When Texas mom Juliana Farris Mazurkewicz arrived at her 3-year-old daughter’s daycare on January 27, she was greeted with a sign that stopped her in her tracks.
“You are picking up your child! GET OFF YOUR PHONE!!!” read the now-viral note, which the center owner had taped to the door. “Your child is happy to see you! Are you happy to see your child?? We have seen children trying to hand their parents their work they completed and the parent is on the phone. We have heard a child say ‘Mommy, mommy, mommy …’ and the parent is paying more attention to their phone than their own child. It is appalling. Get off your phone!”
Later that evening, Mazurkewicz shared a photo of the controversial message on Facebook, where it has since been shared more than 1 million times. “I was surprised that they would be so bold, but also I liked it,” she told ABC News. “I thought it was on point.” Popular mom blogger Constance Hall had the opposite reaction, posting a scathing open letter to the daycare center on February 5.
“I picked my kids up from school the other day, my husband was at work. But like always, I was there,” wrote the Big Brother Australia alum. “Only I had my phone in my hands. I was reading an email that reminded me that I needed to pay a bill … Then as my children ran out of the classroom screaming ‘mummy mummy’ I shoved my phone into my mouth to hug them because I had no free hands due to the fact that I had just walked a kilometre with 2 skateboards in my hands so that my kids could skate down the hill home from school.”
The Australia-based mother of four continued: “Yet after all of that, you would call me ‘appalling’ and insinuate that I am not happy to see my child.”
According to Hall, a loving mom looks like many things. “She is open armed hugs, she is distracted on her phone and sometimes she isn’t even there,” she wrote. “I thank my phone for allowing me to meet my kids’ needs and work all at the same time. I thank you for keeping my kids safe and well educated during my days … But the sooner you realise that you have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on in other peoples’ lives, the better for everyone. And from this mother please… take that god damn sign down.”
