Mom writes note to daughter's teacher, admitting she skipped class just to see Taylor Swift
"Here’s hoping my daughter’s 1st grade teacher is a Swiftie."

Taylor Swift performing in concert in 2017
People are praising Karen Vladeck, 38, a mom from Austin, Texas, who wrote a clever email notifying her daughter's teacher that she would be missing school to attend a Taylor Swift concert. However, instead of a simple letter asking for the absence to be excused, she channeled her inner Swiftie and composed a note infused with nods to the singer's music catalog.
The absence was for April 24, which coincided with the final date of Swift’s 3-night stand at Houston’s NRG stadium. Vladek sent the letter on April 4, so the teacher would have plenty of notice.
Vladek, a legal recruiter, attorney and podcaster, shared the witty email she sent to her daughter's teacher on Twitter, which received nearly 3,800 likes. “Here’s hoping my daughter’s 1st grade teacher is a Swiftie," she captioned the tweet.
She titled the email: "It's Me, Hi, I'm the Problem, It's Me,” a nod to Swift’s song “Anti-Hero.”
The email begins with “Dear Reader [Ms. Parks]," referencing another song on Swift’s “Midnights" album. It went on to include numerous Swiftisms, including “Should Have Said No,” “So It Goes…,” “Bad Blood,” “I Did Something Bad,” “The Last Time," “Cruel Summer” and “Forever & Always.”
“Dear Reader [Ms. Parks], I’m writing to let you know that Maddie won’t be in school on 4/24 because she is going to the Taylor Swift concert in Houston,” Vladeck wrote. “I hope missing school doesn’t ruin her otherwise stellar Reputation, but she begged me to go and maybe I Should Have Said No but I didn’t want to be Mean. So It Goes…Anyway, I hope this doesn’t leave any Bad Blood between you and Maddie and that things for the rest of the year are not Treacherous.
“I know I Did Something Bad and I promise this will be The Last Time she has an unexcused absence before the Cruel Summer starts. Forever & Always, -Karen Vladeck.”
Vladek’s husband, Steve, didn’t seem too thrilled about the email.
Well let’s hope her reaction is better than my husband’s pic.twitter.com/OSOXOKDWTP
— KSV Eras Era (@KSVesq) April 4, 2023
The mother could have made up a story that her daughter was sick or that there was some family emergency. But she was honest, admitting that having Taylor Swift tickets was an acceptable excuse for missing a day of school. Who’s to blame her? The Eras Tour is such a major pop culture event that the average ticket price is $700; Swift may become a billionaire when it’s all said and done.
Plus, it would have been hard for her daughter to return to school and not tell everyone on the playground that she got to see Swift.
The mother’s note got a lot of praise on social media from fellow parents and Swifties.
Some teachers said that Maddie's absence was completely acceptable.
I'm in my 19th year teaching, and "went to a concert" has been an acceptable excuse 100% of the time!
— Adam J. Rabideau (@RabsAdamJ) April 18, 2023
As a Swiftie teacher who is missing Friday to travel to Houston for one of the concerts, I totally understand! 🫶
— Courtney Santore (@starlitsinger) April 11, 2023
As a teacher, I would 100% approve. Once I showed my class a live educational interview with Taylor on the big projector screen.
— Tammy Rawlings (@lilivoryangel) April 9, 2023
Swift fans shared some more references she could have included in the letter.
I also feel like you could have worked in a her Picture to Burn reference.
— Brian Rosenwald (@brianros1) April 4, 2023
Hope it didn’t leave a Blank Space in the grade book
— Brian (@bmeans27) April 6, 2023
It’s not as if you took her to Paris
— Bethany Albertson (@AlbertsonB2) April 4, 2023
She's going to respond with "You're On Your Own, Kid."
— MetaBlue (@Mayelynn_Blue) April 4, 2023
Eh, it’s just one day of school; I’m sure the teacher can Shake It Off.
— Twowackykids (@twowackykids) April 4, 2023
A World Series parade is a great reason to take a day off from school, too.
One year when the San Francisco Giants won the world series, we called school to say our two boys would not attend so we could go to the victory parade. The school thanked us for our honesty as half the class called in sick. Good luck.
— Pepper (@amackles) April 4, 2023
The good news is that Ms. Parks was totally fine with the reason for the absence. She responded to the email, saying, “THIS MADE MY ENTIRE DAY.” Way to go, Ms. Parks.
MS PARKS GETS IT pic.twitter.com/RI6MD3Wavj
— KSV Eras Era (@KSVesq) April 4, 2023






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Can a warm cup of tea help you sleep better? If you believe it, then yes. Photo by 
Three women sit on a blanket in the park. 
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Two men engaging in a peaceful disagreement.
Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.