to be uncomfortable with toddler's key worker smoking

[Stokey]

Dd1she(3 next month) has just started a new nursery. When I went to drop her off today about 10 this morning, her key worker was having a fag outside. She dropped it as soon as she saw us but I feel a bit uncomfortable with a smoker looking after my child. AIBU?

YABU and I suspect you would be hard pushed to find a nursery where not a single staff member that might come into contact with your child is a smoker. I think that you are overreacting, does it really matter if the worker's clothes might have the tiniest traces of cigarette chemicals on them, as others have said yours probably have most of the same chemicals if you regularly walk down a street with heavy traffic. What people do on their breaktime is their own business unless it involves getting drunk or high on drugs, you know, behaviours that could actually put your child in danger, not negligible amounts of cigarette smoke that might linger on clothes, different if the cigarette was being smoked in an enclosed room where children would be playing afterwards but outside, don't see a problem with it.

I don't think yabu. I wouldn't mind so much if it was discrete, but I wouldn't want my children to see their nursery nurse doing it. They hardly know anyone who smokes, so are shocked if they see it, and I'm quite happy with that.

It's not nearly as uncomfortable as when your dc wants to go round to play at a friend's house where the parents smoke in the house. My dc has a friend and the smoke literally comes out of the door in a fog. She reeks of it afterwards. But it's a difficult dilemma - it's not for me to dictate what they do in their own home and I also don't think it's fair to upset the friend by not allowing her to go.

Nursery staff should changed out of their uniform and only smoke well away from nursery premises at the beginning of a decent length break.

This is to protect the children from second hand smoke on clothing, to prevent children from seeing staff smoking, to prevent them from smelling smoke on the staff and to maintain the professional image of their workplace.

I was massively shocked when I saw DS's key worker smoking once - he'd been there for a year and I'd never noticed any smell about her and as an ex-smoker I was v good at spotting smokers.

We're both a lot healthier since we moved out of London where the air pollution is absolutely dreadful but I've yet to see a thread about being exposed to the toxins of living in a town in almost permanent gridlock :)

I suppose that's where my judginess comes out. I don't mind people smoking but I don't like them smoking in an enclosed space over dc. It's so easy to just go outside.

It's so different now to when I was young. I think this was the first time my dd had walked into a smokey room. When I was young my parents and all their friends smoked in the house, people smoked on the bus, at work at their desks, in pubs and restaurants - we were forever in clouds of smoke.

I've come to the conclusion that an hour or so every few months is not likely to do her much harm.

This is why I would never ever go back into the nursery working place, been out for 9 years but worked in london nurseries for 14 years.

Parents seem to think they have the right to dictate every minute detail of their childrens nursery environment....from the age and qualifications of staff to what the staff do out of hours!!

I have always mantained that if parents have such a need for control then a nanny is a better option for them.

Having said that I will say that the nursery worker mentioned in the OP was totally wrong for smoking in sight of parents and children arriving at nursery.

The nursery worker should have smoked somewhere that she wouldn't be seen, and she probably knows that now otherwise she wouldn't have dropped her cigarette.

Yabu though, you have no right to dictate what people do when they are not at work.

MrsDeVere probably on a unpaid break what she does is none of anyones business but smoking is not the offence smoking in sight of parents who think they own you is asking for trouble IMHO

If she wasn't being paid for her time, it doesn't matter whether she was at work or not. She shouldn't have allowed herself to be seen, but she has every right to smoke if she wants to.

I remember back 12 years ago I was in a local pub on a thursday night drinking and smoking (before the ban) with other colleagues.

A parent came into the pub saw us then complained to the manager the next day that we were "showing unsuitable behaviour" to care for her child.

We were advised that if she ever was to come into a pub we were in again we were to leave!

I was a 28 year old woman not a child to be told off for socialising.
This nursery worker has done nothing wrong apart from being a little naive about the way parents can over react

Oh voddie you should have known that those parents didn't just pay your salary but they owned your soul too!

What was the responsible parent doing in such a den of iniquity anyway?

voddie that's different.

This staff member was at work, just outside the building and quite possibly wearing a uniform. She was very possibly still being counted in ratios and easily visible to children arriving.

Very different from being out at the pub in the evening.

I would have said that if that parent came into a pub I was in she should feel free to leave if she didn't want to see me partying! She only had a right to complain if she saw you breaking the law or breaking confidentiality.

There is no way if she was counted in ratios at the time that she would have been allowed to nip out and have a smoke...if it were the case then it isn't the worker i would be worried about.

In all of my years working in nurseries the only time breaks wre taken were when numbers were right. You cannot just walk out .... well not at the nurseries I worked at.

Yes she was silly to be where parents and children could see her but she wasn't doing anything illegal FFS.

I work with young children I am not allowed to smoke up to an hour before i come into contact with them I think it is 30 minutes according to the EU ruling, yanbu to worry though but nothing you can do about really

YANBU.

When I had dc2 who was disabled a Sure Start key worker used to take my dc1 (aged 3 then) out to the park for an hour every week. He used to come back reeking of smoke and he told me she smoked and said the F word and i put a stop to this service immediately.

I hate seeing anyone responsible for a child, whether its a nursery worker/nurse/doctor etc smoking whilst at work. I regularly attend the hospital with my dc2 and the sight of nurses in uniforms hanging around in the smoking shelter makes me feel ill.

Can't believe some of the responses on here!

YANBU

I wouldn't want my child looked after by someone who's just had a fag, disgusting.

In Italy you're not allowed to smoke near children or pregnant women. The risks of passive smoking are very real. This woman will have cigarette smoke on her breath and clothes which children will breathe in.

But it's not passive smoking if the children aren't near her when she's smoking. Obviously.

Stokey, why did you feel uncomfortable seeing her smoke?