It’s not uncommon for day care centers to write notes home to parents, with little reminders or a daily report on how their kiddo is doing. But one mom from Sanibel, Florida, was recently given a pretty harsh memo she can’t quite get over, after her son’s day care sent him home with a note telling her to get more diapers. Here’s the real kicker — it was written on his belly.
The mom shared her story on Facebook, to make sure she wasn’t overreacting.
In her post, Heather Chisum wrote that she was looking for some opinions on the matter, “because I’m about to barge in this daycare tomorrow morning and have some words.” (And yes, she meant business.)
Usually, her sons’ day care puts a report in their lunchboxes — just to check in about their moods and if they need any extra supplies like diapers.
Both of her sons, Milo and Fin, attend Children’s Education Center of the Islands day care facility, WINK News reported. The reports the mom usually gets are written on a piece of paper — which Chisum freely admits she sometimes doesn’t get the chance to read. But resorting to writing the message on a child’s body?
“I’m a single mom with a full time job and two very young children,” she wrote on Facebook.
“SUE ME FOR NOT READING THE REPORT EVERY SINGLE DAY.”
Chisum figured that she had accidentally missed a report — but noted that there were plenty of opportunities for her kids’ teachers to touch base.
On a typical day, Chisum said, she sees “several teachers at drop off and several at pick up,” which is why she was pretty confused as to why no one reached out to say her kids were running low on supplies.
“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,” she wrote. “From any of the many teachers there I see daily.”
But nope. Instead, the mom shared two photos of her son Milo with a “report” written all over his stomach in marker.
Furious, Chisum explained that she didn’t even see the message until she went to change Milo’s diaper. That’s when she saw the words, “Mom I’m out of diapers pls read my report” scrawled across his body — and lost it.
“I’ve scrubbed it with several baby wipes and it’s not coming off,” the angry mom wrote, adding that she had planned to take her kids to the beach, but “now I can’t because my son has writing all over him.”
No matter how much she’s tried, Heather just can’t understand why her son’s day care would write on him.
“In the very worst case scenario, I can’t see anything other than ‘need diapers’ needing to be written,” she continued. “Why a big long message needed to be written across my son’s stomach is beyond me.”
Her son’s school could have even written their note on his diaper where it would have been disposable — or yah know, an email wouldn’t hurt.
Worst of all, this wasn’t the first time that her son’s school has pulled a stunt like this.
She explained that someone wrote on her son “several months ago, too” — which seems … pretty nuts.
“Help,” she added, before asking point-blank: “Am I over exaggerating? Give it to me straight people.”
More than 150 people chimed in on Chisum’s post, and most people felt like she wasn’t overreacting at all.
“I’ve had it written on Ava’s diapers before and it was no biggie. I brought them the next day, reading this I thought okay MAYBE,” one woman in the comments wrote. “But when I SAW his stomach??? Holy [expletive] It’s HUGE! I would be SO upset!!!!!!!!”
“I WOULD BE IN JAIL RIGHT NOW,” a second woman agreed. “This is NOT okay. I am so furious for you oh my god.”
“Are you [expletive] kidding me, there’s got to be a way to report them,” a third person commented. “This is NOT OKAY.”
Children’s Education Center of the Islands has apologized since watching Chisum’s story go viral.
In an email to WINK News, Executive Director Paul Harris Fellow said:
“We are aware of the incident at the school, and we are terribly sorry for the distress it has caused the family involved as well as all of our families. It was a breach of our professional ethics on the part of the teacher. The school has taken immediate action to remove the teacher from the school. We are reviewing protocols already in place to ensure that nothing like this occurs again. We are proud of our school, love our students, and are eager to make our school a better place as we move forward.
“We have met with the family involved. We understand and share their concerns and have ensured them that their children will always be welcome here.”
Whether the apology will suffice remains to be seen, but here’s hoping whoever was behind the incident gets a memo of their own: STOP writing on innocent babies.
