Basic Trope: A romance between a teacher and their student's parent.
- Straight: Alice's father Bob starts dating her history teacher Charlie.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob and Charlie fall in Love at First Sight and end up having a Fourth-Date Marriage.
- Every person Bob has dated since becoming single again has been the teacher of one of his kids.
- Charlie is the protagonist of a harem anime where all of the harem members are the parents of his students.
- Bob is also the teacher of Charlie's son David.
- Charlie falls in love with both Bob and Alice's mother Eve, forming a Love Triangle and/or an OT3.
- Downplayed:
- Bob has a one-sided crush on Charlie.
- Bob and Charlie have a mutual crush on each other, but neither of them act on it.
- Bob is Alice's Parental Substitute.
- Charlie is a teacher's assistant or Alice's substitute teacher.
- Justified:
- Bob has a thing for teachers.
- Charlie doesn't get to go out too often due to his busy schedule, so his dating pool consists mostly of other teachers and the parents of his students.
- Bob either volunteers at Alice's school or is a teacher himself, so he and Charlie are easily able to relate to each other.
- Inverted:
- Bob and Charlie absolutely despise each other.
- Charlie's son David starts dating his student Alice.
- Subverted:
- Bob and Charlie met before Charlie became Alice's teacher; Alice is only just now becoming aware of their relationship.
- Bob and Charlie fall in love with each other, but decide not to date until Alice graduates or is otherwise no longer Charlie's student.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob and Charlie were Just Friends before Charlie became Alice's teacher. They undergo a Relationship Upgrade after Alice joins Charlie's class.
- While waiting for Alice to graduate, they have a Secret Relationship in the meantime.
- Alice ends up being left back or Charlie teaches a multi-grade class, and she ends up being his student again. Bob and Charlie are unwilling to wait any longer and the two start dating.
- Parodied:
- Parent/teacher conferences are portrayed similarly to speed dating events, to the point where discussions on student performance and behavior take a backseat to parents and teachers flirting with each other and seeing if they're compatible (assuming the student's performance is even touched on at all.)
- There's an entire section of the school's website dedicated to hosting the dating profiles of single teachers looking for single parents.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Bob and Charlie are a Relationship Revolving Door.
- Bob falls in love with his friend Charlie, and vice-versa. After Alice is placed in Charlie's class, he and Bob decide to save their Relationship Upgrade until Alice is no longer his student. Because of various scheduling mix-ups, she keeps being moved in and out of Charlie's class, and whenever she becomes his student again, he and Bob take a break from their relationship. Eventually Alice is removed from Charlie's class for good, and he gets ready to ask Bob out... when Alice's sister Felicia becomes his student. Unwilling to hold off any longer, Bob and Charlie become an Official Couple anyway.
- Averted:
- Charlie isn't a teacher, or if he is, he doesn't teach any of Bob's kids.
- Bob and Charlie don't feel anything for each other and don't date.
- Enforced:
- The writers want to give Alice a stepparent, but the only adults in the story besides her divorced parents are her teachers and the executives can't afford to pay another actor.
- The writers want to create drama for Alice at school and in her home life, and decide to kill two birds with one stone by having Bob date Charlie.
- Lampshaded: ”You're dating Mr. Charlie? Dad, are you trying to make me miserable?”
- Invoked:
- Alice is failing Charlie's class and doesn't want to study the material. She offers to hook him up with her father Bob in exchange for a better grade (essentially Sextra Credit by proxy).
- Alice notices that Bob's been very lonely since the divorce and she wants him to be happy again. She hooks him up with her teacher Charlie because they're both history buffs and have Unresolved Sexual Tension.
- Exploited:
- Alice milks Bob and Charlie's relationship for all it's worth by getting free homework help outside of Charlie's class hours and seeking special treatment.
- Bob's ex-wife Eve is jealous that he managed to move on so quickly, so she gets revenge by having Charlie fired from his job, citing the conflict of interest his relationship with Bob creates.
- Defied:
- Charlie refuses to date any of his students' parents because he doesn't want to risk losing his job.
- Bob refuses to date any of his kids' teachers because his kids said that such a scenario would be too weird, and he cares what his kids think.
- Discussed:Felicia: What if we set Dad up with Mr. Charlie?Alice: My history teacher? Nah, that would be way too cringey. *shudders*
- Conversed: “This Teacher/Parent Romance thing happens a lot in these Kid Coms, doesn't it?”
- Implied:
- Bob and Charlie blush whenever they see each other, stand a little closer than is normal for their culture, and are often seen hanging out together outside of school.
- While cleaning her room, Alice comes across an old report card. Her history teacher is shown to have the same name as her stepfather Charlie.
- Deconstructed: Bob and Charlie's relationship creates a conflict of interest, resulting in either Alice receiving special treatment at school or Bob becoming upset that Charlie refuses to give Alice special treatment at school. This conflict puts a strain on their relationship and ultimately ends it altogether.
- Reconstructed: Bob and Charlie reconcile and set expectations with each other on how much their relationship will have any influence on how Charlie treats Alice as a student. They get back together and become a stronger couple as a result.
- Played for Laughs: Dating What Daddy Hates is inverted as Alice comes up with increasingly crazy schemes to break up Bob and Charlie. It never works.
- Played for Drama: It's illegal for teachers to date their students' parents, and Bob and Charlie find themselves having to keep their relationship a secret and convince Alice not to turn them in simply because she doesn't like her teacher.
I really liked meeting you at the parent/teacher conference. How about we go back to Teacher/Parent Romance and see where the night takes us?
