Issue with school mum and cleaner

[hopefullyhelpfully]

I've been struggling to find a good cleaner for a while now, so a school mum friend (occasional drinks and coffees, children in same friendship group, same team in PTA quiz etc) gave me contact details for her cleaner and said I could see if she had any availability. She did, and she's been cleaning for 4 months now and is amazing! She works the time she's paid for, notices and does little extras, irons and is generally marvellous.
At Christmas she had the week off but I paid her (have always paid holiday pay to cleaners) and have her some chocolate- and a small outfit for daughter's new baby- nothing extravagant.
She recently announced that she'd be reducing her cleaning hours as she's going to be looking after her daughter's baby when her daughter goes back to work. She's given notice to school mum friend and not to me, and friend is furious. Friend called me and said that as she'd recommended the cleaner, and she'd been working for her a lot longer then I needed to tell her that we didn't need her any more! Apparently I must have found out about her planned reduction in hours which is why I paid holiday pay and gave presents etc, and I have essentially been sneaky. Tbh I genuinely didn't know as I'm not often there when she comes and I thought everyone paid extra at Christmas and holidays! It's also worth pointing out that my children are older, we're all out of the house when she cleans, we're generally tidy and I'm not especially demanding, none of which is the case for my friend.
Now I was perfectly prepared to ignore her- lovely cleaner has agency over her own life and this is all a bit mad. However she's been telling all our mutual friends that I've "stolen" the cleaner by paying her more (we pay the same) and that losing her is exacerbating her stress and PND (youngest is 5 and she's never mentioned PND in the 11 years I've known her.) There's a lot of other stuff but it boils down to, "heartless full time working parent bribes critical help and support away from vulnerable friend to facilitate her career." I'm the only working mum out of the group so she's got a lot of time to develop the narrative and I'm not there to counter it.

Now to the AIBU- this is impacting DS as he's close friends with her son and the children of her friends. He's not being invited to Friday play dates as we all usually have a glass of wine when picking up and apparently, "it'll be uncomfortable."
I can't have DS impacted, so I'm planning on doing as she asks, firing cleaner and trying to salvage this. However DH says it's unreasonable and unfair to the cleaner. Who's unreasonable?

Just saw your update. It sounds like a good plan!

I understand how you’re feeling with regard to your ds’s happiness but do not do as this woman wants.

Your ds isn’t guaranteed long term friendship with this boy , things change naturally and they might drift apart anyway.

Sorry didn’t catch your last post.

Do not give in to this bully. You are teaching your son to give in to bullies. You could sack the cleaner and this woman will still be poisonous and stop her son from playing as the cleaner will not go back to her. Your son will find a new friend if you take him to different clubs etc.

Fuck me. I wouldn't clean for her

Don't drop the cleaner. She obviously wants to work for you.

People who use their children as pawns in their own manipulative social games are not friendship material.

Don't let this woman guilt trip you into firing your cleaner.

I would suggest that the cleaner is using the dropping hours excuse as a reason to stop cleaning/childcare for your friend.

It would be helpful if the cleaner could call her up and say as much.

Also a group message or email saying

"i'm really disappointed in X's reaction to cleaner dropping her as a client. This is NOT my fault or decision to make. X - perhaps she didn't feel it was right of you to leave her with child? You cannot expect me to tell her who she should or shouldn't cleaner for. It's unkind of you to exclude DS from our normal playdate, he is upset. Z - could you collect him on Friday and take him along and I will pick him up later, so he doesn't miss out? X - I'd really like to clear the air on this."

Z = another mum who should be sensible. Give her a week to calm down and see sense.

And don't fire the cleaner!

Are the children excluding him? At school?

Just seen your update.
Great plan, it'll be good for your partner, he may be socially awkward but might just find himself a great friend in that group and only good things can come of that.
Alternatively, people like talking about themselves, so just give him a bunch of questions to ask the other dads, and people will like him for being interested in them.

Also, never badmouth this other mum to the other mums. Nothing good can come of it.
If it's brought up, explain it's a shame it's the way it worked out, never saw any of this coming but you can't decide the cleaner's life so just going to stick by your cleaner's decision.

Tell your friend to grow up .
I've never heard anything so childish before 🤦‍♀️

Wow I can see why the cleaner is removing this one from her list of clients. Don't say a word to the cleaner unless you want to be removed as well.

Don't fire your cleaner. Get DS involved in some other activity groups (dance/footie/scouting) so you both aren't held hostage by Mad School Mum. Saying that, if you just ignore her tirades and say you're really sorry that she's lost the cleaner's hours and keep smiling, most School Mums will see she's being unreasonable.

Don't for a second get involved in trying to explain your side or anything. Just be nice and be normal. It's unlikely any School Mums will drop you/DS because of this.

If you give in, you've made yourself and your DS hostage to all aggression by Mad School Mum. Show him how to stand up to bullying by standing up to yours. Smile. Be reasonable. Tell her that you have listened to what she has to say and that you understand where she's coming from, but that you haven't decided (blame OH if possible for that bit). Say with your schedule, you can't just sack your help without replacing them first. It's complicated.

Basically, she can p*ss right off with her unreasonable demands. And if she's the kind of person who will take something like this out on your DS, good riddance to bad rubbish.

wait her youngest is 5 and still naps? at what point in the day? how do they manage at school? surely she has the whole school day to go for a run? her narrative about this is clearly bollocks and anyone with half a brain will spot this surely?

You’re unreasonable to put this lady out of a job because of a play date on a Friday and a glass of wine with a nasty woman ..

I can sort of see you she is upset but not why she has made it public. The cleaner is under no obligation to keep her as a client if she doesn't want to work for her. If I was your cleaner I'd want to stop providing free childcare too, it's not what I'm paid for. I think you have a good plan in place, hope it works out for your son.

To be honest we are a cleaning company and we are quite prepared to drop any client if our cleaning staff complain that there is too much client activity in the home and therefore they cannot do a good job within the timeframe paid for.

We are also prepared to drop clients if they become unprofessional around our service getting personal with the staff.

There is so much demand for a cleaning service that we can easily pick and choose and make sure our staff are happy and comfortable. Obviously an individual cleaner will choose to take care of themselves in this way too, I know I always did choose my workplaces carefully when i was a solo cleaner.

In other words, the cleaner dropping the client has nothing to do with space on her schedule and everything to do with the discomfort she encounters at the workplace provided by the other school mum. She will not retain a cleaner for long whatever you do.

Even if you fire the cleaner, she may choose not to go to work for your friend. Because your friend is a very bad client, leaving cleaner to babysit at random. She may choose to just wait for a new client instead of going back to the really bad client.

Really your friend needs to speak to the cleaner, this isn’t your fault or really anything to do with you - because it sounds like she wouldn’t go back to your friend anyway.

Any of your mutual friends who are reasonable people and real friends will not buy this bullshit. Anyone who DOES buy it is not reasonable or a real friend.

I'm going to try to pick off the parents of a couple of the other boys who seem most reasonable and who also aren't in the core group of three and suggest 1-1 play dates.

Sounds sensible if you don't want your DS to lose out completely.

But PLEASE don't fire an excellent cleaner because of a nasty and frankly unhinged-sounding individual!

Those saying they can see why the 'friend' is pissed off are as nasty/loopy as her, IMO.

Cleaners are not indentured servants. They are self-employed professionals. It is entirely up to them who they clean for.

Sounds like she's well rid of this one.

What a complete twat.

Of course keep the cleaner, she sounds great and you sound like a good client.

IMO it is quite common for cleaners to stop working for people who are difficult to clean for. Around me everyone wants a good cleaner and they aren’t that common, so you treat them like gold dust if you have one!

Your son will do better to learn that you don't just allow people to push you about. He will learn that there are bulllies in the world of kids AND adults and that it's OK to walk a different path.

If your 'friends' all band together with this woman, seriously why would you want them in your life?, or your DS life?

Invite kids to yours for play dates, if they come, they come, but don't raise your DS to be so desperate for friendship that he puts up with this kind of shit.

He could join a rugby team, or football at weekends, that is a superb help for boys to bond. do you have a local footy team? he could invite some kids to a game with you/your H on a weekend. Cultivate friendships with the kinds of people you want in your life, not just those who are thrust upon you in the schooling system

Also if I was the other woman I would t be telling everyone, I mean, it’s a bit embarrassing for her isn’t it?

I can see the other mums point of view. She probably doesnt think there is anything wrong in the way she treated the cleaner so she wont be able to see why the cleaner chose to drop her. Unless the cleaner told her the reasons why.

Have you spoken to the cleaner about this?

Have you spoken to the cleaner about this?

The OP doesn't need that stress and the cleaner is under no obligation at all to discuss with her her professional choices.

Agree with Darling it is considered extremely unprofessional within the cleaning industry to discuss any clients with anyone outside of the company or if you clean solo you should also keep it zipped with regard to your other business relationships, it's called discretion.