Single Mom Dresses As A Dad For Father-Daughter Dance, School Turns Her Away

A single mom did not want her 6-year-old child to miss the father-daughter dance at a Georgia elementary school. So, Amy Peterson dressed as a dad for the event but then the school turned her away. She was barred from entering for the obvious reason: she wasn't a dad.

Peterson took a day off from work and prepared for the dance wearing men's clothes and drawing a beard on her face using makeup. She and daughter Gracie even had their photo taken before they went to the affair. The school principal, however, called the mom to say she won't be allowed to enter the school if she proceeded with her plan.

"How do you explain that to a 6-year-old?" Peterson asked, as per WSBTV. "You can't go to a dance because you don't have a male role model in your life," the single mom said, adding the school handled her situation badly.

The mom was both mother and father to Gracie for as long as her child could remember. Growing up without a dad was hard for her daughter as some kids teased her in school. They told Gracie she didn't have a dad because she was fat and ugly.

With a heavy heart, Peterson told her daughter they won't be joining the dance anymore. The little girl looked forward to this for months and even told her friends of what she and her mom planned.

In response to what happened, Henry County Schools released a statement that implied the school doesn't discriminate. "The school is cognizant that different dynamics exist across households in our school system," part of the statement read, as per Kiro7. They apologized to the Petersons and refunded the $20 school dance ticket.

Officials said there were other events the mom and daughter could join. They would have preferred a father-figure if the dad could not attend the father-daughter dance. "I identify myself as her father and mother because that's what I've done for six years," the mom said in response to the school's statement.