Mum's tribute to childcare workers: "I don’t know how or why you do it, but I love you."

After a “hot mess” of a morning, mum Karen Johnson penned a heartfelt and hilarious tribute to kindergarten teachers and childcare workers everywhere.

“I don’t know how or why you do it, but [I] love you,” she wrote in a Facebook post on Friday.

Karen, who blogs as The 21st Century SAHM, said she “truly cannot imagine the things you must see”, offering her story as an example of the kinds of things childcare workers have to put up with.

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“This morning was a hot mess morning, and we were running late,” she wrote.

“I told my four-year-old to get in the car but he hadn’t had breakfast yet. So I threw a cheese stick at him in the backseat (as all good mothers do) and told him to make sure he had it all eaten by the time we got to school.”

To her horror, her son had not eaten his cheese stick.

“Only after he hopped out and skipped happily into the building did I see it—from across the school lawn, a glimpse of his chubby little hand, holding a white, slimy cheese stick that he’d been holding for ten minutes and never ate. And he walked right into school with it.”

But cleaning a cheese-covered hand was not all his kindergarten teacher had to put up with that day. Karen’s son had also chosen – much to her dismay – to take a worn sock to school as his show and tell.

“And then, later in the day, you lovingly accepted this dirty sock as his submission for Letter S show and tell day.”

“Please know that I try. I tried to get him to take his sister’s stuffed animal sloth for show and tell. I suggested a Skylander. And a soccer ball. But the dirty sock won because there are only so many battles this mama can fight.”

The US mum also wanted her son’s kindergarten to know that she would “never willingly” send him “holding a warm cheese stick that may or may not be covered in his saliva”.

She also wanted to thank the staff who take care of and teach her son each day.

“Thank you for taking him, just as he is. For taking all of us. For loving him. For teaching him. For letting him throw his uneaten breakfast away and for saying, ‘Yes, sock DOES start with S! Good job!'”