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A mom's decision to stop providing lunch for her son's school friend has been criticized online, after she wrote that she was torn over what to do.
The anonymous mom took to Reddit to gain opinions on her dilemma, with the post receiving 14,000 up-votes.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2021, 10.2 percent of households were food insecure and had difficulties providing enough meals for all members of the family because of a lack of resources at some point throughout the year.
Her son, the Redditor wrote, is a 13-year-old who has just started grade 8 at school. His friend is the same age and in the same school year, and they have been "best friends" since elementary school. However, last year, her son began coming home from school "ravenously hungry."
"Something about the situation was nagging at me though, and while my son wasn't clear about why at first, he eventually came clean. His friend was being sent to school every day with no lunch," the mom wrote.
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The mom, however, wrote that she felt her son's friend's hunger was due to a "typical case of neglectful and unfit parents."
"The one time that my son went to their house, he came home with comments about it smelling really bad and his parents locking themselves in the garage for hours," she wrote.
"Feeling bad for him, I decided to discreetly begin giving my son more food every day, just about doubling all his food. Over time, I became less discrete and began packing a separate lunch for his friend. I was never thanked for this by anyone, but I knew he was eating the food I sent."
Now, the mom's financial situation is slightly different, meaning she can no longer afford to send her son to school with two lunches each day. She told her child to eat his lunch himself and not share it with his friend.
"He followed my instructions until one day last week, I got a phone call from Peter's mother. She was livid that I had cut her son off without a single word.
"I asked her when it became my responsibility to feed her son and she responded that if she had known I wasn't sending my son to school with 'too much food,' she would have handled it herself.
"I asked if she remembered why I began sending him to school with two lunches in the first place and she hung up on me."
Although the mom was split with her approach, Reddit users were less so. "... as Peter himself knows, you did 'cut him off' without a word. He's the only one who's suffered here," one posted.
"And while you're correct that it's not technically your responsibility, and your family absolutely needs to come first in terms of tighter finances, for any reason, yes you did handle this incorrectly."
Another Redditor wrote: "Children going hungry is everyone's business and he was relying on you. You make no mention of trying to contact anyone about this, or trying to find another solution, you just cut off his access to food.
"If you can't afford it or don't want to feed this child, that's your prerogative, but then you reach out to those who can. You talk to the school district, you talk to the PTA, you talk to whoever you need to, you don't just turn a blind eye to a child going hungry and say 'not my kid, not my problem.'"
"For all you know that lunch was the only meal that boy was getting every day. Why didn't you ever reach out to his parents? This is your son's best friend and it sounds like you don't know them or have any idea what their home life is like at all. Why didn't you reach out to the school to see what low income support they might have to make sure this child didn't go hungry?" they added.
Another Redditor wrote that they were "about 50/50 here. It's understandable that you can't take on the burden of feeding Peter.
"But you didn't mention that you contacted anyone at the school and made them aware of this situation. They have people who deal with this type of situation."
Newsweek reached out to u/Every-proposal8019 for comment. We could not verify the details of the case.
