'AITA for refusing to wear pants and long-sleeved shirts to pick up my son?' MAJOR UPDATE

"AITA for refusing to wear pants and long-sleeved shirts to pick up my son?"

Six weeks ago my wife (36) and I (38) moved across the country with our son (5) to live in my late grandma's old house that we inherited. We're from Seattle and moved to a town in Texas and honestly my wife and I fucking hate living here, but it's financially better for us for the time being, plus honestly I am attached to my grandma's house.

I have a lot of tattoos, long hair, just a general look that really isn't common here but was totally normal in Seattle. I've gotten a lot of looks from people here, which I don't really give a f about, but suffice it to say my appearance doesn't fit in.

So far my wife had been the one picking our son up and dropping him off at school/daycare because my work schedule was all f--ked up, but I've settled into the same hours she works so now we're picking our son up and dropping him off together. I met our son's teacher (~late 20'sF) earlier today and I could just tell she was uncomfortable with my appearance from the jump.

My wife and I talked to her for a bit about how our son was adjusting to the new school. After talking about that for a bit his teacher asked me to cover up my tattoos (which would basically require covering up all of my skin below the neck) when I come pick him up and drop him off because it was off-putting and apparently tattoos are against the school dress code.

I said no. I was clothed (tank top and shorts) and I'm not a student, so I said I wasn't under their dress code. Besides, none of my tattoos that are visible when I'm clothed to any degree can be considered offensive unless you find the very idea of tattoos offensive.

She insisted, which irritated me and my wife, and basically we just told her that I wasn't going to change how I dress and wasn't going to stop picking up my kid, so she and anyone else who had a problem would have to just deal with it. My wife and I think this is totally f--king ridiculous, but my mom (whom I called earlier today) said I should just go with it and that I'm being a pain.

Not long after posting, OP shared a small update.

Edit: My wife and I have decided to call the principal of the school on Monday and set up a meeting to see if this policy even actually exists or if you guys are right and it's just the teacher either making s#$t up or applying teacher/student/parent volunteer rules. We'll keep an eye on how our son is treated by the teacher and his classmates too.

The internet did not hold back one bit.

InternationalTexan71 wrote:

As an educator in Texas, this is ridiculous. That said, some schools have weird dress code rules for parents like no pajamas, no house shoes, no curlers. But requiring long pants and sleeves?!!! I would address this with her admin. And the superintendent if necessary. Because she is way out of line.

OP responded:

Thanks for that, the dress code was specifically against visible tattoos, not about long pants and sleeves.

Blowtorchbettie wrote:

NTA.

Going from Seattle to TX...oof, I'm sorry man.

OP responded:

Thanks man.

EfficientSociety73 wrote:

I live in SE Texas and have plenty of visible tattoos. Never had anyone say anything less than complimentary. Sounds like she’s a judgmental twit and thinks tattoos are bad. I’m also a substitute teacher so when I’m working my tattoos do have to be covered because I must pass dress code as an employee.

Parents are not subject to it and she needs to learn to deal with her discomfort and bias if she’s going to live in the real world. I’m sorry she’s teaching children!

Flat-Story-7079 wrote:

You need to get the f out of Texas. Your kid will never get this time back. If they treat an adult like this just imagine how they will treat your kids. You’re exposing your kids to people like this because of some attachment you have to a house.

OP responded:

Yeah, I think so. We're gonna give it a year, but if we're still miserable here then we're gonna move.

[deleted] wrote:

This is just the tip of the iceberg you're going to have to deal with there. And I hope your wife is never in the position to need women's healthcare. Women are dying in Texas bc they are being denied basic healthcare.

OP responded:

I hope not too. I've had a vasectomy, so she won't need anything pregnancy related, and no issues like that run in her family. But honestly I don't know if this will exactly be a permanent place for us. Even with this aside we just hate it here.

Three days later, OP shared an update.

My wife and I called the front office of our son's school this morning and were able to actually meet with the principal and one of the vice principals right before school let out, so we got to leave work and pick our son up early too, which was really nice.

Turns out those of you who said this was probably the teacher overstepping and not an actual rule were totally right. Apparently it is against dress code for both the students and teachers to have tattoos (temporary or otherwise), but as long as you're decent a parent can show up dressed as they like.

The meeting went about as well as it could have gone. The principal was pretty avoidant of saying the teacher did anything wrong, per se, and did try to pass it off as the result of his teacher's inexperience, but she did say that the teacher's actions "weren't right," so I guess that's something.

My wife and I also asked if we could move our son to the other class if he seems unhappy for any reason or if we think the teacher is treating him unfairly, and the principal agreed, so that's also good. I also just wanted to address some of the things that came up multiple times in comments on the original post.

Like I said a couple times in the comments, we live in a fairly small town (my wife and I actually work in a different - and somewhat bigger - town than the one we live in), so I didn't give my exact location, plus I'm not really familiar with the regions of Texas.

Basically, I'm pretty sure Dallas is the closest big city to us, but even Dallas isn't exactly close. I can't speak to how popular my look is in the cities (except Houston, my wife lived there for a year as a teenager and said tattoos were fairly common), but it's definitely not common here.

I've seen a couple guys with like one or two tattoos, but none in color (like mine) and none with nearly as many as I have, and none actually in the town we live in, either. Not totally relevant, but they've all got full beards too, and I like to keep my face clean shaven.

Like I said in my original post, we moved here for a mix of financial and sentimental reasons. Basically, even before we got here, the plan was to not stay for any longer than 3 years, but honestly, we might be moving before the end of this one because my wife and I really despise it here and our son seems so let down every weekend.

I didn't really want to get into it, but I had to get surgery to treat my IBD about a year and a half ago, which obviously was costly, plus we wanted to save a good amount of money for our son while he's young so he won't need as much in student loans if he eventually goes to college, and we basically weren't able to afford to live the way we wanted in Seattle anymore.

On top of that, to be honest, I am very attached to my grandma's house and I just wasn't able to part with it immediately when she passed. My wife and my grandma are the only people I've really felt at home with, if that makes any sense, and my grandma's death was unexpected so I really wasn't prepared to just get rid of her house.

My wife, the absolute f--king angel that she is, suggested that we move here for a little while, just until we know where to settle until our son leaves for college. Maybe we'll get enough when we sell the house that it can be Seattle, maybe we won't. My wife and son mean more to me than anything and everyone else in the world combined, so I don't want them to live in a place they hate.

3. Some of you think that I shouldn't have said anything and should have just complied for fear of my son being treated poorly, but I think that's a super shitty precedent to set and model for our son and I think it probably wouldn't affect anyone's behavior anyway.

Obviously whether people accept my tats or not doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but I don't want my son to think that it is okay for other people to tell him to look a certain way because that's what they want/are "comfortable" with, nor do I want him to think it's okay to treat others that way.

I don't think teaching him to conform is ever a good thing. I also don't think trying to conform actually makes people accept you any more, but that's just me. Plus he's 5 and he's already brought cupcakes to school, so I should hope the other 5 year olds aren't going to have a problem.

4. I thought I was clear in the original post that all of my tattoos that are visible when I'm clothed are not offensive, but apparently I wasn't. I'm not going to show them (obviously), but basically most of the visible ones are of animals (extant and extinct), with some book and movie references too. Even the evolution tattoo I have is mostly not visible with a tank on.

I do have some gory and some X-rated tattoos that would be inappropriate for kids to see, but those are all not visible when I'm clothed. I'd need to be in nothing but a speedo (or super short shorts, which I don't wear) for even some of them to be visible and I'd need to be naked for all of them to be visible, so suffice it to say there wasn't anything visible that a reasonable person would find offensive.

5. A lot of you have weird opinions about whether men should wear tank tops at all or not. I think that's just a weird thing to comment on, honestly, I mean who cares. I mean I'm not going to comment on whether men should hold their big belt buckle in public or not.

I wasn't wearing a wifeb--ter either, it was a tank top. As long as it feels like summer to me, I'm gonna wear one. Plus my wife really loves them, so I'm definitely not going to just excise them from my wardrobe.

The meeting with our son's teacher was impromptu anyway, if it had been an actual parent-teacher conference sure, I probably would have gone with a t-shirt, but we just thought it'd be a quick get out, pick up our son, and go occasion. Sorry if that was too long. Thanks for the advice everyone, it was much appreciated.

The internet had a lot to say in response.

the_Jollygreengiant wrote:

He is unable to confirm wrongdoing verbally because that opens up the school to potential lawsuits. If I were you, I would take the win, continue to dress how you want, and just make sure your son is happy. Congrats on the good outcome.

OP responded:

Ah okay, that makes sense. And thanks.

JSmith2127 wrote:

Anyone that thinks you should just take discrimination sitting down not to rock the boat, is wrong. That teacher deserves to be at least written up. I'd be interested in any interactions you have with her at pick up, after this. I bet that she either won't even want to look you in the eye, or will turn very passive aggressive.

OP responded:

Hopefully it'll be the former. My wife does not tolerate passive aggression, haha.

Lucky-Guess8786 wrote:

When I read your first story, I was reminded of a speech that Pink made when she accepted an award. She talked about her daughter saying one day that she believed "she was the ugliest girl" she knows. And that she looks like "a boy with long hair." I loved Pink's response. Maybe you want to keep that clip in your back pocket for the day your son says something about being different from others.

There is nothing wrong with being different. Tattoos, long hair, short hair, pink/green/orange hair, whatever. It's what in your heart that counts. Too bad the teacher was judging the book (you) by the cover rather than the content. I'm glad you took it up the chain to ensure it doesn't continue to happen.

295Phoenix wrote:

Good job. Dunno what the people recommending silence was smoking, these conservatives need to be checked. And now that you checked them, they'll think twice before trying anything else like forcing your kid to say the pledge. Good luck in your future endeavors!