This letter was written by a woman in Fargo, ND. It's terrible on several levels. It's terrible first and foremost because this women thinks she can tell kids they're, not just fat, but obese. As if the children will recognize the "health" issue and be able to separate her "concern" from the fact that she won't give them candy because she thinks they're fat, and so will not only forgive her, but THANK her for her kindness. Second, it's terrible because there's a typo (which is a risky claim since, most likely, this post will have it's fair share of typos).
On a much larger scale, though, this letter is a symbol of how well-intentioned people can completely mess everything up for everyone.
This women sees a problem: too many kids are too fat, and it's unhealthy for them. For her, the only direct link to fatness is food in one's mouth, so the "logical" solution to the problem she sees is less sugary foods in fat kids' mouths. Simple.
Except for the small detail that kids learn the conditions under which people give love and acceptance.
This woman is telling these kids that they are too fat, and shouldn't be allowed to participate in the same things as their friends because of it. She's definitely not telling them that they should join a sport, or eat more vegetables, which is what I think she meant to say, even though they aren't actually better things to say. Instead, she's saying that their lifestyles are wrong, and since their fatness is a visible reflection of their wrong lifestyle, they deserve punishment until they can get their appearance more in line with what a "right" lifestyle looks like. Want to know why some kids have to deal with bullies? She's why. What to know why some kids grow up to be adults who associate love with food, drugs, alcohol, and sex? She's why. Because she feels obligated to teach parents passive aggressive lessons by making their children feel unaccepted and unworthy of love.
Because she can't see the consequences of teaching children conditional love.
Now for the upswing. Every response to this letter that I've seen has involved standing on the women's block and giving candy to all the fat kids with letters. The image of some chubby little Spiderman walking up to her house and getting the letter that he can't even read, while his friends get a bunch of packets of NERDS and raisins, his face scrunched in confusion under his mask as he turns around and walks down her steps, is heartbreaking and makes me angry. But, I know now, that as the little Spiderman squints down at the paper, trying to figure out what fresh Hell he's stepped into, a dark figure will stop him with a hand on his shoulder and a king-size Kit-Kat to drop in his little orange plastic pumpkin, and Batman will say, "You'll need this to grow big if we're ever going to battle."
The only way to teach kids that conditional love is the way of bullies and terrible well-intentioned people is to show them unconditional love, and that was the first instinct of most of the people who saw the letter, and that is a wonderful, wonderful thing.
