To think that if you become a childminder you should not just take 'easy' children

[Introvertedbuthappy]

I go back to work in December and decided on a childminder to look after my baby for the three days a week I'll be working. As I started looking in September I was asked to pay £150 a month until then to hold the place (1 day a week's fees) and as part of that could obviously use that day as childcare (as it was already being paid for). All fine.
Since then he has been there 3.5 days (CM wanted to cut one day short to go on holiday at a day's notice). On Tuesday she called to say that she will no longer look after my 6.5 month old as he is 'a difficult baby', 'cries a lot' and 'needs a lot of attention'. She also described an incident where her 3 year old got so frustrated with my son's crying her child 'screamed in his face, which was distressing not only for yoyr son, but myself and my daughter'. She has 'never seen a baby like it' (not in a positive way).
I am both devastated and angry. He is generally a happy chap, does like a lot of stimulation, but is happy to roll around/jump in his jumparoo/chase a pack of wipes round, but does obviously need to be picked up sometimes (ie like a typical baby). He doesn't sleep much but is generally not grumpy with it.
I'm upset about a number of things - the screaming incident, the language used about my son to turn down the contract and the fact I've pissed £150 down the drain to hold a place I can't take up.
So, AIBU or should she have attempted to settle him better before branding him a 'difficult' baby?

Most of you know sod all about childminding and what it takes to settle a child in. It's extremely hard work and for usually only a £3-5/hour. Sometimes it just doesn't work.

I've been CMing for nearly a decade, I've given notice once to a horrible child who physically assaulted my child at school.

In all that time I've been shat on far more often by unscrupulous parents more often than I care to remember. I don't go around warning others of their low morals for not paying me or abusing my good nature.

It can be neither true nor untrue.

I believe it is dishonest to keep money you were paid in expectation of you oroviding a service you then fail to provide.

I am both a freelancer and a hirer of freelancers and IME my views are unexceptional.

You can write shitty terms into your contracts. But it will affact how you are perceived and what business you get.

And it is equally likely you will get a bad name if you treat your contractors badly.

People talk.

Doinitfine, you've been told several times, and not just by me, what a childcare retainer is and how it works, yet you wilfully insist on ignoring those explanations and trying to treat this as a deposit. It is not a deposit and it's clear to me that you have not the faintest idea of what you are talking about!

So you'd happily turn down work and keep yourself available for someone for months on end with absolutely no renumeration, would you? You'd do some work for that client and not expect to be paid for it? If so, then you're the one with no business sense!

This is exactly the same situation. It is not reserving a future place; it is keeping a place open and available right now!

Her daughter sounds delightful

Tanith, I have seen you recommending and defending sharp practices by CMs before.

I am very far from considering you the final word on the matter of what is right and fair in this kind of business relationship.

it is keeping a place open and available right now!

Oh right.

So the OP just wanted to hold open a place in this childminder for October and November?

With no expectation of an ongoing place in December?

Just because she wanted to place held with no expectations at all?

The word retainer in this context paid to a contractor clearly and obviously refers to retaining their services for future use.

Not for shits and giggles.

It is dishonest to pretend otherwise.

So you'd happily turn down work and keep yourself available for someone for months on end with absolutely no renumeration, would you?

No.

But if I later found myself unable or unwilling to do the work I was retained for, I would not attemot to keep that money.

And if someone I retained pulled that shit, it would setioysly hurt their reputation. Similarly I would never hire someone who had done this on another project.

No, the retainer was so the childminder could afford not to take on a different child who would have made make it impossible to take the OP's child at the point at which the OP needed the place. Different to a deposit. Very simple.

Isn't the difference that a deposit would be eventually set against fees either the first months or last months.A retainer is to hold the space unfilled for a specified amount of time.
I actually think the CM behaved professionally in NOT taking this child.Lots of people would have just taken the bay6 to get more money each month.This CM had enough integrity to put the needs of the other children in her setting above an increase in revenue each month.

God, she sounds appalling! I have 2 childminders and neither of them would dream of behaving like this - you dodged a bullet indeed.

What is simple is that if you are retained for work you then choose not to do and keep the payment for retention, honest people will you you as a con artist and refuse to deal with you.

The retainer was for keeping the place open at the time, not guaranteeing it for the future. If you treated it as a guarantee, you would be removing the CM's discretion to say things aren't working out, and that would be ridiculous. She isn't contractually obliged to continue caring for the child indefinitely.

I had two nannies turn my child down. One after only a morning. (Nanny share). she called DP and asked him to come and get DS since he "hadn't stopped screaming since he arrived". We were both at work - but he was nearer and could leave.

DS was a difficult baby - bad reflux, colic, poor sleeper - I know that but I didn't think it was that bad. Nanny too young perhaps, other baby placid, easily stressed maybe. Fair enough - but it both hurt and was inconvenient at the time.

Second nanny was for two DC - toddler and baby. She spent a day with them both and never came back. (Toddler too demanding apparently!)

Also agree - a retainer was to keep the place free. She is being professional in saying it is not right for your baby or the other children in her care.

You will find the right place sooner or later.

Tanith is right about retainers.

If you hold open a room in a flat it is the same. And then if you arrive and the flatshare doesn't work you don't repay the retainer - especially if you have used the flat.

Of course, if you get a retainer from two different people for the same place, you could let one have it three days, then say it is not working out and the next one can start the following week.

Sorry - did not the CM provide 3.5 days care? £150 works out at £43 per day. About average isn't it? So she hasn't kept a fee for nothing. And I presume the OP used that baby-free time to earn money or do something that needed doing.

But the place wasn't kept free.

It was withdrawn.

Scam city.

Oh my goodness, is this really that hard to understand?? The place was open on the days on which the CM minded the OP's child - it was not given to another child. That is what the payment was for. It was not a guarantee that the place would be permanent; that was contingent on a good fit, which there was not.

It was not made clear to the OP that the place she was paying to retain was contingent on the CM being arsed to do the job.

It's really very simple. If you take money to retain a place and then withdraw the place, you are a piss taker.

And people will hear.

That is a different argument. If the terms weren't clear enough, it is the OP's issue for not clarifying them. But what many CM on this thread are saying is that this is a normal arrangement.

It is not remotely a normal arrangement for people to agree to pay a retainer on the off chance the person they are paying might fancy doing the work in a few months.

Nothing has been retained.

I think DoinitFine couldn't grasp the idea of retainers at first and now that she has she can't back down, or maybe she is a bit dim.

The space was retained (and used) throughout October! How thick do you have to be to deliberately not understand that.

I find it really hard to envisage how someone can take against a six-month-old baby, frankly. Some babies are easy and some are difficult, but the CM should have explained that she only wants to cherrypick easy babies.

Try again: the retainer was NOT to secure the place in a few months' time. It was to keep the place open in October, a service which was paid for and received.

Atenco: It is obvious that a CM does not have to CM any specific child. Of course they get to choose. Would you want to place your child with someone who had no choice?

Yes, I'm deeply stupid.

That's why I have this crazy idea that a person or company paying a retainer is paying that money to retain a service for when they actually need it.

I'm so dim that I think people don't often agree to retain placrs when they don't need them with zero expectation that they will be available when they do need them.

My IQ is so low that I hadn't realised that when i took money to be retained, it wae just free money and I didn't need to do the prominsed work at the end of the retention period.

Like the idiot I am, I felt there was an obligation to actually do the work I had bedn retained to do.

Poor stupid, stuoid me.