Teaching is not easy. It takes serious dedication to deal with the attitudes of some students. Recently, Stacy Dutton, a mom from Oregon, expressed her appreciation to her son’s teachers by surprising them with a bottle of wine. The bottle has a picture of her son with the message, “Our child might be the reason you drink, so enjoy the bottle on us!” Attached to the bottle was a ribbon with a ‘thank you’ note to each educator.
“I rely heavily upon the teachers at my son’s daycare,” Dutton, a mother of two from Portland, says on her blog. “They truly deserve some appreciation.”
Dutton knows the teachers on a personal level and wanted the gift “to be a little more lighthearted” with humorous intentions. She works as an art director for Evermine Occasions, a personalized label and stationary company, where she personalized the message with the picture. “Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!” she writes on the company’s blog about the gift.
Michael Cousins, a director of operations for Personal Wine, tells Yahoo Parenting a bottle of wine became a common gift to teachers from parents. He noticed a large sale in this type of gift since the post about Dutton’s actions appeared on Igmur.
“People are sharing the realities of parenthood,” he says. “They’re acknowledging their child’s mischievous behavior.
A former teacher spotted a post about the gift on Reddit and believed it was appropriate. “This is way better than all of the other junk we get,” says Wastelandavenger.
Despite her intentions, Dutton’s gift did not sit well with a few viewers on social media. One commenter on the site POPSUGAR felt giving alcohol to a teacher gave the wrong message.
“Speaking as a teacher, I would not welcome this gift,” says commenter Licorice Brenda All-Sorts. “If their child is the reason I drink, I’d rather they stepped up their parenting then made a joke about it on a bottle of booze.”
In my lifetime, I’ve seen students mistreat teachers simply because they did not want to pay attention in class, did not want to hear what the teacher said, or hated school.
When I was in the fifth grade – one day after recess – a few girls continued playing in our classroom. As the teacher gathered all of us in the room, she told the girls to stop playing and sit down. She rushed in when she heard a crash and saw that these same girls broke her glass Galileo thermometer.
Her face contoured into anger and sadness. To show my appreciation, I asked my mom to help me find a new one. The next morning, I walked into class with a gift bag containing the new thermometer. The look on her face suggested I made a difference. To this day, she never forgot about that gift.
“I still have it,” she told me the last time I visited her.
Showing a teacher you care gives them the motivation to work harder in helping students. It tells them, “I know that you are going through things, but I want to say thank you for not giving up.”
I think that giving a teacher a bottle of wine gives mixed signals. It has the potential of expressing true gratitude from a parent. However, placing a picture of a child on the bottle with the message means your child’s behavior is easy to handle as long as the teacher has a bottle of wine nearby.
It’s unclear if the teachers made complaints about the child, but Dutton felt comfortable about this gift because of her relationship with them. Would it be different if she did not personally know the teachers? Would she still give bottles of wine? Maybe – but maybe not.
Every teacher is not a drinker, and giving alcohol to one without knowing may be offensive. The reason teachers drink may not be because of their students. Dutton’s relationship with them made the gift appropriate.
What do you think of this teacher gift? Would you give one to your child’s teacher? Tell us in the comments below.
