A mom’s hilarious rant about Build-A-Bear Workshop has many parents cracking up.
On July 1, Sarah Rawsthorne posted an open letter on the Build-A-Bear Workshop Facebook page. In it, the mom from England described her day at Build-A-Bear with her 9-year-old-daughter, Ruby.
“I stood there and took in the bright colours around me and I couldn’t take it anymore, Build a Bear has broken me,” she wrote. “Let me take you back a decade ago when BAB was a mystery until I first made a bear for my unborn daughter. It was magical, it was beautiful, and it was the start of something I would later in life fear more than anything else.”
Rawsthorne told HuffPost that Ruby has collected about 20 Build-A-Bear toys over the years and has gotten them for birthdays, Christmas, as well as days she’s gotten good reports from school. Though it was fun at first, Rawsthorne humorously explained that she had hit her limit.
“It was fun for the first few years but my daughter is 9 now and I can confirm that there are more shoes for bears in my house than there are for humans,” she wrote on Facebook. “The bears have a better wardrobe than myself and no, their bum never gets too big for their outfits, the smug little bears! Doing my best not to swear but I can tell you, there have been many a bad word muttered in your stores.”
She also offered the company a funny solution to provide for other parents.
“Please don’t get me wrong, take my money, I work hard to make my child happy,” she wrote. “But please, please, please can you give us an area of the store we can sit and stare at a plain white wall, perhaps even offer us a refreshment, conversation that isn’t about a great new smell to shove in the bear’s bum.”
Rawsthorne said the open letter was “a spur-of-the-moment thing” after a day of shopping with Ruby.
“I was tired and exhausted and just had to put into words how I was feeling about my trip to Build-A-Bear,” she told HuffPost.
Many parents have taken the post in good humor, which is what Rawsthorne intended. But others have described Rawsthorne as a bad parent for complaining about the store.
“If Ruby wasn’t such a selfless and impeccably behaved child I would question my parenting, however all that really matters is that I know I am a good mother,” she told HuffPost.
When asked whether Build-A-Bear Workshop had been in touch with her after she posted her letter, Rawsthorne joked that she can’t wait to hear from them.
“Surprisingly Build-A-Bear haven’t contacted me at all,” she told HuffPost. “I am still waiting for my lifetime ban, fingers crossed it’s in the post.”
