While people criticized the 'donut mom' for giving her kid an unhealthy breakfast, many moms validated her choices and it's so wholesome.
To be a parent in this world dominated by social media is quite overwhelming. Whenever a parent posts a video of their child's meal, they are rained in on with opinions and criticisms from the self-proclaimed "parenting experts." Sometimes, it gets too insensitive. Alexandra Sabol @alexbabii97 shared a video on TikTok where she plated her 1-year-old kid's breakfast and the internet went crazy. The viral video has over 14.3 million views and received so much backlash because the mom was offering the little one a few mini donuts and a pack of applesauce.
In the video, Sabol took 3 powdered mini donuts from the pack and cut them into pieces before giving them to her little one. The child picked the applesauce first and was seen enjoying her breakfast. However, the "donut mom" was criticized heavily, particularly by other moms for offering the little one processed food that contained too much sugar for breakfast. Many hateful comments came in and some moms tried to teach her the right way of preparing a kid's meal by suggesting a few options like fruits, vegetables, eggs and pancakes. But the extent of hatred in the comments made several other moms come to the defense of Sabol who validated her choices.
"So none of you have ever given your kids donuts for breakfast? One of my favorite memories as a kid is my dad getting us fresh Krispy Kreme donuts," commented @caiteann. "I can't believe the amount of perfect parents there are in the comment section. Looks to me like she's a happy and healthy little girl!" wrote @rera_marie. "Sometimes my kids eat powered donuts too! Nothing wrong with it mama!" commented @ccc2855.
But the waves of support didn't stop with the comment section. A few other moms on TikTok rallied around Sabol and pointed out how unfair the criticisms were. Especially the perspective of Bailey @bmcpher in this issue gained a lot of traction. She mentioned that many "skinny mom" influencers would do the same thing and receive no hate because of their popularity and their fit looks. "You have this woman who is not a widely known creator, is not 100 pounds and she's getting shamed on a large scale. I am just so terribly sorry for her," said the mom. Bailey said that though she always tries to give her kids healthy home-cooked meals, sometimes she gives them junk food too. "If these people took 10 seconds to scroll through this woman's profile, you would see she actually feeds her kid protein, 4 fruits, vegetables in almost every single meal."
Yet another mom Ashley Lyons @ashley_lyonss backed up Sabol's decision to give donuts as breakfast stating another valid point. Lyons recognized that Sabol was not only "mom-shamed" but also "fat-shamed." "Because she's a plus-size mom, a curvy mom, it's assumed that she's automatically never feeding her child anything healthy," said Lyons. She pointed out that though people are free to have opinions, it was unreasonable of them to slam and judge Sabol's choices. "There's gonna be a time where you're gonna need to feed your child a donut. And I bet you you're not gonna think you're doing a disservice to your child. Your child isn't going to think you've abandoned them because you gave them a donut," said Lyons.
In another TikTok video, mom of 3, Jennifer @jennifersenza went one step ahead and highlighted the cost of packing organic home lunches for kids. "The reality is, it is so much cheaper for the lower quality foods than to buy organic or to make things at home versus sending pre-packaged items," she said. The mom rightly pointed out that not every family could afford the luxury of organic homemade meals for their kids. She shared an instance of packing 3 lunches for her kids with high-quality organic food items and the total cost of lunch for 3 kids was more than $25. "'Donut mom' is not the first mom to feed her kids donuts for breakfast," she wrote in the caption.