A mum has issued a warning after her nine-year-old daughter was bullied for ‘using a fake Stanley cup’, saying parents should be doing more.
Stanley cups have been the latest unexpected craze for young kids, even prompting fights to break out in stores, as people try and get their mitts on limited edition products.
Mum Dayna Motycka was among those trying to stay out of the viral sensation after kids at her daughter’s school became obsessed.
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While she had a cup herself, she was convinced her daughter didn’t need one and decided to treat her to a ‘cute’ dupe from Walmart costing less than a third of the price.
Taking to TikTok, she explained in a video: “This is the cup we got my daughter for Christmas. This is not a Stanley, this is a $9.98 Walmart cup that she said she thought was cute.
“She is nine years old.”
Motycka said her daughter came home on the second day back at school after the Christmas break.
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She said she wasn’t crying, but was clearly ‘upset’ that about nine or 10 other girls in her grade were given real Stanley cups for Christmas.
“They made sure to let her know that this is not a real Stanley,” she continued.
“That this is fake, it’s not as cool.
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“So she comes home, she’s upset. She asks if she can have a real Stanley.
“Do I think a nine-year-old needs a Stanley? No.
“Do I have one? Yes, I have one.
“I don't have 50 Stanleys in all different colors. I'm not going to Target and fighting other women or moms to try and get the new Valentine's Day Stanley.”
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Motycka went on: “If you’re a mom, if you’re a parent, and you can do something to keep your child from getting made fun of, to help fit in, you’re gonna do it.
“So we went and bought her a 30 ounce Stanley in our area at our local Ace Hardware.
“These are $35.”
While Motycka didn’t think her daughter ‘needed’ a Stanley cup, she felt ‘proven wrong’ by the kids at school after they started ‘making fun of her for not having a real name brand Stanley’.
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“But this doesn’t start with the kids,” she said.
“This starts with us. This starts with parents, with moms, what we are teaching our kids.
“You better believe that if our nine-year-old daughter came home and somehow we found out that she made fun of another girl at school for not having something name brand - whether it’s a Stanley, Lululemon or Uggs, I don’t care what it is – we would be calling the family.
“We would be making her write a note to apologise. We would make her apologise in person.”
Motycka said ‘we need to be teaching our kids’ that they may not necessarily ‘need’ name brand items, even if they can afford them.
“Things are earned,” she said.
“You have to work for things in your life.”
Motycka concluded by saying she felt she had to fold and buy the cup to stop her daughter being picked on, adding: “But we have got to teach our kids to not make other kids feel inferior for not having the things that they have. That’s it.”
Jess Hardiman