Mum-of-three Nicole Poppic was facing a typical school morning issue – a teen who refused to get out of bed. But on this morning, it all cascaded into drama and a fed up mum ended up writing a funny, if sarcastic, letter of lateness to the school as well as throwing her daughter’s phone out the window.
When she got home from the high drama, she took a photo of the note and posted it on Facebook. She thought her friends, who got her sense of humour, would get a kick out of it.
What the California mum didn’t expect was for this to go viral and for people all over the world to start weighing in on her teenage parenting methods.
The note in full reads like this:
To whom it may concern,
Cara is tardy this morning as a result of a condition known as teenage-ism. Adolescents across our great nation are afflicted, and there is no known cure. Symptoms are multitudinous, but this particular morning, she suffered from an inability to remove herself from her bed, and also felt the need to talk back to her birth-giver.
She seems to be recovering her senses after watching her cell phone fly out the car window. Please call me if there is another flare-up.
Thank you,
Nicole Poppic
Some people thought Nicole’s parenting methods were a little harsh, that she should show more understanding of teens. Of course, there are always the haters on social media who took it all a bit far.
But a quick scroll through the 900 comments reveal that most parents thought this note was either a) hilarious; b) best parenting ever, or c) a fabulous combination.
In a later post, obviously reeling from the viral-ness of her post, Nicole said this: “While Cara and I have our moments of frustration (just like any other parent/teen combo), we are really very close. She understands my sense of humor and she even laughed about the note herself a couple days later. It was simply a way to add a splash of humor to a very stressful morning.”
And later she posted a pic of her and Cara off to see some live music, so all is well.
Yes, there is possibly a case of over-sharenting here. It can be hard to remember that there is no such thing, really, as privacy on social media so if you put something out there, you need to understand that possibly more than just your nearest and dearest will see. In this case, this note was shared almost 33,000 times.
What’s your take on all this?
