A mom is upset with her daughter's teacher for being culturally insensitive after criticizing the nickname she gave her daughter. According to the mom, she and her family have been calling her 6-year-old girl "chubby birdie." Moreover, the girl likes the name since it originated from her favorite photos that she adored even before she could talk. However, she recently told her class about the nickname that her mom and family call her and she wanted to know how to say it in English and this didn't go well with her teacher.
A day later, the girl's teacher sent her an email scolding her for using a body-shaming name as a nickname for her daughter. The teacher argued that the body-shaming nickname could harm her someday. The mom replied to the teacher's email acknowledging that it was true body issues could affect young girls like her daughter.
However, she explained to the teacher how they got the name and promised to talk with her girl about the matter and she added that she would educate her daughter not to call other people nicknames. The mom said that she was not offended by the teacher's concern for the nickname and she thought her reply was polite.
According to the mom's post on Reddit, the teacher replied harshly to her response. The teacher told her that she was preparing her little girl for permanent body issues and even though their culture allowed body shaming, it was unacceptable in America. The teacher told her that she should be ashamed of herself for using such a nickname on her daughter and for teaching her daughter to hide the nickname. However, the mom failed to understand the culture that the teacher was referring to since she was born and raised in America.
The mom said that she tried to be polite in all her responses and she tried to explain to the teacher that in their culture a child with chubby cheeks meant that she is healthy and well-fed. She even went further to narrate how her grandmother lived in drought and famine times that took away most of her relatives. She ended her response by telling the teacher that she was culturally insensitive and the teacher has not yet replied. The mom's husband told her that she should not have used the word culturally insensitive in her response since Americans do not like to be told that they are racist.