Dad Chooses Compassion Over Confrontation When Daughter’s Lunch Keeps Getting Stolen, But His Wife Disagrees

Heather Hall

3 months ago

When it comes to parenting, sometimes moms and dads don’t always see eye to eye on how to handle a situation.

What would you do if your child’s lunch keeps getting stolen at school, but you suspect it’s because another kid might be going hungry? Would you escalate the situation within the school district or quietly let it slide?

In the following story, a father finds himself in this exact situation, and his approach isn’t sitting well with his wife. Here’s what happened.

AITA For telling my wife to drop an issue that our daughter is having at school

My wife (36F) and I (35M) have 2 kids (10F & 8M). We live in a school district that has already started school, and our kids have been in classes for about 2-3 weeks now.

Our daughter has been having an issue with her lunch being stolen a few times a week.

The school offers breakfast and lunch, but it isn’t free.

We always put money in accounts for the kids in case they want to eat school lunch instead of what we pack for them, so our daughter doesn’t go hungry even if her lunch is taken. She also doesn’t have any dietary restrictions.

My wife works the night shift as a nurse, so I am the one getting the kids up and ready for school in the morning, including packing lunches.

And yes, I put their names on everything. My daughter has told me every time that her lunch was taken.

First, he tried talking to the teacher.

The first few times I asked her to just eat school lunch, but she doesn’t always like what they offer.

So, I started making 2 lunches for her and told her to hide one in her backpack instead of bringing it into the classroom where the other lunches are.

I’ve also talked with her teacher about it and she said she would be more vigilant about the lunches.

But that hasn’t stopped them from being stolen. My daughter is not the only one having this issue.

My wife is up in arms about it and wants to bring it up to the principal, superintendent, school board, etc.

She thinks that whoever is stealing from our daughter is a thief and has some kind of grudge against our daughter. I, however, have a different view on it.

When it kept happening, he came to the conclusion that the kid must not have food.

The way I see it, whoever is taking lunches probably needs that food more than my daughter does.

If their family had the means to provide packed lunches, I would assume they would do so. Same goes for putting money in an account for school lunch.

My feeling is that whichever kid is stealing lunches is hungry and I don’t want to compound that by making this a bigger issue.

The teacher is already aware and I don’t feel we need to elevate this beyond that.

Our family is not in dire straits financially.

We do just fine. But I know that isn’t the case for everyone.

And if packing 2 lunches for my daughter means that a hungry kid gets a solid meal, I’m ok with it coming out of our pockets.

His wife is on a completely different page.

My wife and I got into an argument about this because she wants to send an email to anyone and everyone at the school district that she feels “needs to know about this.”

I told her that we should wait and see if the teacher can figure out who the kid is and we can handle this without bringing the whole school district down on this kid and their family.

My wife wants to set up meetings with the teacher and principal, but I told her she would need to be the one attending them, because I won’t.

And since she usually sleeps during the day when the kids are in school, she didn’t like that.

She thinks I am in the wrong for not “protecting our daughter.”

But our daughter is not going hungry and whoever is taking her lunches isn’t either, which I’m ok with.

AITA?

Yikes! Wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit had to say about his situation.

This person poses some very good questions.