Teacher/Parent Romance

"Tell me, how does my mother, or any person for that matter, go into a parent/teacher conference and come out with a date?"

— Mia, The Princess Diaries

In fiction, this is commonly one of the worst nightmares for students: their bachelor/bachelorette parent dating one of their teachers. Even worse, their teacher becoming their step-parent. Even if the teacher is a Cool Teacher, it's usually awkward and embarrassing to be involved in their student's personal lives. Many students don't even think of them as actual individuals.

Teacher/Parent Romance occurs when a teacher courts, or at least falls for, the parent of one of their students. In some areas and time-periods, it's against the law, or at least is socially unacceptable to do so, leading to either a Secret Relationship or waiting until the child is no longer the teacher's student.

Compare and contrast to Teacher/Student Romance, which is when a teacher outright dates their student and is thus more of an Unequal Pairing. When the parent's new relationship is with a privately-hired tutor instead of a teacher, Marry the Nanny may be a closer fit. Related to Hot Teacher and Parent with New Paramour. Can happen when Students Playing Matchmaker and Kids Play Matchmaker overlap.

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Major has a rare instance where the child fully supports the relationship. Goro's dad Shigeharu, who is a widower, eventually begins dating his son's teacher Momoko. It helps that Momoko is clearly very fond of Goro on top of being attracted to his dad. Interestingly, they hold off on moving forward with their relationship until Goro graduates kindergarten so that it doesn't interfere with her job. Sadly they don't get to marry each other due to Shigeharu's untimely death, but she legally adopts Goro to raise him in his memory.
• The titular Great Teacher Onizuka openly flirts with the very attractive mother of his student Kunio Murai. Onizuka does this for being legitimately attracted to her, but also to troll the fuck out of Kunio.
• In the second chapter of Sweet Guilty Love Bites, "Guilty Love", the single mom Nina starts going out with her daughter Ryuna's preschool teacher Mayu. Ryuna is quite happy with the arrangement, however.
• Inverted (that is, a teacher's parent marrying one of his students) in UQ Holder!, where it was revealed that Negi's father married Eva post-Negima! Magister Negi Magi.

Comic Books

• This 1950's comic from Charlton romance comic Sweethearts #86, about a schoolteacher falling in love with the single father of one of her students.
• In W.I.T.C.H., Will's mother Susan gets into a relationship with Dean Collins, Will's history teacher. Will starts out mortified, but does come around to caring about him, particularly since her biological father is a crappy deadbeat. Susan and Dean eventually marry and have a son, Will's younger brother William.

Fan Works

• The premise of the Frozen (2013) fanfic Teach Me is that Elsa ends up having a one-night stand with a woman she picks up at a bar, only to find out the next day that the same woman was going to be Elsa's son's teacher Anna.
• Give In, Give In [and Relish Every Minute of It]: Claude hires Esmeralda to teach his son to dance. He has a mutual attraction to her which ends in them dating.
• Son of the Sannin: Shisui becomes a secondary father figure for Sasuke alongside Itachi after their clan is wiped out and starts dating Shizune at around the same time. Shizune would later be appointed as Sasuke's jonin sensei four years later when he graduated from the academy.
• Eyes on Me: A grandparent variant occurs in Thunderbird when Jasper's grandfather Warren catches feelings for a teacher at Ewing-Halsell Middle School. While they start dating before the first day of school, their relationship progresses throughout the story to the point where they're married by the end.

Films — Live-Action

• Alles Is Liefde: Dennis cheats on his wife with their son's teacher, Sarah; upon discovering this, his wife dumps him. During most of the movie, he's still together with the teacher but at the end, he ends the relationship with her and goes back to his wife.
• The Chorus has prefect Clement Mathieu falling for Morhange's mother, Violette. Unfortunately...
• Gifted has Cool Uncle Frank (played by Chris Evans) take custody of his niece Mary, a Child Prodigy. When Mary starts school, she wows her teacher Bonnie, who then gets to know Frank and one thing leads to another. The situation culminates when Mary sees her teacher coming out of Frank's bedroom after the two get drunk and have a one-night stand.
• In Journey of the Heart, Janice Johnston falls in love with Tony's music teacher, Thomas DeBlois. By the end of the movie, they're engaged, and her sons take on his last name.
• In Pay It Forward, the Kid Hero manages to pair his Single Mom Stripper with his Cool Teacher.
• The Princess Diaries: Mia's mother starts dating her math teacher, much to Mia's disdain. She warms to their relationship eventually, and they have a baby together by the sequel.
• The Santa Clause 2: Charlie Calvin's dad ends up marrying the high school principal and having a son with her in the next movie.
• In The Squid and the Whale, newly divorced mom Joan starts dating her son's tennis instructor, which creates tension between the instructor, the kids, and the dad.

Literature

• Animorphs: Marco's father had a mental breakdown when his wife (supposedly) died, and sank into a deep depression, even losing his job as a computer engineer. He eventually starts dating again... and his new girlfriend Nora is Marco's algebra teacher. It doesn't last — soon after they marry, Marco finds out his mother (or at least the Yeerk inside her) was Faking the Dead again, and some time after that, Nora is captured and infested, while Marco frees his mother at about the same time, allowing her to reunite with her husband as the entire family goes into hiding. Marco actually lies about when Nora was infested and makes his dad think she was infested the entire time because he wants his parents back together.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Percy's mother Sally starts dating his English teacher Mr. Blofis, though in this case, they started dating before he became Percy's teacher. They eventually get married and have a daughter together.
• The Princess Diaries: Very early in the series, Mia's mom marries her math teacher Mr. Gianini.

Live-Action TV

• In The Andy Griffith Show, Andy starts dating Opie's teacher Helen Crump, who later becomes Andy's wife and Opie's stepmother. Unlike most examples, Opie never really had a problem with Andy dating her but was actually happy about it.
• In A.P. Bio the main character Jack finds himself attracted to the single mother of one of his odder students, who is only okay with it in the hopes of making his father jealous. The relationship doesn't last long as the student's more annoying quirks make dating difficult.
• Big Shot (2021): Emma's drama teacher Miss Goodwin is currently dating her father Marvyn Korn.
• Cobra Kai:
  • Johnny Lawrence gets lots of Ship Tease with the Struggling Single Mother of his top student Miguel Diaz until they become an Official Couple in Season 4. While Miguel loves Johnny, he's initially weirded out by this, with Johnny suddenly giving him special treatment not helping matters. Once they sort things out things went smoothly.
  • Amanda LaRusso reveals her Dark and Troubled Past of her father having an affair with her math teacher in high school which inevitably caused her parents' divorce. Amanda goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and destroys her teacher's car in front of her entire school, which somewhat tarnished her reputation.
• Degrassi: The Next Generation: In the second season, Emma's mother Spike starts dating her teacher Mr. Simpson (who is also an old high school crush of Spike's). Emma is initially perturbed but gets over it. Later, Snake and Spike wed, and Emma and Snake become a very devoted stepfather/stepdaughter combo.
• Played for Laughs (like everything else) in El Chavo del ocho. Professor Jirafales and Doña Florinda are clearly into each other, though never seem to go past the typical cup of coffee she invites. Meanwhile, Quico isn't exactly very subtle about how much he'd like to have Professor Jirafales as his father figure (even calling him "Daddy" rather frequently).
• On Full House, Danny starts dating DJ's Spanish teacher in one episode after DJ asks him to appeal to her about her failing grade and the two of them find that they have a mutual attraction. While it doesn't end up working out long-term, it does completely distress DJ for the duration of it.
  • Another episode later in the series has Michelle try to set Danny up with her kindergarten teacher because she wants a mommy and the two both have a fondness for cleaning.
• In the first season of Gilmore Girls, Lorelei starts dating Max Medina, who is her daughter Rory's English teacher at preppy Chilton Academy. They try to keep it secret, but later date openly and even get engaged. Lorelei then breaks it off just a few days before the wedding, which is very awkward for Rory and Max.
• Hannah Montana:
  • The episode "When You Wish You Were The Star" has an Alternate Universe where Miley/Hannah's father Robbie Ray is in a relationship with her former homeschool teacher, who the audience can see turns out to be a Gold Digger and Evil Stepmother in the making for Hannah.
  • An actual canon episode has Jackson set up his father Robby Ray with his grumpy teacher, Ms. Kunkle, to get an A in school. Unfortunately for Jackson, the relationship ends very quickly when Ms. Kunkle criticizes Robby Ray for not adding tarragon to his chili recipe.
• High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: In Season 2, Ricky's drama teacher Miss Jenn dates his father Mike Bowen for a little bit.
• Played with on iCarly No mention is made of Carly's mom and her dad is overseas; her adult brother, Spencer, acts as her guardian. In "iHave a Lovesick Teacher", Carly's teacher, Ms. Ackerman becomes a Sadist Teacher when her boyfriend dumps her. During a conference, she and Spencer hit it off and start dating, which is okay with Carly since it makes Ms. Ackerman much more pleasant. However, she freaks out on Spencer when he doesn't answer his phone, causing Spencer to dump her for this and other reasons.
• In New Girl, one of Jess' major Love Interests is Russell, the father of one of her students. Doubles as an Age-Gap Romance, as Russell is considerably older than her.
• One of the major arcs of Teachers (2016) is Ms. Bennigan's relationship with one of her student's parents. Among themselves, the teachers only ever refer to him as "Hot Dad."
• Our Miss Brooks:
  • An atypical example in "A Mother for Benny". Benny Romero tries to set up Miss Brooks with his father, even sending flowers to her in his name.
  • In "New Girl At School", Miss Brooks is worried when Mr. Boynton starts giving driving lessons to the mother of the titular new girl.
• In the Shake it Up episode "Sweat It Up", Georgea goes on a date with CeCe's gym teacher, Coach Lessor. CeCe is disgusted by this at first, but then sees it as a saving grace when Lessor considers letting CeCe off the hook for faking an injury earlier in the episode. It ends up backfiring, however, when the date goes very badly making Lessor even harsher on CeCe than before.
• In the first season of Shtisel, Akiva falls in love with Elisheva, the mother of one of his students.
• Subverted in Veronica Mars. Veronica's father Keith starts getting friendly with her guidance counselor, but he decides to break it off when it becomes clear that Veronica is not past her Missing Mom yet.

Visual Novels

• Dream Daddy: One of the possible love interests, Hugo, is your daughter Amanda's English teacher. Amanda takes it in stride, though, and is as supportive of your relationship with him as she would be with any of the other love interests.
• Played with in Melody, especially in the Cool Aunt Ending. The protagonist (Melody’s tutor) can start a relationship with Amy (Melody’s aunt, her primary mother figure since the death of Melissa). The two of them end up together in the Cool Aunt Ending. Also, if the protagonist and Melody end up as a couple instead, Melody will admit that she was initially suspicious of him because she thought he was just trying to get into Amy’s pants.

Webcomics

• The controversial Facebook-only Chilean webcomic Super MILF (not to be confused with the Spinnerette superheroine), a redhead beautiful woman in her 40s that's sexually free and also fights against injustice (mostly from "social warriors"), has one comic in which she hangs with his son's teacher, being sadly discovered by the kid after the school.
• My Daughter Is A Zombie: Jeonghwan and Yeonhwa are childhood friends who return to their hometown Eunbong to escape the zombie apocalypse. Yeonhwa convinces Jeonghwan to send his daughter Su-ah to school and becomes her teacher. At first, Jeonghwan doesn't think of Yeonhwa as a romantic prospect since she hates zombies and is unaware that Su-ah is one, but they eventually start dating, much to Su-ah's horror. The romance is short-lived as Jeonghwan dies to save Su-ah, but Yeonhwa joins the family and has Jeonghwan's child.
• Selkie:
  • Todd has some chemistry with Mina, his daughter's third grade teacher. While both of them would probably want a relationship, Mina calls it off because she doesn't think it's appropriate to date the father of one of her students.
  • Jessie is only a student teacher, but she still ends up romantically involved with Andi, the mother of one of her students. While the two didn't meet at any sort of parent-teacher night (instead they happen to be neighbors), there's still all the requisite awkwardness with Andi's daughter.

Web Original

• Whateley Universe:
  • Mischief, who is a student at Whateley Academy, has her dad and her mentor and art teacher falling in love, and they knew each other before she became a teacher, as well.
  • Tansy's mom, Marissa Walcutt nee Dawson and Hot Rod, a.k.a Melvin Donner, as seen in the end of The Banshee's Tale:
  "During the tour you were so kind as to give me, I met a, um, large ... teacher ... in your engineering department. I think cars were his specialty ...?"
  ...
  "Melvin Donner?" Mrs. Carson [...] "What about him?
  "Is he seeing anyone?"
  "I don't believe Melvin is romantically involved, why?" Mrs. Carson asked with a gimlet eye.
  "My second condition is I want his phone number."

Western Animation

• In the episode "Keen on Keane" of The Powerpuff Girls, Miss Keane and Professor Utonium begin dating. They're an annoyingly cutesy couple who ultimately break up because the Professor hates cats.
• Will's mother in W.I.T.C.H. ends up dating one of her teachers, much to her embarrassment. They end up getting married in the comics.
• Played with in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Apple Bloom's parents are heavily implied to be deceased however her two adult siblings, Applejack and Big McIntosh, act as parent substitutes. For Hearts and Hooves Day, Apple Bloom and her friends try to hook up Big Mac with their teacher Cheerilee using a love potion. It works, but a little too well, so they end up splitting them apart.
• Strickler from Trollhunters is a changeling troll who works as a teacher. He ends up falling for Jim's mom, Barbara, who is unaware of his true form.
• In the Disney episodes of Doug, Patti's father begins dating the school English teacher, Ms. Krystal. Patti is not initially thrilled, partly because it interferes with the bond she had with her dad, and because she still misses her mother. She eventually warms up to the idea, and Patti's father and Ms. Krystal get married in the series finale.