A father and his husband raising a 13-year-old girl going through puberty surely comes with some challenges.

To save herself from embarrassment, their daughter would call to be picked up from school when she unexpectedly has her period.

The last thing Redittor "aita_dadnurse" needed was listening to the school nurse lecturing him about parenting after she accused his daughter of being manipulative.

Dad had some contentious words while defending his daughter but now feels guilty.

So he asked the "Am I the A$$hole" SubReddit community if his frustration was warranted.

"My husband and I (both 40m) are raising a 13-y/o girl, to clarify."
"My daughter struggles every few months with her period. She's fine most of the time, but some months she gets her period unexpected at school, and it's embarrassing to her."
"She won't carry pads because they have clear backpacks, and she doesn't like wearing her own slightly bloody underwear for half a day—understandable."
"When she gets her period, she goes to the nurse with 'an awful stomachache' and I am called (I work from home so it's easier for me to get her.) Nurse always reminds me that she 'could be faking' but I always pick her up and bring her home."

When the OP went to retrieve his daughter, the nurse had some words.

"Yesterday, she called again, so I walked into school to get her and the nurse was waiting in the office. Nurse asked me if I was aware that my daughter had 'a pattern'."
"I told her yes, but that we had things figured out. Nurse said that if she's really having stomach problems like this, I should take her to the doctor, because she might have anxiety. I said 'thank you, but my husband and I have things figured out'."


"Nurse got very cold. 'I don't think you're taking her anxiety seriously. Fathers are supposed to want what's best for their girls, and as a nurse I feel it's my duty to ensure she is safe.'"


"This lit a fuse with me. Here's where I could be TA: I told the nurse 'I know my daughter better than you do. It is none of your business what her stomach issues come from unless a parent tells you.'"
"She then told me: 'I am afraid if she is not anxious she is manipulating you into bringing her home from school. Is there a class she dreads? Does she do her homework?'"


"I said: 'My daughter is an honor roll student and an honest girl. I'm sorry you don't think so, but I know her and I know she's not lying to me. Stay out of our personal business.'"
"She turned over my daughter without saying much else."

The OP was forced to come up with an alternate plan to avoid future confrontations.

But his altercation with the nurse weighed on his guilty conscience.

"Daughter will now go to the bathroom and text me instead of the nurse—we'll just say she has 'an appointment.' I feel awful, though, for being ticked—the nurse is a professional who deals with awful parents daily, and I know she was just trying to help."

What followed was an interesting discourse about parenting, puberty and the pill.

This Redditor said "You're the a$$hole" (YTA), but explained that—unless she was suffering from a serious medical issue —saving her from distress every time sets her up for failure.

"YTA but hear me out. i'm sure she was only trying to help, and your daughter missing so much school is definitely an issue."
"she needs to carry some pads with her, maybe in a separate little decorative pouch so people can't tell what they are."
"throw some midol in there for the cramps. this is the hard part of being a woman, learning that life cannot completely stop every month when it comes."
"if there is a serious pain/discharge problem, she should visit an OB/GYN and if there isn't a serious problem, she should learn this lesson before she's fired from her first job for calling out sick every month."
"i realize how hard it is to not love on and nurture our babies when they're not feeling good but one woman's opinion, you're setting her up for failure by continuing the pattern without attempting to fix the issue."
"ETA i do think the nurse was a bit out of line by pressing the anxiety/manipulation dialogue but i still stand firm that you're unfortunately the AH here." – taylorgone

Some users talked about how schools should provide for feminine hygiene products available for emergencies.

"At school they should be free especially if a student had an accident. Back at my old high school if a girl needed one cause it came early, leaked through, or ran out we had to buy 1 from the nurse. $1 for pads $2 for tampons."
"Never could understand why they made us pay when they knew a good size of the student body couldn't do that." – Batcow2106
"There was a lot of poor and homeless kids who's families couldn't afford to get pads/tampons where i grew up."
"I remember one classmate who used towel scraps and wash them in the gyms bathroom if no one was watching. In middle school some female teachers will give extra credit if students brought in those items to help out other students." – Batcow2106
"Please do not blame the nurse. She is there earning a paycheck."
"If the school does not buy them... Can parents of females donate some to the school? Same as we donate supplies. As a teen I kept a back up pad and tampon in my locker." – megabitch420
"That is some f'ing bulls**t tampons and pads shouldn't be classified as novelty items and thus not be so f'ing expensive."
"it's not like you can stop your period at will. People need them for basic f'ing hygiene and it is such bulls**t that they're not cheaper/free." – littreshbag

Some users suggested oral contraceptives as an alternative, as the estrogen and progestin in birth control pills are known for regulating menstrual cycles.

"you can't call out sick just because you don't feel like carrying menstrual supplies."
"If she's getting more severe than average cramps she should try going on the pill. It was life changing for my sister who was suffering in high school." – insomniac29
"The pill can also be great because it makes your periods regular like clockwork, so instead of carrying supplies around all the time you know the exact day it's coming."
"I used to mark my calendar for exactly when it would strike, months in advance." – Errvalunia

However, there are some precautions to be aware of.

"There's a whole host of bulls**t that comes with going on the pill for some people, especially younger people."
"It should never be looked at as a quick fix for anything. If she doesn't want to fill her body with that s**t and she's not having sex, there's nothing wrong with taking an afternoon off from school once a month."
"I'm in my 30s and I take what I call a 'slow day' from work almost every month. I'm on birth control, but periods f'ing suck for some of us no matter what." – itsanincredibleegg

This user faulted the system and sided with the parent.

"This is an 'unintended consequence' of the rule that makes the kids use only transparent backpacks."
"I'm sure the school didn't intend to have a rule that seemingly discriminated against those girls that didn't want to advertise their periods to possibly every vulgar and immature boy in the school who may feel entitled to pass judgement, but it seems that to this pupil that's the result of this policy."
"The child has a right to her bodily autonomy, and this 'one size fits all' rule appears to have deprived her of that. Worse is the clueless nurse who instead of understanding the pubertal girls in her charge, decides to criticise this girl and her mother."
"There are definitely a$$holes in this story, but they're not the OP or her daughter." – FeteFatale
"I actually disagree about the nurse being out of line."
"I was younger than OP's daughter but I used to go to the nurse's office constantly because of stomach pain to the point that my school asked my parents to go to the doctor."
"I actually did have anxiety (although my parents didn't realise it wasn't normal for an eight year old to have pain due to stress and I wasn't taken to a psychiatrist)"
"My point is that the nurse has been seeing this young lady struggle and the parents seemingly not doing anything."
"It's not like you said 'she sometimes gets bad periods and that's why I'm picking her up.' You just said you have everything under control - that's what my parents said when they didn't deal with my anxiety."
"So I'm completely on the nurse's side here!" – JustHereToRedditAway

It's easy to designate someone as the a$$hole, but there is usually more going on than what is immediately apparent.

Image by Foundry Co from Pixabay

Now that college has become a standard requirement for so many jobs and careers, there is a massive push by high schools to get their graduating students accepted and enrolled at an undergraduate college.

On the whole, that's undoubtedly a great thing. A more educated workforce will be prepared to solve the most complex issues facing human beings in the next several decades.

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Image by Gianni Crestani from Pixabay


The person on the other end of a 911 call has a truly remarkable job.

For those who don't play that professional role, we hope to never encounter the 911 call interaction. But if we do find ourselves making that call, the moment is an anomaly in our lives.

The chaos, the panic, the racing heart, and the desperation are all emotions we, ideally, don't experience on a regular basis.

But for the operator on the other end, our call is one in a long line of calls they've received all day, and all the workdays before that one.

It's difficult to imagine being embedded in those uniquely urgent, emergency moments all the time.

Some Redditors who are on the other end of that call shared their experiences on the job.

WhimsicalxxButcher asked, "911 dispatchers what has been your most creepy/unnerving call?"

For a few, the most unnerving moments were the calm callers.

There was something just so eerie about how level-headed the faceless human being on the other end could be through such a desperate, tragic moment.

Almost Clinical 

"I had a friend who worked as a 911 dispatcher and he always said the worst call he ever had was a ~20 year old kid who committed suicide by mixing a bunch of chemicals together in his car to produce hydrogen sulfide gas."

"He said that the most unnerving part was hearing him calmly listing off the chemicals, the type of gas produced, and the effects of hydrogen sulfide on the body (namely the almost instant death it causes at high concentrations)."

"He ended the call by providing the address of the parking lot he was in and saying that nobody should approach the vehicle without hazmat equipment."

"Apparently after that there was a whooshing sound as he dumped the last chemical into the mix, and then the line went dead silent aside for a quiet fizzing noise."

"I know that call screwed him up because he almost never talks about stuff that happens to him on the job. He quit a few months later to go into construction management, and frankly I can't blame him."

-- iunoyou

Planned Out 

"A woman called me, saying she was going to kill herself. She was gassing herself. Gave me her name & address then said she was just going to lie down and 'go to sleep.' And stopped responding to me."

"I kept the line open, trying to get her to speak to me, and eventually heard officers forcing their way in to find her body. I guess she just wanted someone to find her body."

-- mozgw4

Before It Set In 

"When I got a call from a 6 year old who got home from school and laid down to take a nap with his dad. His dad never woke up."

"The kid was so calm when calling it broke my heart."

"I ended up leaving dispatch shortly after. I was good at compartmentalizing the job for the year I was doing it, but it would've broken me in the long run."

-- tasha7712

Other 911 operators were unfortunate enough to receive a call from the very last person they wanted to hear from: a loved one.

These dispatchers' unique position gave them the unexpected access to a family member or friend at their most dire moments.

No More of That 

"My family member is a long time first responder, and 'retired' into doing dispatch. He heard the address (someone else was taking the call) and realized it was his daughter's house."

"He rushed over there just in time to see them wheeling her body out. Overdose."

"Five months later, he was called to his ex-wife's place because his grandson (son of the daughter who recently passed) had his door locked, lights on, but wasn't responding to his grandma."

"He broke the door down and found him deceased in bed. Overdose."

"He's very stoic after years of all sorts of traumatic situations but my heart hurts whenever I think of what all of this must have felt like. Like sand through your fingers."

-- bitchyhouseplant

Knowing the Address

"Not me, but my grandma. I was sitting in the dispatch office, (very small one only 2 dispatchers including my grandma) but she put out a dispatch that there was a gun shot from my best friends address."

"My heart sank to my stomach and broke later that day. He committed suicide."

-- OntaiSenpuu

When it Happened 

"My uncle passing away. Worked as a small town dispatcher for a year or so. Had a bunch of messed up stuff happen on shift, but this call came in in the still hours of the night. Small town, so not many calls after midnight."

"I answered and recognized the name and address on caller id. Aunt was in a frenzy so didn't recognize my voice. I remained calm and got ems and fire rolling to them, but by my aunt's own words he was already blue."

"I went thru debriefing and mandated therapy for a couple other things that happened, but never really talked to anyone about this. I just try not to think about it."

"That was the call I figured out I needed to find a different job."

-- dangitjon

Finally, some simply had a front row seat to sudden tragedy.

These operators were flies on the wall when disaster struck. They never asked to witness what they witnessed, but sometimes that came with the territory.

A Holiday Tragedy 

"My mom is a 911 dispatcher. Early on she said one Christmas Eve while working she got a call from an elderly lady who's husband had just collapsed(and died) from a heart attack and in the background Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas music was playing on blast."

"The lady was screaming and crying and begging for her husband to wake up but my mom could hear his gurgling in his last breathes. She doesn't listen to or watch Alvin and the chipmunks since."

-- Blueflowerbluehair

What is it About Christmas?

"Christmas night. 911 call with crying child on the other end. A neighbor had run her car over her mom during a domestic."

"The mom crawled to the porch bleeding and the child saw the car coming back. I had her hide quietly in a closet with the cordless phone."

"The 10 year old child was crying and screamed that she hated Christmas. She was afraid of the police when they got there."

"I kept her on the phone until she felt safe enough to give the phone to an officer. I almost fainted after that call was over. Had nightmares for a while."

-- 2FunBoofer

Close to Home 

"Not a dispatcher but I handle radio communications for the Coast Guard. One night I was on the radio and got a call from an 11 year old kid whose boat had started to sink. He was out with his dad and 6 year old brother."

"They had been hit by another boat and his father got knocked unconscious. I remember the entire conversation up until the radio had gone underwater."

"They ended up finding his dad floating on his back alive but the two boys didn't make it. That one really fu**ed with me because my two littlest brothers were around the same age as the youngest."

-- HIRSH2243

A Horrible Clock 

"Another one that stays with me was the man who called in. It was the anniversary of his adult son having hanged himself. He'd now come home to find his wife had done the same."

"That date is always going to be a black day for him."

-- mozgw4



Again, we hope you never have to use the 911 call in your life. Nobody wants to be involved in a sudden emergency or a tragic incident.

But hopefully, if you do, an operator like one of these thoughtful, sensitive Redditors is on the other end.

Image by Nguyen Dinh Lich from Pixabay

When I was moving on from middle school to high school my parents had me tested for the "gifted" program. By some miracle I passed and was accepted. And then I turned it down. Everyone was irritated. "This will pave the way for any college you want! You'll learn so much!" his path will set you up for life!" Every adult tried valiantly to sell me this merchandise but in my gut I just wasn't buying it. So I "settled" a level below, merely advanced classes. And upon reflection... it was the best choice I ever made.

Redditor u/dauntlessdaisy was wondering how far some in life got by asking... For those of you who were considered "gifted" in school, what are you doing with your life now?
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Image by Markus Spiske from Pixabay

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