mistakes. You're David. David.
Oh, fine. Male teachers. I have a stereotype when I think of teacher. I think female.
Ding, ding, ding, ding. Just yesterday. This is weird. One of my best friends from home, Kirsten.
She's a teacher. Hi, David. So great to meet you too. You too.
I'm going to see it in the eyes. Sure. But also like sort of little Adam Brody-esque. There's a lot of handsome stuff going on.
These are all great comparison. I don't think anyone of them. Yeah, my first thought was John Mayer's a teacher. Yeah, he transitioned over.
Second life. David, where are you? I'm currently in LA, but I live in New York. I'm just here for the week.
Oh, is there an event you're attending or just on vacation? I am attending away. So I'm just standing in San Francisco. I used to live here for five years and then moved to New York.
Okay, when you come back, do you think like, why do I ever leave or do you think I'm glad I left? What do you think? There's making sure you're recording. There's a third person.
I don't have it yet, but it'll be coming. Okay, it's coming. You know, it's great. We're getting a really great look at David's face from every angle.
Like when you're setting your face ID with the iPhone and you have to rotate all around. Okay, so back to California question. When you come back, are you thinking shit, why did I ever leave or are you thinking, oh, I think I left. Why did I ever leave?
My wife was a big push to New York. I was trying to convince us to stay in LA. So we split the difference and ended up in New York. I love LA.
I was a huge fan. It's pretty good. I like it. I'm a West C.
I feel like you guys hurt you side folks. I was in the West Side in Santa Monica. You clade in. But you identify as an East Side boy.
Oh, God. Yeah, I had no business there. I was the only one fighting hooligans on the street. I was on the West Side.
Okay, David. So you have a great parent teacher conference story. Are you a teacher or a parent in this scenario? I'm a student in this scenario.
Oh, wow. Interesting. Left curveball. Left curveball.
That's the known saying. Yeah, so this takes place 2005. I grew up in Rockfield, Maryland. I was a sophomore in high school.
So probably not the most self aware or smart as age for boys in high school. I was a good student. I got decent grades. But I hated doing homework.
I would do anything possible to avoid doing homework and I had a strategy where I would just calculate. If I got a zero on homework, what would I need to get on every other test in order to get a new thing? If it's 5% then if I feel like I can get a 95% and the test then no worries. I'll do no homework.
Solid approach. In my foolish 15 year old mind, it's like I'd rather stay up all night for two nights in a row cramming rather than 15 minutes a night for a month before. Yes. Okay.
I don't want to slow the momentum down. But for me, it's Adam Scott as well. Oh, okay. And it's when the face is in motion.
Yeah, sure. All three are great ones. I really appreciate it. Adam Scott, I love it.
but I had a Spanish class where my teacher was roughly three months behind on grading tests. So I had done zero homework in the class, I had zero tests done, and then I was a pretty good student. So I had interim report cards where it was always and then one F. So less than ideal situation.
And so I was constantly getting my teacher like, could you just please grade my test? And she was having none of it and said she would get to it, which in hindsight, fair enough, she was saying you probably just do your homework. And I think a smarter man might have just decided to do their homework, but I was committed to my strategy. So I just kept badering my teacher and she said, look, if you don't like the way I'm running the class, let's set up a parent teacher conference.
We can talk about your class performance. As a quick aside, my parents are not the hear me out type of parents. They're employers, they come from families of educators, they will always side with the teacher. There's almost no scenario where they will side with me.
They have a healthy skepticism of their children. And so a parent teacher conferences a disaster, but I felt really pot committed. And I don't know about you, dad, I said 15, but I feel like the most common solution for 15 your boys just ask the situation. And so I said, if we're having a parent teacher conference, I think we should bring the head of the department as well.
Wow. I make her back off or something. I'm sure they were friends. And so she said, great.
And I said, okay, only rational thing is to escalate it further. And I said, no, I think the principal needs to be involved. And she said, fantastic. I left the classroom and I was like, this is absolute disaster.
He has designed your public execution. Yes. And so my parents got a notice. They said you need to come in for a conference that like noon on a Wednesday.
So they were furious not only because they assumed that I messed up and was being dead, but also because they had to drive 45 minutes from their office in the middle of the day. Were they working in D.C.? They were. This is a disaster.
Yeah. And so I had a few days before the conference and I prepared for this thing. Like I was going from the Supreme Court, put in more effort into this than anything I'd have done before. I was writing opening statements.
I was printing out evidence. I was preparing packets. And so the day comes along and I'm sitting outside the principal's office. And my parents are sitting there.
I have my vanilla folder in hands just waiting. And my dad is silently human just staring at me the entire time, refusing to look anywhere else. When we walk in, I was like, just let me open the meeting. I think I thought that if I could just just set some context.
Yeah. I was like, I can talk my way out of this. I started out as like, listen, I think this is about how much I care about this class and how much I think it's my right to understand my grades. So I can understand my level of competency and really make sure I'm understanding material, which I think is the most generous interpretation of the situation possible.
This is brilliant kind of. If you're the educator or the principal or the numerous people you've called into this, you could either be charmed by this or like so annoyed by how precocious this kid. And so it goes one way or another. Very polarizing.
I think the latter is the situation right now. It's bringing back my memory of Rushmore and how he was the worst student, everybody was so eloquent and well spoken. Yeah. But he is a good student.
That's why this is tricky. Yeah. OK. I think if my Spanish teacher was just like, the solution to this is David does his homework, I would have been a viscerator.
I would have been in the end of the conversation. But I think she wanted to not bring up that she is three months behind in grading. So she says, David, I absolutely agree. But you've never before brought up wanting to know your grace.
Oops. Interesting move. And so then I pull out my vanilla folder and I say, you're here is the email of me asking you to see my grades. And I handed a copy to her and the principal as my first exhibit.
And they looked at it and the teacher said, you know what? I've never received the signal before. Oh, she's charging herself. She's quite lost here.
Yeah. Oh. And it's like a lot of the second email. And I said, here's your response to the first email.
Oh, fuck. Oh, this is like, you good man. You got the witness to break. I could see my parents just like move from angrily staring at me to just looking at the teacher like, we're so just how did my son trap you in the situation?
Then anything else is just like mystified. And then at this point, the principal stands up that is like, you know, I think this meeting is over. Oh, I'll get your papers graded. Oh, oh, oh, shit.
So you won won the battle lost the war. They're like, OK, we're going to grade your papers. We're going to give it to the head of the Spanish department who was so much of a tougher grader than I did your ever was. And so I think the moral of the story was just do your homework.
That could have ended way better for me. I would like to think I've had some accomplishments in my life, but I think it's the proudest my dad has ever been. Oh, God, what grade did you end up with at the end of the semester? Probably a B or C.
I think it accurately reflected my level of competency of the material. Right. Oh, what a moment for mom and dad. That's a lot of work.
Probably could have gotten you back up to an A. That's the beauty of homework. It can actually get you up a little bit. It's there for a reason.
It wasn't for me either. What do you do? I work in finance now. I thought I was going to be a lawyer for a number of years and then try that out.
It was not for me. Everyone hates it, right? We can agree. All lawyers take their job.
My parents were not trying to push me to the career at all. I know no lawyers who enjoy it. I hear finance is only a tick better than. Yeah, I'm not sure it's a ton better.
What's reading? All right. Well, David, great meeting you. Well done.
That victory was worth a C, I think. Yeah, that's a life story. I appreciate it. Great meeting you guys.
Yeah, you too. Have fun on your trip to LA and have a good time at the wedding. All right. We'll do it.
Very charming and smart man. So smart. That's what I thought maybe he was. I felt like he was only probably was doing something really important, but like.
Growing the nest egg. An annual percent rate of 17 percent. OK, back to my really important story. Oh, yeah.
Sorry. So here's to my best friends from home. She is now a teacher at my high school. Well, actually she's an administration now, but she sent me a picture just yesterday of her and our eighth grade teacher.
They had run into each other at a thing and he had ended up becoming a principal, but I think he might be retired now. Anyway, he was bragging about us about you and her. Our whole group of girls. Oh, he was.
First year of teaching. Oh, wow. And he said, call me Padman. Oh, we did.
Yeah, he was so cool. We loved him. Love him. Mr.
Tarni shout out. Anyway, it was cool. And it was a ding ding ding ding. But then goes to Patrick Patrick.
Patrick, there's nothing like getting your teachers approval. There's something so specific about it being the best in the class. It's funny. I would say I don't agree, but I do.
I got it from so few teachers, but the ones that gave me the change. Yeah, they just have so many people to pick from. And if they pick you. Oh, we can't see you.
Oh, no, we see a weird camera with a line through it. It's an emoji. Yeah, it's an icon. Yeah.
You can try signing off and back in and see if that helps. OK, let me try that. OK, cool. So I could tell a story about my father now.
It's parent teacher conference related. OK, there was a point where they thought my brother had some kind of developmental behavioral stuff. I don't know what the accusation was. The principal wanted to see both my mom and my dad and my dad was furious about this.
He's not wrong with David. I'm not commenting. And then similarly, he worked like an hour away from where the school was. So he came in and they sit down in this conference and it starts with the principal saying, what do you both do for a living?
And my dad looked right at him and said, she's a prostitute and I'm her pimp. No, he did not. He did. I mean, that was my dad.
We get Lord to tell the story. She was just like, Jesus Christ. Where do we go from? Yeah.
He was just so fed up. He was basically just saying, fuck you. Yeah, I'm not cooperating with this. I'm not going to play my role in you telling me there's some role in my son.
Whoa. So interesting. Parents are so different. There you are.
Love it. We did it. I'm so glad we get to see you. We look identical.
Okay. Last annoying question. Do you happen to have earbuds? I do.
I'll see you in a second. Okay. We could be brothers, huh? Me and Patrick.
I can see it. Rose. Rose before, Rose. I love this.
We're getting a tour of Patrick's house to the listener. Yeah. This is always fun for us. What's never happened is someone strolls past a dead body.
Yeah. That would put us in a really tricky situation because this is supposed to be anonymous. And I do think we're kind of like lawyer therapists, apocratic. No, but we're also therapists.
Like if they say I killed someone, they do have to tell them. Oh, there is. That's the line. We went through hell and high water and we're here.
We did it. I feel better now. Okay. Are you flattered or offended that I said we could be brothers?
Oh, I'm flattered. Oh, good. Good. He could be.
I would understand. I get it. Where are you, Patrick? Columbus, Ohio.
Oh, wonderful. There's a college there. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
The big one. Oh, it's you. We're rivals, right? I don't care too much myself.
But yeah. Same. We're going to bridge the divide right now today. We're going to heal some hearts.
Oh. Okay. So hit us with your parent teacher conference story where you a teacher or a parent in the middle school. Yeah.
So left her ball? That's what Monica called. Yeah. So I started high school and the late nineties.
I had come from a very small private middle school to a very large public high school. Okay. Big adjustment. And at the school, we had a block scheduling instead of periods.
So we had 490 minute classes a day for half the year. And then it switched to different classes a second, half an year. Got it. So we had eight classes all year but four of the first half or the second, my very first class, my very first day freshman year was gym class.
Pretty soon I discovered that the gym teacher was also the basketball coach. And the majority of my gym class was on the basketball team. not being a big basketball player and pretty short as a freshman. Okay.
The gym teacher was pretty full. He realized that me and a couple other kids were not really into it. After we did some warm-up exercises, he kind of let us do our own thing for the rest of the class. I befriended a kid in my class who was also not a big basketball fan.
And with the freedom we had in gym, we got into a little bit of trouble. We like to skip class, you know, smoke cigarettes in the baseball bag out and whatnot. Yeah, wonderful. Because the gym coach presumably would be distracted by running drills and you'd be milling about the gym and you would sneak out a side door and fucking who would know?
Totally. I've been there. So we did that for a while. I didn't think it was too big of a deal.
My conference time came around and my gym teacher wanted to have a conference with my mom. This was the only teacher who wanted a conference with my parents. And I'm like, well, what could this be about? If I was going to be in trouble for skipping gym and screwing around, I figured that would have already happened.
So she goes in, she comes home that night and I'm nervous about what's going to happen. And she says, coach is worried about somebody you're hanging out with in gym. She thinks he's a bad influence on you. He's just concerned.
I was highly defensive. I was wanting to be independent and not feel judged about who I was choosing for friends and what I wanted to do in school. And I'm telling my mom, you know, this kid's a good kid, mom. She just comes from a broken home and, you know, really landed on.
I was like, mom, I think I could be a good influence on him. I don't think he's a bad influence on me. That was judo. You took their momentum and used it against them.
That was really good. Oh, yeah. That was enough for her. She's like, OK, well, don't get into trouble.
And I was like, of course not. I would never mean while I'm skipping school smoking cigarettes all that. Then was the kid's cigarettes I'm imagining? Oh, yeah, for sure.
Margaret Red. Definitely not a great influence. He was a bit of a bad boy, you know? He was wearing motorcycle boots and black jeans to gym class.
Oh, yeah. I thought he was super cool though. He was. He was.
You know, just because he doesn't look like the other basketball kids. I agree with you in that if he was wearing an eyes-odd sweater that was pink. He wouldn't have been like that's a bad influence. Yeah, what does it look like?
I thought for sure he was judging and I didn't want any part of it. So second half of the school year I no longer had gym and I didn't have any classes with this kid anymore. We were still friendly at school, but I wasn't really hanging out with him. One night I got home.
I turned on the TV and the local news was on. And the story that pops up is local teen friend and mother arrested for murder. Local teen friend and mother. Oh my God.
Friend. I'm watching this news story and they show the first picture who was the quote unquote local teen and I was like, holy shit, this kid goes to my school. I didn't know this guy. I was like, wow, that's amazing.
I kind of forget over the weekend. I go back to school thinking everybody's going to be talking about this. I found out the friend in this local story was my gym class. Right.
Right. I'm shocked by the story rumors are going back and forth. I didn't really get a full grasp of what happened other than the aforementioned teen. It was his father that they killed.
So the teenager and his mother killed his father and my gym class friend assisted in some way. Oh my God. Accomplished after the fact or before the fact. Okay.
Holy shit. Well, that father was probably abusive. Well, here's what's really sad, of course, is mom and son generally only killed dad when he's beating the fuck out. Exactly.
Right. And that was the story that I had heard. I didn't know what was true and what was rumored. But that is what I heard.
So after I got over the initial shock of the story in general that two people I went to school with were being charged with murder, I immediately thought I need to keep this news story from my mom. Okay. Okay. I can not let her think that I was making bad choices and friends after I thoroughly defended myself that I was being a good influence on the bad kids.
Minimally you failed at your task. No, I think you were a good influence. Oh, because he didn't murder anyone while they were friends. Right.
And then the gym class ended and any murder. That's a really solid argument. I like this angle. Here it's like.
I don't want to get dark, but I feel bad this easily could have been Aaron and I story. That was not out of reach with the violent dude in his life for sure. Well, I'm glad it wasn't your story. Me too.
I could have been the friend though. He was a victim of bad influence. It wasn't really that he was a bad influence. I love this guy.
I kind of do too. What happened to them all? So they all went to jail, the mother of the son and my friend. I don't know the full details, but about 10 years ago, another classmate of mine who I hadn't talked to in a long time emailed me out of nowhere and just said, so and so is out of prison.
That's all the message that I believe that the son and the mother got a much heavier sense. Yeah. Oh man, this could easily be a documentary we would watch and we would be like, I can't believe they put them in jail. This guy was gonna kill them if they didn't kill the guy.
We don't really know the full details, but I'm inclined to think that was it. I would imagine so. Did you grew up in rural Ohio? Right in Columbus.
Okay. I'm like a Michigan story. I had a couple of different classmates that committed murder before it was all said and done. In LA, I don't see kids killing adults.
It just seems rare. That's not true. The Menendez brothers were here. But they were like 24, 26.
Oh, and they killed? They were out of college. Oh, I thought they were younger. Anyway, sorry, Patrick.
No, that's fine. So as far as I know, I was able to keep that story from my mom to this day. And as far as she knows, I was a good influence on this kid and he turned out to be a Drake. We love him.
And maybe he did. He might have, yeah. This is upsetting. Wow, man.
That's some heavy stuff for high school. That's the one the news. And you see two guys you see in the hallway all the time. Yeah, it was quite a culture shot coming from a very small private middle school.
This was one of the first real friends I made at school within a year. He was in jail. Wow. It's very crazy.
Oh my God. I'm presuming none of your subsequent friends ever stood trial for murder. Definitely not murder. Sure, some other petty stuff maybe.
Oh, yeah. I do have some delinquent friends. Yeah. They're most interesting.
Oh, Patrick. That was a great story. Thank you for telling us that. Yeah, right.
Thank you. It was a pleasure meeting you guys. I would like to shout out my wife who could not be here but she helped me with the computer setup. And I don't know if I should be thanking her at this point.
It's a technical difficult. OK, what's her name? Kara. You know, I don't think I've ever met a Kara now.
I know like four. That's a pretty name. Yeah, it is pretty. And our favorite hotel is Kara.
Kara. But probably spelled the same, right? CARA. That's right.
Nice. Well, Kara, Kara, all the CARA's. Kara, Kara, Kara, the hotel, shout out to both. And you go by Patrick, right?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Well, Patrick, great meeting you. Thanks so much for telling us that story.
You were well. All right. Take care, brother. Yeah.
Wow. I feel sad. Yeah. Yeah, we should.
It's really heartbreaking. Yeah. No one should be forced to make that decision as a kid. The mom, including the son, like all of it's just all upsetting.
I really want to know that circumstance now. I definitely see how it could happen if it was mid abuse. Right. And they both rose up.
But then how would the friend, unless he was over playing? Well, then they're like panicked. They need to get rid of the body. Who knows what happens after that?
Look at Robert Durst. That poor guy had to cut that person up. No, we're not saying that at all. You never did have a cigarette in high school, did you?
I never smoked whenever. That one ever. That even drunk once took a drag. I don't know who you are.
Doesn't seem interesting. Hi. How are you? I'm so excited to be talking to you guys.
This feels unreal because I'm a teacher and telling a story about parents. I feel like I shouldn't use my real name. OK, great. Well, then let's go with Monica.
Perfect. We'll say it is for today. Fun. Great.
So Monica, you are still actively a teacher. This is so confused. All right. You want me to pick another name?
Dax. Oh my god. No, we have to be Monica. Are you in a break room?
I am a teacher. Today is field day. Today is the last day of school. And I 20 minutes ago was in the dunk.
So I'm like fresh out of a dunk tank to talk to you guys. Talk about a ding, ding, ding, Monica. I am volunteering on Monday for their field day. And I'll be operating first at the bouncy house and then some kind of football coin tossy thing.
I don't know. Those are the good ones. They finagle a bunch of teachers to be in the dunk tank. Yeah.
And I usually say like it has to be above 75 degrees from me going. And I'm going to be honest, I only do it on yours. I like my class a lot. OK, good.
As you should. And so what kind of weather did you have today? Was it warm? Yeah, it's like 76 and sunny.
Oh, perfect. By the time I'm in the dunk tank, it's like halfway through the day. So there's kind of like a layer of gross film of sunscreen. Oh, yeah.
OK. It's not great. They do let us pick what kids are going to try to throw. So I usually start by being like, remind me, who plays baseball?
And everything's like, it's a none of you. I try to look for this maybe like unathletic kids. Sure. And what percentage of the kids hit the target?
I had three go today and only one hit the target. Each teacher gets dunked if you're volunteering to go in. OK, so what year does this parent teacher story take place? This is my 17th year teaching.
So this was maybe three or four years ago. So you've been at it for a while. You were a pro at the time. Yeah, parent teacher conferences are always really stressful though.
Even if you've done it forever, but our school, they're just in 10 minute chunks. And if you get behind, you're behind for the rest of the day. Yeah. And is it safe to assume each parent would prefer to talk about their child for an hour?
I mean, it depends. There's some parents who come in. I start with something like, so they've got A's and everything. You've got a real monster of a kid.
I don't know what you guys are doing. And they're like, yeah, sounds good. Oh, that's best case, right? And then they stand up and leave.