A mother confidently standing up for her son after she was bullied by a teacher for her culture is making headlines. The 34-year-old mother, who wishes to remain anonymous, has a 5-year-old son who attends preschool. A few hours after she picked him up from school one day, she got a phone call from the boy’s teacher. “She made absolutely no effort to sound kind when she — in an extremely rude and annoyed tone — told me to stop packing my son such ‘disgusting and inappropriate’ lunches.” The woman said that prior to the phone call she and the teacher had maintained a very friendly relationship. The teacher pointed out that the lunches the woman’s son was bringing to school were “very distracting for the other students and have an unpleasant odor.” The woman explained that she understood the teacher’s concerns, but the lunches she packs for her son are according to his preferences. The woman went on to explain that she normally sends her son to school with celery sticks, blue cheese or goat cheese, kimchi (fermented cabbage seasoned with Korean chili powder, garlic, ginger and salted seafood), Spam, and spicy Sriracha-flavored Doritos. The woman ended the phone call by saying that she appreciated the teacher’s concerns, but at the end of the day she’s not going to change her son’s lunches because other students are “distracted” by them. “It’s very important to me what my sons enjoys, and I want him to like my lunches,” she said. Responses to the mother’s post on social media run the gambit from “report her to the principal” to “your family’s food is normal for your culture, so don’t change it.”
