Kids aren’t for everyone, but that’s no reason to hate on them. Often, a child’s sense of wonder at discovering something for the first time can be both poignant and endearing, whether you’re a parent or not.

One Redditor faced backlash after she prepared a potluck dessert with her two-year-old. Apparently, her anti-child coworker thought was a jerk move, especially since she couldn’t have any. Now the woman has turned to Reddit to ask if she is, in fact, a jerk.    

More info: Reddit

Woman was having a potluck dinner at her work, so she and her two-year-old prepared delicious brownies with caramel

Image credits: freepik / freepik (not the actual photo)

When the woman put the dish out, she added a sign telling people her son helped make it

Image credits: Kampus Production / pexels (not the actual photo)

Her coworker who doesn’t like kids approached her and told her it wasn’t fair since she couldn’t have any

Image credits: Secret-Departure1215

Her coworker told her the dish wasn’t made in a safe way and called her a jerk, now she’s wondering whether or not it was a jerk move

OP begins her story by telling the community that she recently had a potluck dinner at work. She decided to make a decadent dessert, something she let her two-year-old son ‘help’ her with. When she served the dish that night, she added a sign saying that her kid had helped her prepare it, just so people knew.

She adds that one of her coworkers is anti-kid and has even complained to HR in the past because OP’s kid was around at the end of the day for a short while. OP goes on to say that this colleague approached her that night and told her it was unfair to serve a dish she couldn’t have any of.

OP told her she just made the dish and didn’t care who would and wouldn’t eat it. The colleague responded by telling her that the dish wasn’t prepared safely and that serving it wasn’t OK. The woman says she thought making the sign was enough to let people make up their own minds, but her coworker called her a jerk.

OP added that she thought her colleague was making a mountain out of a molehill, but then turned to Reddit to ask if she was a jerk in the sticky situation.

Image credits: Ebru Yılmaz / pexels (not the actual photo)

OP’s colleague might have gone too far by calling her a jerk, but “potluck paranoia” is a thing, and she’s not the only one suffering from it. While a potluck is a great opportunity to taste a wide variety of foods, it also may create an opportunity to share foodborne illness. 

For some, these communal meals can create a feeling of potluck paranoia, because they’re not certain that safe food preparation and proper sanitation methods were used. Other guests might have food allergies and could be concerned about the unknown ingredients of the food being shared.  

In an article for The Denver Post, Los Angeles publicist Nilou Salimpour-Davidov sums up her feelings about potlucks this way: “I think they’re good for one thing: to minimize your calorie intake. They make me lose my appetite.”   

Dr. Roshan Reporter, a medical epidemiologist with the LA County Department of Public Health, acknowledges that potlucks can be risky. Although the department gets far less reports of food poisoning from potlucks than it does from restaurants, she says those numbers increase around the holidays, when potlucks are in season.

So, just which diseases can you be exposed to from tainted food? The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention list campylobacter, salmonella, and E. coli as the top three most common types of food-borne illnesses, among others. 

Back in 2019, a woman live tweeted a saga involving her coworker and a bag of raw chicken wings. The hopeful coworker brought in his own deep fryer to prepare them on-site. Needless to say, the woman was not satisfied with his prep process. The ordeal went viral and started the whole potluck discussion once again. 

What do you think of the coworker’s reaction? Was she being too mean, or do you think she has a case? Let us know your opinion in the comments!

Redditors sprang to the woman’s defense, saying the coworker was the jerk and that kids aren’t allergens

Image credits: Lee Myungseong  / unsplash (not the actual photo)

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