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Topics: Parenting, Food and Drink, Mumsnet
Jess Hardiman
A mum was 'taken aback’ after receiving a text from another parent about her son’s packed lunch at school.
While some of us used to get shipped off to school with a jam sandwich and an apple, these days packed lunches are a lot more of a minefield – not just because of the wealth of choice on supermarket shelves, but also because of various rules and guidelines we now have to take into account.
On its website, the NHS advises food that keeps kids ‘fuller for longer’, as well as always adding veg like cherry tomatoes, or sticks of carrot, cucumber, celery and peppers.
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But while it also suggests ‘cutting down on crisps’, many parents will no doubt see the odd potato chip here and there as a nice treat.
One mum recently decided to pop some Pringles into their seven-year-old son’s lunchbox, as a way of using up some of the leftover snacks from Christmas.
But rather than facing the wrath of the school board, she had an unexpected reaction from the parent of one of his classmates.
Taking to Mumsnet to share her predicament a few months back, she wrote: “This feels like an odd question but I wanted to ask here in case I am missing something.
“We have a few tubes of Pringles left over from Christmas and I've been putting a few in a Tupperware for DS's [darling son’s] packed lunch. He's 7.
“Last night, I got a WhatsApp from a parent who I don't know very well to ask me if I would stop putting Pringles in DS's packed lunch because it's making her son jealous. I was a bit taken aback and I didn't respond.”
She added: “I think I'm entitled to put whatever I want in my DS's lunchbox (within the rules) and that's what I want to tell her.
“We're new to the school this year though so I don't want to upset anyone and cause dramas.”
The mum asked fellow users: “AIBU? [Am I being unreasonable?]”
The general consensus seemed to be that the other parent was being ‘ridiculous’, as that the Mumsnet user was not being unreasonable at all.
While one asked if crisps were allowed in lunchboxes by the school, one simply wrote: “Ignore her, ridiculous!”
Another agreed: "She's being ridiculous. There must be lots of other packed lunches that would make him jealous too.”
A third wrote: “Why doesn't she just give her DC Pringles too. Other people baffle me.”