Furious dad told to tone down kid’s lunch box
School lunches can vary from child to child, with some parents opting to keep things simple and others hand-carving fruits and vegetables into an assortment of different characters.
But now, one dad has taken to the internet to rant about a teacher who asked him to tone the creativity down when it comes to his child’s lunches.
“My kid is eight. Long story short, my wife tries to make really fun lunches for my daughter,” the man wrote in his post to Reddit.
“She follows a couple of those school lunches pages on Instagram for inspiration or whatever. It’s important to us that our child likes her lunches and that she’s happy.”
The man said their teacher had called and left a message asking them to tone the lunches down.
“My daughter’s teacher called and left a message asking us that we simplify her lunches and do the typical sandwich thing because other kids ‘don’t have as elaborate as lunches and it might make them feel bad’,” he continued.
So the dad did what many of us would have done (and sometimes later regretted) – he wrote an angry email.
He basically said, “no we won’t and that I really don’t care, and that if other kids get upset then maybe it would be a good teaching moment for her,” but has now asked if he was wrong to do so.
Most people agreed that this could have been a good teaching moment for the school.
“Does your boss request that you drive a 2007 Corolla because your co-workers can’t stand to see a Tesla?” asked one person.
Another said, “I could see the teacher being upset if it’s just completely unhealthy like the lunch box was filled with candy or a few bags of chips and nothing else. But the fact that it’s just decent food to be fun, I don’t think this should be any sort of issue.”
A few pointed out the dad could have handled his response a lot better: “In the real world, an email like that could be considered a tad AHish; (a**hole-ish) could have been worded better. But yeah, the teacher is tons and tons of AH, because it is a teachable moment. I remember this really good phrase: ‘The only time you look in your neighbour’s bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don’t look in your neighbour’s bowl to see if you have as much as them’.”