When I was a kid, my mom packed a very similar lunch on a daily basis. Usually, it was peanut butter and grape jelly, a SqueezIt (remember those?), and some sort of snack. A note often accompanied these mini meals — maybe they didn’t occur every day, but they brightened my day when they did. Wedged in my lunch bag was usually a folded card that stated, “Love you!” or a “Have a good day.”
What wasn’t in there? A note that said, “I don’t know why your locker smells.”
One mom is making headlines for writing passive-aggressive notes on her kids’ lunch bags, and they’re way funnier than you’d expect. What could have been an embarrassing moment for them turned into a great way for them to impress their friends. See, not only is this mom witty — but it’s obvious she cares.
Mom Whitney Cicero has a 12-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl, and sometimes the lunch bag notes are the only way she can communicate her feelings. In an interview with Today Parents, Cicero noted that her inspiration normally comes from “bits of her own internal dialogue while packing them.” If you’re a mom, you probably know this dialogue quite well.
Cicero, who also blogs at The New Stepford, began selling the bags when she realized what a hit they were. So if you want to be passive-aggressive but don’t have the time, she can help you out.
“Everyone was asking where to buy them. We were like, ‘Are you nuts? Make them yourself.’ But then we remembered we are all losing our busy minds and wouldn’t it just be easier if we made them for you and shipped them to you,” Cicero wrote on her site. “We just wish we could pack the lunches for you too.”
If you still think they’re a little mean, just know that Cicero has always had a humorous approach with her kids. She believes no topic should be off-limits, and thinks laughter is a good way to break the ice.
“It’s imperative to have humor with your kids,” she said to Today Parents. “We joke about everything — sex, drugs, politics, their bodies — I don’t want them to think anything is taboo. Humor is a great segue into having meaningful conversations and it helps break the tension of things that can be kind of awkward. And, if we don’t have a sense of humor about parenting, we will literally lose our minds.”
Cicero’s lunch bag idea is not only sweet, but it’s a great memory for her daughter and son. Who knows? If they have kids someday, maybe they’ll pass on the tradition.
