Daycare Worker Fired After Leaving Fat-Shaming Note in 5-Year-Old’s Lunch: 'Put Him on a Diet'
A Texas mother was left seething after an employee at her 5-year-old son’s daycare center left a note in his lunchbox urging her to “put him on a diet.”
Francesca Easdon’s son Kyler is “extremely picky,” but as of late, she’s been trying to introduce new, healthy food options into his lunches, she wrote in a Facebook post.
“For the record, I feel that Kyler is absolutely perfect the way he is, I’m just helping him make healthier choices,” she wrote.
To give him a sweet boost of confidence during the day, Easdon recently included a special note in his lunchbox that read, “Please tell Kyler that his mommy loves him so much and I’m thinking about him 🙂 Thank you!”
But when the lunchbox was returned to Easdon at the end of the day, it came with an added message from a teacher at Rocking Horse Day Care Center in Kingwood: “No! Put him on a diet and GO AWAY!”
Easdon wrote on Facebook that the message made her feel “absolutely livid,” and immediately prompted her to arrange a meeting with the school, where her son has gone for the past three years, KTRK reported.
“It took a minute to register what I even saw, and I just kept re-reading it, and I just stood there for a minute,” she told the outlet.
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Easdon wrote that she was told during a meeting with the school’s director that the incident was being investigated, but that “almost no remorse was shown.”
“The teacher that wrote this note confessed while I was at work and was fired, but nothing has been done about the other situations. Zero remorse for their actions,” she wrote. “I am disgusted that I put my trust in these people to care for my child and this is what I get in return.”
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When reached by PEOPLE, a spokesperson for Rocking Horse said the employee’s actions were an “absolute disgrace,” and that similar incidents would not be tolerated.
The spokesperson confirmed that as soon as the note was brought to the attention of school officials, the female employee was fired and escorted from the building.
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Still, Easdon expressed frustration with the handling of the incident, and wrote that she had removed Kyler from the daycare and enrolled him elsewhere.
“I tried to handle it [in] a way that showed Kyler that you don’t have to stoop to that level,” she wrote in a Facebook comment. “We are sharing it with everyone though so other parents can be aware.”
