Mum causes outrage over end-of-year gift she gave child's teacher
A mum has upset some people after she posted about the seemingly innocuous gift she was going to give to her kid's teacher.
In some countries it can be a bit of a ritual at the end of the term to give a gift to the teacher and say thank you for putting up with their kids for a whole year imparting the joy of education.
From the teacher's side of things, getting a gift is often a much appreciated gesture since it's a very difficult, demanding job and the pay isn't exactly great.
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It may sound obvious, but people get into teaching because they want to teach and knowing their efforts are really appreciated can go a long way.
However, mum-of-four Heidi Powell's gift for her children's teacher didn't go down so well and even prompted a bit of outrage as people thought she should have got something else.
Posting a picture of a trio of sugary treats, the mum showed what she'd be handing over to her child's teacher as a way of saying thank you, but some folks weren't so impressed.
One person said 'this irritates me to no end' and urged parents 'don't give teachers s**t like this' as they thought that cash or gift cards was a more appropriate reward.
While getting someone the perfect gift can be really appreciated and show how much you know them because you know what they like, giving someone cash and letting them treat themselves can sometimes be much better.
Someone else said the post had them 'riled up' because they'd once been the person who'd agonised over 'perfect, most thoughtful end-of-year gift'.
They said they now look to see if the school has an Amazon Wish List of supplies to really help teachers out and spare them from needing to fork over their own money.
Another parent said the best sort of gift was 'a thoughtful note from the student' and if it was going to be something material it had better be a gift card or cash.
Others said they thought Powell's gift of brightly coloured sweets had been chosen to 'look nice on Instagram'.
A baker even chipped in to say that the 'cutesy sweets offerings' might look nice, but were probably not great to eat, saying they were pretty much 'inedible' and coated in 'a really cheap sugar product that can hold a lot of dye'.
Quite a few teachers chipped in to say that food would probably end up being thrown away or deposited in the teacher's lounge and they said 'please no mugs' to parents or pupils on the lookout for gift ideas.
It's likely that they already made it this far in life with something to drink tea or coffee from, so it seems like a thank you note and/or cash is the way to go.
Joe Harker