Mum outraged after a Sainsbury’s delivery driver told her four-year-old son he shouldn’t be wearing a sparkly fairy dress
Isaac Armitage had been wearing a black and purple fairy outfit when he answered the door to a Sainsbury's delivery driver who told him he should be a superhero, not a fairy
A FURIOUS mum has blasted supermarket giant Sainsbury's after a delivery driver told her four-year-old boy that he shouldn't be wearing a sparkly fairy dress.
Isaac Armitage had been playing in a black and purple fairy outfit with his little sister when he answered the door to the un-named driver.
Mum Wendy Armitage, 36, says she then overheard the driver say to Isaac "someone needs to take you to one side and have a word with you, you can't be a fairy, you should be a superhero".
Wendy said: "If he had said it's unusual to be a fairy, we wouldn't have have thought too much of it but saying someone should take Isaac to one side implies he was doing something wrong.
"I feel disappointed that there are still people in this world that ask questions like that and and think it is their right to tell other people what they can and cannot wear.
She said her son, who enjoyed playing with his two-year-old sister Felicity, had been left extremely upset by the incident.
She added: "My son has been more reluctant to wear his fairy dress since, he has only worn it once or twice whereas he used to wear it all the time."
Wendy said the family used home delivery as she suffered from a chronic pain condition which affected her mobility.
She said she was upstairs when the delivery driver arrived on August 13 while her facilities manager husband Laurence, 35, had been unpacking the shopping after Isaac answered the door to the driver.
Wendy said her son enjoyed answering the door to the delivery driver.
She said: "I was upstairs having a bed day as I have a disability and heard the driver say to my son, 'Where's mummy?' and Isaac said I was upstairs.
"So he asked Isaac, 'Are you the doctor and your sister the nurse?', which I thought was a bit sexist, and he said, 'Why are you wearing a fairy dress?'
"Isaac said, 'Because I am being a fairy' and the driver said someone should take him to one side and have a word with him."
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She said her son enjoyed dressing up, regularly wearing costumes to become Darth Vader, a doctor, nurse or vet.
Wendy said: "He first wore a fairy dress after going to a toddler group and they had a big box of dressing up outfits and they had a dress there and he liked it.
"So we got a bag of mixed dressing up clothes and he liked those dresses as well, he also likes the fireman outfit.
"He's definitely very imaginative. He's always playing make believe and being different characters. Even if he doesn't have the dress up things to do it.
"When he didn't have a magic wand he made one himself and he will often cut up bits of cardboard to make props."
The mother, from Effingham, Surrey, said she has since tried to explain to her children why the driver commented on Isaac's fairy costume.
But she said the children were left confused.
She has now demanded an apology.
She said: "I tried to contact Sainsbury's customer service afterwards and couldn't get through so wrote on their Facebook page where they replied to me.
"I got a reply which said, 'Sorry about that!' and asked me to send them a message explaining what happened and they said they'll look into it.
"We didn't get any real apology though and I asked what is going to happen from here and they said it has been reported to the online manager at that store for them to look into it."
She said she was hoping that the delivery driver would receive training so that other situations would be avoided in the future.
She said: "I have always encouraged both of my children to be what ever they want to be.
"We had to spend quite a lot of time explaining to Isaac that he can wear whatever he wants to wear and that he can be a fairy if he wants to be.
"Clothes do not define them and my children can wear whatever they would like to."
A Sainsbury's spokeswoman said: "We have apologised to the customer for these inappropriate remarks and taken suitable action with the colleague."
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