For the sake of her sanity — and the classroom carpet — elementary teacher Amy McMahon is begging parents to stop sending their kids to school with syrup-filled grenades.
“I have a PSA for parents who pack their children’s lunches,” McMahon says in a TikTok video. “I love helping your child get their lunch settled and opening things for them. I don’t, however, particularly enjoy these things.”
In the clip, she holds up a fruit cup packed with glistening mandarin slices.
“They are actually impossible, parents, to open in the classroom without spilling them and getting syrupy, sticky juice all over my clothes,” McMahon explains. “I don’t really wear nice things anymore because of these fruit cups.”
“Don’t get me wrong, they’re delicious and I know the children love them,” she acknowledges. “However, I think they would be a fantastic snack for after school — at home!”
McMahon, who now teaches third grade at Jubilee Christian School in West Covina, California, worked with kindergarteners for more than 15 years. She still shudders when she spots a fruit cup.
“What I ended up doing was poking a straw through the lid so the kids could drink the juice before I opened it for them,” McMahon tells TODAY.com.
It turns out that McMahon isn't the only educator with a disdain for single-serve peaches and pears.
“YES!!!!!!!!! Finally, someone tells parents how awful those are,” one person wrote in the comments on McMahon's TikTok video.
- “Hahaha. I actually banned these from my kinder class. Well not really. I just nicely asked parents to please put them in another container.”
- “I am irrationally afraid of those. Like I have to take a breath every time I open one from a kid.”
- “I used to go open them over the sink and drain half the juice out. They are my worst enemy.”
- “Our cafeteria serves it with the meal sometimes as a fruit so I get to open 20 of them!”
- “We beg parents at back-to-school night not to send those to school!!”
- “SOMEONE HAD TO SAY IT!!! Thank you they are a nightmare in my pre-K class!! One of my kiddos tripped over fruit juice that spilled.”
According to McMahon, Capri Sun juice pouches are equally troublesome, with their minuscule and nearly impossible-to-puncture straw holes.
And don’t get McMahon started on Go-Gurt Yogurt tubes.
“I started keeping food scissors around because if you try to tear them open, yogurt is going to splatter everywhere,” McMahon says. “Go-Gurt, Capri Sun, and fruit cups — I’m convinced parents send them to school because they don’t want their kids opening them at home!”
