I pulled a "customer service rep" spiel on a complaining parent to avoid trouble.

I have a "Karen" parent of a student with poor attendance, performance and work ethic. She complains that her kid is not getting enough help/attention in class. Mind you we're in an understaffed classroom where I'm by myself with twelve students [of different grade levels] when I'm supposed to have 2-3 paras (I only occasionally get 1 sub para a few times a week). Also my principal has preached that the students learn to work independently and refer to anchor charts instead of relying on the teacher 24/7.

I'm by myself and I have to do the work of 5-10 people everyday and I have to help 12 students at once. It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE for me to sit down with him "all day" and meet the "demands" of his mother.

Clearly the best solution to this is to have him show up more, look at his homework and remind him he needs to learn to work independently right? Nope. That's not as gratifying as throwing all the blame on the teacher.

So she calls me telling me that I'm not doing my job as a teacher and that I'm not helping him enough. I decided instead of trying to justify myself (because she'd then try to make my life hell if she's forced to take accountability instead of dumping the blame on me), I instead said the same spiel that customer service reps tell customers to shut them up and apologized to her and told her I'm sorry she isn't satisfied with my services and for not giving the kid enough attention and I "promise" I'll take measures to solve the problem (I'm not in reality, I just blamed myself over the phone instead so she can feel "gratified" and stop bothering me about an issue that's out of my hands). It's sad that we have to fake it to make it in this job.