Just when I think I’ve seen the bottom of the barrel when it comes to mom shamers, someone steps up and says or does something so asinine that I have to take a deep breath and recalibrate. Like, this daycare worker from a Florida daycare center called Children’s Education Center of the Islands who literally wrote in Sharpie on a toddler’s entire torso stating that the mom is out of diapers and ought to be reading her daily report sent home from the daycare center.
That worker has since been fired.
On Monday, Heather Chisum from Sanibel, Florida posted a call for opinions on her Facebook profile along with a disturbing image of her toddler, 18-month old Milo, with what appears to be ink scrawled all over his chest, stomach, and below his belly button. The words are blurred but they read, “Mom I’m out of diapers pls read my report!”
“I’m a single mom with a full-time job and two very young children. SUE ME FOR NOT READING THE REPORT EVERY SINGLE DAY,” Chisum wrote in her post. “I guess yesterday they wrote on his report that he needs diapers, and I failed to see that. Now keep in mind, I see several teachers at drop off and several at pick up, if I failed to see that he needs diapers a simple, “Hey Heather, your son needs diapers maybe you missed the report” would have done the trick. From any of the many teachers there I see daily.”
Instead of writing in the diaper, or stopping Chisum to verbally alert her that she was out of diapers, or even calling her at work, the daycare thought that literally writing on a child would be the best approach.
The Internet is outraged, and rightly so. The level of shame and disrespect from this daycare worker has many wondering what this person is even doing in that field, to begin with. Don’t they screen people before they leave them in the care of small children? When someone treats a child as an object and not as a human being with dignity, it raises some disturbing questions about what other kinds of lines are potentially being crossed.
Not only is the Internet outraged but according to the Fort Myers News-Press, Cindy Carter DeCosta, the executive director of Children’s Education Center of the Islands has fired the daycare worker and is investigating what went down.
“We are aware of the incident at the school, and we are terribly sorry for the distress it has caused the family involved as well as all of our families. It was a breach of our professional ethics on the part of the teacher,” said DeCosta. “The school has taken immediate action to remove the teacher from the school. We are reviewing protocols already in place to ensure that nothing like this occurs again.”
In addition, the Early Learning Coalition of Southwest Florida in Fort Myers is also investigating the incident.
So far, there has been no police report filed after the incident.
