A Queensland, Australia mom has slammed a teacher for refusing to open a snack in her son’s lunchbox because she deemed it “unhealthy”.
Ashley Griffiths, known on TikTok as Ashy Anne, shared the exchange with her 330,000 followers in a viral video.
“Yesterday, I sent my kid to school with a little individually wrapped slice of cake,” Ms Griffiths explained.
“It came back uneaten, which is very surprising because he’s going through a growth spurt and eating everything at the moment.”
When she asked her son why he didn’t eat the snack, his answer left her shocked.
Her son’s teacher, Ms. Griffiths said, refused to open the slice of cake “because it’s not healthy”.
“I don’t remember asking you,” she laughed.
The mom said her son’s lunchbox was “very well balanced” with dairy, fruit, sandwiches and cold meats — “lots of selection, lots of variety, because that’s what we believe in this house.”
“It’s our job as adults to provide enough food and variety for our son’s nutritional needs to be met and to allow him to listen to his body and make decisions accordingly,” she said.
“That means he’s allowed to have sweet things sometimes. I know some people call them ‘treats’ or ‘sometimes foods’ or whatever. We just call it food in this house. We do not attach a moral value to food.”
Ms. Griffiths said she was “annoyed” by the teacher’s response, saying she had made the decision “based on her own diet culture bulls–t” and “shamed (her son) in front of his friends”.
“As far as I’m concerned if my son has eaten his ham and his cheese and his yogurt and his fruit and his sandwich, he can have the f–king cake if he’s hungry. He can eat the f-king cake because it’s not in there to be a decoration. I made the decision to put it in there for him,” she said.
Ms. Griffiths ended the video by asking her followers whether they thought she should raise a formal complaint with the school.
Plenty of commenters had similar stories to share.
“I made my daughter fruit bars that I freaking made and her school labeled them unhealthy. “Next day I sent them with the ingredients list,” one mom wrote.
“My kids didn’t eat for a whole day because apparently, their lunch box was too unhealthy. Had twiggy sticks and fruit and white bread sandwich,” another shared.
“My son’s kindy did this, so I just put everything opened in containers and told him to tell them ‘mom said yes and she’s the boss’. He did that,” said another.
Incredibly, some commenters said the issue extended beyond teachers, with one mom writing: “There was a parent at my son’s school that took it upon herself to go through the class lunch boxes and left notes saying what was unacceptable.”
One person even suggested Ms Griffiths buy a sticker, sold by Perth-based pediatrician Kyla Ringrose, that warns teachers not to interfere with a student’s lunch.
“Everything in this lunchbox has been packed by someone who really cares,” the sticker reads.
“Please let my child eat as much of these foods as they feel like, in whatever order they choose.”
Son’s school responds
In an update, Ms Griffiths said she raised the issue with her son’s classroom teacher, who was also puzzled by the supervising teacher’s response.
“Next time, I’m just going to send it to school open so that he doesn’t have to ask someone and therefore be subject to that sort of judgment,” she told Yahoo.
“I think if the school system wants to regulate what our children are eating and what they have access to, then they should provide the food. If not, they can just butt out and leave parents to do the best that they’re doing in a pretty s—ty situation because look at the economy.”