To think that childminders take the piss.

[perfectshadeofgrey]

I think that some childminders take an advantage of parents. The last childminder I saw demands 24 days of paid holiday + paid bank holidays + paid Christmas + 6 days paid sick leave. We would also need to provide the food, nappies, wipes, bus fares etc. WTF?
I don't agree with this. For a start, she's self employed so why should I pay for her holidays and when she's off sick.
AIBU to think that this is not right?

You are not happy with the service she provides (she has been upfront about from the get go, which is good), and you aren't using her. That's fine. As a CM myself I can tell you she is the rarity though, I know MANY CMs, countrywide, and have never heard of anyone requiring so much as part of the contract. Having said that, I know prospective parents haven't used me too, as I do not fit their requirements (eg: don't do school runs/night care/weekend care/work earlier or later than 7am/6pm unless in an emergency).

That's why it's good to go to a few CMs/nurseries, to find the right one that suits your requirements as a family, plus that feels right in your gut. I do the same with prospective parents, I go with my gut, and won't touch a parent who I think might prove difficult, because believe you me, never mind how flexible I try to be, it is amazing how much some (not all by no means) parents take/attempt to take the p.

I do need to mention that NCMA (National Childminding Association) and some Early Years teams in boroughs, ACTIVELY encourage CMs to put 4 weeks paid leave in their contract, and not to supply wipes/nappies etc. for allergy purposes. Some CMs would stick to this, others won't. We are small business owners and lay out our own terms.

I do not provide wipes and nappies due to allergy reasons (Theoretically... although practically I do as OFTEN parents do forget to put nappies in... they are rushed to get to work and right/wrong, are human, and forget). It's no biggy, I always have emergency stock at hand.

My daily fee (£65) is middle range (compared to local CMs), and cheaper than local nurseries (£70-£90 p/d), includes all food, outings, and even though I am registered to look after more kids than I do, as I do not do school runs I am limiting myself in numbers (and therefore wage). But I prefer to focus on the under 3s... and focus meals/activities/outings/resources etc. on this age. I am always full and have a waiting list. I LOVE my little business and this is evident in my commitment and love for my mindees (and their families), as I do play a big role in their lives, and take the responsibility seriously. It's far more than a job for me, and I can say the same for MANY CMs I know.

I hope you find an excellent CM soon OP! Try www.childcare.co.uk or your local FIS (Family Information Service).

By duchesse 'I personally would not place my child with a person whose main motivation seem to be her own comfort rather than the wellbeing of my child'.

I disagree with this. Marketing yourself well doesn't make you a selfish person. In fact if the cm earns more she can offer more, she can for example pay for a cleaner. She can give her ironing so she doesn't have to stay up at night to do it, which means she gets 8hrs sleep, which means she perfoms better next day etc. I would be more cautious about a cm who undercharges tbh rather than one who over-charges.

Also, the motivation for most people to work it is money-thats normal imo.

I agree... a CMs contractual stipulations (and don't forget to ask if these are negotiable) are NO indication of her care for her mindees.

Also, i agree with the poster who said they pay nursery staff peanuts thats how they can afford low fees.

What happens is that most low-earners have to do a second job in order to survive. This affects their perfomance sometimes. I took a cab one day and the driver told me 'i'm trying to keep awake, i work at a shop in the day and then cab-driving all night'. I wanted to get out of the car!

At least if people make a decent living then they can give 100 % to their job.

My childminder is amazing.

We pay for our holidays but not hers.

We pay if our child is sick but not if she is sick.

Of course you should pay for bank hols etc at a nursery, there are still overheads to be paid.

Laquitar - My nursery charges 32 a day. I would no way fford 37 a day. I get paid minimum wage but it makes more sensse to get paid low as then I get max childcare and help so it works out a lot more. I definitely wouldnt want wages to rise whilst I have small children, and neither would any of my colleagues.

No, not all childminders, I don't charge for my holidays at all as I am unavailable for my services. I think that is unfair of the OP to state that we take the piss.

Glad you know so much about my child's nursery, sigmund.

We are in Devon. If it were any more expensive, nobody would be able to afford it. There is a difference between London and the rest of the UK. FWIW the staff are perfectly adequately paid for Devon. If they weren't being paid a living wage they would not be afford to work there.

I doubt very much if the staff are being adequately paid. Minimum wage might be just enough to live on but it's hardly 'perfectly adequate'.
I work in a nursery and haven't had a pay rise for 3 years. They have had to give me one recently as the minumum wage has gone up.

Minimum wage is what most people in Devon are paid I'm afraid.

No matter what your gripes about your employer are HoneyPablo, most people around feel lucky to have a job at all in a very difficult market. This (socialist) blog gives quite a good outline of the employement situation here. There are a LOT of part-time jobs here, and a lot of low wages, not just among nursery staff. I'm sure you must understand that people have to pay the nursery fees somehow, even out of low wages... which is why they are kept affordable for the area.

Here's the blog.

PS: my husband is a civil servant and hasn't had a pay rise for 8 years. Granted, he is not on minimum wage, but our standard of living, already not very luxurious, has been massively eroded over the last 8 years to the point that we can no longer afford to buy gas for our heating (price of LPG has doubled to name one expense, whilst the wages have remained stationary). Again, a situation not confined to nursery workers.

Yeah shagmundfreud and honey- Im devon to and everyone gets paid minimum wage. I work in a nursery for that and I am lucky they would have to put my wages up to a tenner+ an hour to make up for the tax credits I get so I dont think its problem we get paid that.

Also honey it is perfectly adequate if everyone gets it. We have no children at all in our setting whose parents make above minimum wage.

The only local CM with vacancies charges £4 ph.
She is 22, has had experience of DC in a nursery setting, but has never had sole charge of any DC ever.
She does not do the school run, or take the DC out. (Doesn't drive and can't afford to use public transport. She wont walk further than a mile either)

She lives in a house with her parents, who both smoke in the bathroom because of the no smoking household rule and has not found any mindees yet.

There are good and bad wherever you go. I have never understood how the bad CM's get any mindees at all.

Laquitar, the whole point is that the OP's potential childminder wasn't marketing herself well. She wasn't being at all business-like. If she were she would have been more concerned about offering an easy to understand service with all the costs stated upfront, rather than sliding the thing about leave in as an afterthought when it could make life very difficult for the parents of her charges if she decides to take random days and expects to be treated by like an employee and a self employed person. You can't have it all ways.

Either she is employed by the parents to look after their children in their home and at their expense in terms of bills, tax, pension contributions etc... ie a nanny

or

She is a self-employed person who does her market research and costings before set her fees -all things being equal (ie if she lived in a million pound house with a huge mortgage, she could't expect to charge more than someone in a much cheaper house just because her personal costs were higher)- and comes up with an contract that is fair to both her and the parents, and most importantly ensures that her personal life impacts as little as possible on that of her charges' families- including saving for and arranging leave a long time in advance . ie a childminder. It's ultimately a business arrangement, and I would expect a childminder to be both fair and businesslike in her dealings with me.

Will never forget seeing a childminder with a female relative in a fast food restaurant with a roughly 5 yo and a young baby (maybe 5 mo) once. Baby in pushchair with a bottle propped up in her mouth, parked at table with little boy some 25 m away from the two women discussing what they were going to order. I assumed by this stage that the children were the children of the younger woman.

Women came back to the table with cokes and chips for themselves. Nothing for the little boy. Little boy looks longingly at chips. "Whaaa?" Says younger woman I took to be the mother. Little boy says something I couldn't hear. "Nah," says woman, "you ain't gettin' any. I'm not paid to get you no chips."

WTF would you have done? I sat there in shock wondering what the heck I could do, considered sneaking a little note into that little boy's pocket for his mum to find, but never got the opportunity as they left soon after. Did not want to tackle them there and then in case she took it out on the kids later. It was 16 years and I still think about several times a year and wonder how the heck the parents were supposed to know that their children were being borderline maltreated through the day.

I actually had been on the brink of going back to work but resolved there and then not to use childminders. Whilst there are amazing cm, how do you really know what is happening to your pre-verbal children during the day? At least with nursery there are other unrelated adults about and abuse is less likely.

I've never understood why childminders want holiday pay as they are generally self employedm; i'm self employed and don't get paid when i am not working.

One chilminder I knew bemaoned the fact that she was only being paid £5 per child, she moaned on and on about getting less than minimum wage. She looked after 4 kids, that means she got £20 per hour

molly, you have no children in the setting whose parents earn more than the minimum wage? That's a strange statistic. Most of the parents in the setting where I work are professional, e.g doctors, teachers, nurses, lawyers or own their own businesses. A few may be working for minimum wage but not many.

Blatantly way more than minimum wage then, Sir Sugar! I think that a lot of people think that mothers (and to a lesser extent, fathers) should feel very guilty about going out to work and some support service use the supposed guilt as a bargaining chip. I find that very unpleasant. If you are earning 4x£5/hour then you are NOT earning below minimum wage and it is disingenuous to suggest that you are.

What people are actually doing is placing their child in a setting with a lower staffing ratio (ie 4 or 5 or 6 to 1) than home because it makes better financial sense than keeping them at home (often only 1-1 or 2-1). Even £20 a month better off is better off. Whether it is enough to tip a person into going back to work is an individual decision based on individual circumstances.

Honey - Its not strange I live in Devon like Duchesse. Most people here are on minimum wage as her blog states.

Also all are on tcs so 32 a day is how much it costs for a day session and then you claim it back, so its not worth them making more money unless their wages doubled as they wouldnt afford to work.

When people say that a CM is not on minimum wage, you need to remember that looking after 3 or 4 children is 3 or 4 times harder than looking after one child. They are definitely earning that money. Assuming that the dc are not related, each family is paying less than minimum wage for their child care. Now, obviously parents need to be able to afford the service, but still, that's not a bad deal.

Someone said up thread that they are paying a retainer for school holidays when their CM has no intention of working. That to me is taking the piss.

Karma: A "wage" is not what each parent pays you but what you personally make per hour. Why parents choose to place their child you is not your concern as a childminder beyond ensuring that everyone is happy with the arrangement, nor is the wage of the parent any business of the childminder's once the parents can afford the fees. You don't get to impose income tax just because you are looking after their child. You have set yourself as a childminder with the purpose of making your living looking after other people's children. It's not slave labour. If you don't like it, stop doing it and find something that you hate less that pays £15+ per hour. (ps that would be very difficult around here).

Pretty much all jobs are hard work and sometimes not enjoyable. We wouldn't get paid to do them otherwise.