It’s typical for parents to get notes from their child’s daycare to let them know it’s time to stock up on diapers again, their kid’s gloves went missing, or that they need to bring in another change of clothes for their kid.
It’s definitely not typical to get such notes via their child’s body. Recently, Heather Chisum shared a particularly shocking note she got from her son’s daycare, Fort Myers News-Press reports. It wasn’t so much the content of the note that was upsetting, but where it was written.
Mom Shamed Via a Message Written on Her Son’s Belly by Daycare Worker
As Chisum revealed in a photo she posted to Facebook, a teacher at Children’s Education Center in Sanibel, Florida wrote, “Mom, I’m out of diapers. Pls [sic] read reports” on her son’s stomach in marker.
Chisum is a single mom of two young children. She took to Facebook about the incident, saying, “I need opinions. Am I right to be furious about this? Or am I overreacting? I really need your opinion, guys, because I’m about to barge in[to] this daycare tomorrow morning and have some words.”
The mom later updated her Facebook friends by saying she tried to get the marker off with baby wipes, but after scrubbing her son’s stomach “several times” the message was still noticeable.
Chisum continued saying the message written on her son’s stomach comes a day after the daycare made a note that they needed more diapers on the daily report that is sent home in her son’s lunchbox.
“Every day when I pick Fin and Milo up from daycare they put a daily report paper in Milos lunch box. It says what mood he was in for the day, what times they changed his diapers, and if he needs [more] diapers or wipes. I’m a single mom with a full-time job and two very young children. SUE ME FOR NOT READING THE REPORT EVERY SINGLE DAY.”
As Chisum continued, “I guess yesterday they wrote on his report that he needs diapers, and I failed to see that.” However, the mom still didn’t think that meant the teacher had the right to use her son as a walking bulletin board.
“Now keep in mind, I see several teachers at drop off and several at pick up, if I failed to see that he needs diapers a simple, “Hey Heather, your son needs diapers maybe you missed the report” would have done the trick from any of the many teachers there I see daily.”
“But instead, I change his diaper this afternoon AND SEE THIS WRITTEN ON MY SON WITH MARKER. You can’t even see all of it in the pic.. it says, ”Mom I’m out of diapers pls read my report.” I’ve scrubbed it with several baby wipes and it’s not coming off. I had plans to take them to the beach to play, and now I can’t because my son has writing all over him. In the very worst-case scenario, I can’t see anything other than “need diapers” needing to be written. Why a big long message needed to be written across my son’s stomach is beyond me.”
Chisum also shared that this wasn’t the first time the daycare had done something like this, writing that they did something similar several months ago. Many commenters urged the mom to file a report.
“File a report! Totally not ok or appropriate. I am so mad for you! You are human with a lot on your plate. It’s easy to miss a couple [of] things, there are many better ways to go about informing you,” one person wrote.
The Facebook post has since gone viral with over 32,000 shares drawing attention to the daycare center who finally responded to the incident.
“We are terribly sorry for the distress it has caused the family involved as well as all of our families,” Cindy Carter DeCosta, the daycare’s executive director, told the Fort Myers News-Press. “It was a breach of our professional ethics on the part of the teacher.”
As the Fort Myers News-Press reports, the teacher involved has since been fired. The Florida Department of Children and Families is also looking into the incident, as well as the Early Learning Coalition of Southwest Florida.
Although Heather had initially said she would pull her children out of daycare, she is rethinking her decision after the teacher has been let go and because she’s also having difficulty finding a daycare with two open spots for her children.
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