Why are we treated/paid as glorified babysitters or less?

olsmum - might be nit-picking here, but I can't see how/where I view my CM as someone who works for me rather than as someone who provides a service for whom I choose to pay.

Doesn't really matter anyway. I see her as important and valuable in our family life. As I did with cleaner when I could afford her services.

I pay my childminder what she tells me her rate is. I always pay for more hours than I use. ATM I am paying her for 8-9 and 3.30-5.30 3 days a week. Now on a Tuesday DS has football practice at 5 so DH or one of the other Dads picks him up at 4.45, he goes to art club after school on a Wednesday until 4.15 and on a Thursday has a swimming lesson at 4.30 so is picked up by DH or me at 4.15. So I am paying 3.30-5.30 and using 3.30-4.45 on Tues, 4.15-5.15 on Weds, and 3.30-4.15 on Thurs. And I always pay on time. But I am lumped into some ungrateful parents group.

I pay my CM the rate she chooses to charge, £30 a day

she does a fantastic job and is very very cheap at the price

I pay her on time, pay full-pay when she is on holiday and am happy to pay when she is off sick too

I don't mess her around, she doesn't mess me around, I am fully aware she makes it possible for me to pursue my working life and i consider myself extremely lucky to have found someone I respect and trust to look after my dd

HTH

daphne, i agree with u but i wouldnt say my cm works for me, i see it more as i pay her for a service.

Have just had another thought:

When I could afford cleaner, I paid her £8.00 per hour, at same time as paying childminder £5.00 per hour.

I felt guilty about that as I valued a happy child over a clean house.

But then I got a grip and realised cleaner has to 1) travel to my house and work in my house 2) do gruesome physical work for me only, to the exclusion of all others while she's at my house and 3) doesn't get paid when my dcs are sick, or she is on holiday.

My cm, meanwhile, looks after other children at the same time and has holiday pay.

Overall, net weekly pay, my CM earned far more than my cleaner.

And both of them better off in comparison to me than they thought they were.

No reason at all why this shouldn't be the case but I do think sometimes that CMs assume the parents they are working for are a lot better off than they actually are, as someone posted earlier.

bambi06, thats because you only look after one child when you could always take more on, i only earn just over £6 per hour and £3 of that goes to childminder. my point is that you are choosing to earn that, just like i am choosing to because i would rather be working than not. i can understand it must be bloody annoying when people pay late etc. i'd like to earn more but i dont, im sure cm's are the same. thats something i just have to deal with.

I would just like to add that most CMs (myself included) go into the job with their eyes open, knowing full well that they will never be rich ! Most of us do the job because we love it, and it suits our situation, plus its flexible and interesting etc. I agree with the poster who said we shouldn't let ourselves be taken for granted. You don't have to accept being treated badly, paid late etc. I had one parent like that and I soon resigned, as it was making me hate the job. All other parents have been very respectful, grateful etc and made my job a pleasure.

Is there really that big a difference in costs between c/m & nurseries. I pay my c/m £5.50/hour atm - it adds up to a very similar amount to nursery charges I used to pay for ds...

I think a lot of c/m problems, tbh, are shared by many of us who are se (eg I often get paid 6/8 weeks plus after I've finished a project) I think the difference is, sadly, our culture doesn't value childcare, AND tends to assume that homeworking is easy.

(Oh, and I don't have a beautician, cleaner or gym instructer - couldn't afford any of them! I do think that some c/ms can slightly assume that anyone who employs them lives a life of pampered luxury...

i earn less than the minimum wage as i only look after one child at a time as i like to dedicate my time to that time plus i have three children of my own..two that are at school.. i dont ask for extra money and everything inc outings comes out of my wage ..plus they have three home cooked meals a day.. but i bet if i put my hourly rate up i wouldnt get any kids.. a cleaner earns more than i do and im a qualified N.N.E.B with 20 yrs experience as well..i know i charge more than most childminders in my area but still not covering minimum wage!!

Smee LOL, by the time I finished that your post was there- when I started it was pretty much OP

which is why it was OTOh (on the other ahnd)

I know a childminder who declares her income for the one child she looks after 3 days a week.

The many others she has, before and after school, she asks for cash. She charges £5 per hour per child. So is getting at least £150 per week cash, therefore tax-free.

I know this goes on with a lot of childminders and I don't necessarily disaprove. Its a hard job, she does it very well, all the parents who use her are very happy. She is a friend of mine and I admire her for her resourcefulness. Her family income isn't great.

But I do find it hard to reconcile her left-leaning politics (which I share) with her determination not to pay tax on the money she has earned.

OTH, I have a different childminder. I pay her £5 per hour plus 4 weeks holiday pay per year. And this has to be in the time when she goes on holiday (usually the whole of August). So this year, we go on holiday in July. She goes on holiday in August. I end up paying her 6 weeks pay for absolutely no childcare at all!

But, like most other people with a childminder they respect and admire hugely, I have no choice but to swallow this and carry on with her til next year ...

Would always choose childminder rather than daycare for a pre-schooler.

sorry that should say "can be used for a long time" apologies for my other typos. am tired!

I can't see how my childminder would have had that many legitimate expenses.. i agree that electric and heating is more but there's no need to have heating on all day except on really cold days plus the mums provided all food, nappies etc and were all preschool so the school run/ car use was for her own children only. We also gave her money for any planned outings. She obviously has toys tec but there are one off capital expenses and can't be used for a long time and can be bought in car boots etc. She told me there was lots of normal household bills she could use as tax deductables plus her car expenses (although technically she didn't use her car as a childminder). I don't know. I didn't really wnat to get into an debate about earnings. I think we all deserve to earn more and living costs are too high for everyone! It gets my goat when i see CM saying they get £3 per hour, less than minimum wage etc when actually they earn that PER CHILD and not actually per hour and often their income is not taxed at all, which they often don't take into account.

Molly can I just say, that to be not paying tax, then she had to have a high rate of expenses, I rarely pay tax and bring in a fair amount, BUT the money that the taxman would have I spend on the children, it is not 'mine', if i didn't spend it on the children (outings, toys, equipment, food, as well as extra heating, lighting etc) I would pay tax,

I earn £3.25 per hour, and have 3 full time children so technically earn £9.75 per hour,
I get nowhere like that in my hand, and at times like this when we have extras (more craft equipment, Christmas Presents, more soft play, indoor activities) my expenses an be phenomenal.

OTOH? huh? im getting old!!!

OTOH.... many of us are truly grateful for our CM's, can't actually afford to have them always (because of student finance cock ups) but have moved heaven and earth to pay them on time because we think they're fantastic

And don't have haircuts, or pay babysitters because the CM is far more important to us and we dread the day ds3 has to go to school and loses her support (he ahs SN and she is one of the few poeple he si close to bar trhe immediate family)

I thank God for my CM, and I beleive she knows that

then daisy you answered your own "flippant" question!

I did go out to work, now at home on ML, and seriously considering CM so that I don't have to go out to work again

which is why I'm lurking around the CM boards!

not paying NI??? are you sure???

daisy do you go out to work or work from home???

CMs choose to work from home so they can also be with their own children. not all mums want to go away from home to work.....

I have lots of respect for childminders too and have always paid my childminder on time , would never dream of messing her around and all told her how pleased i was with her care of my daughter but childminders have to take into account that parents are paying them out of their already taxed income. I paid £4 per hour - £40 per day. After tax, NI, tube fares i took home £72 per day so i was clearing £32 per day for an 11 hour day. My childminder had my daughter and two sometimes three other children. She was therefore earning at least £80 per day and sometimes £120 (when she had three children). She also obviously did not pay for childcare herself (she had two children) plus never actually had to pay tax or NI because of all the tax deductables etc (she told me this). I am not saying this is wrong, good luck to her , BUT CM's have to realise that unless their parents are very well paid, they are actually taking home alot less than they are (assuming they have more than one mindee). I know there are other pros and cons to this debate but just wanted to make this point.

When my DS was in nursery, I paid £30 per day including meals and nappies.

When he was with a childminder, her charge was £3 per hour, which considering he would be with her for 9 hours per day, at £27 without nappies, but including lunch and two snacks, but no tea) was to me comparable with the nursery.

I think the local market and what people are prepared to pay has a lot to do with it as well.

I'm in the North of England ands £30 a day is the going rate whatever the option is. I think higher rates may be sustainable in the South.

also, from my POV, a childminder is a regular commitment, whereas babysitters tend to be an occasional thing fr a night out (and I can't remember the last time my DH and I wer out together) so I would be prepared to pay a higher rate.

And to add a flippant question, if CMs aren't happy with the pay they get, and feel like a badly paid, undervalued skivvy, then why do it?

but bills should always be paid on time.