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?
AIBU?
Issue with school mum and cleaner
hopefullyhelpfully · 07/01/2019 12:22
The same sort of thing happened with dd when she was in yr1. She had a bestie and my dd did something age appropriate (bearing in mind she’s almost a year younger) and the mother twisted it into something it wasn’t. She killed the friendship and the child wouldn’t talk to dd for 6 months - the woman is very controlling. Then her other two friends happily had play dates with bestie but one mother wouldn’t reciprocate with dd, which became awkward and the third child decided she didn’t want to come to our house. As a result no one was coming to ours and no one was inviting dd either. Cue them having lots of play dates and dd being left out in the cold suffering a mental health crisis - not just brought on by this. But everything came to a head.
We saw a child psychologist, who said to get dd very very busy. First to build her confidence she advised taking her to a protective environment and suggested rainbows. That helped no end and after 6 months she’d grown out of it as it was too nurturing. Dd also tagged along to a couple of clubs with her friend from a different school (nct mum) as well as going to other things. She slowly made a massive circle of friends both inside school and outside. Some of those friends are a lot older.
It did take a couple of years but dds confidence came on no end. She has probably one of the largest group of friends at school of any child. This is because she’s had a lot of practice at making friends. It’s a skill to be learnt iyswim.
Instead of letting yourself be held to ransom by these people, I really would suggest that you try to take your ds to some extra curricular activities. The activity, which has benefitted my dd probably the most is horse riding. I have spent many hours hanging round while she helped out the older girls and watching other children ride. For your ds, it may be something else like martial arts. Judo is a good one as it’s gentle - dd does it.
For now it is going to be hard on your ds. He’s going to have to learn about school friends and play date friends. And about some grown ups not being fair. The irony of course is that this madam is so concerned with her mental health and gazing at her own navel to think about the mental health of a sensitive young boy. Having been where you are, it gives me rage for your ds. Hang on in there. 
Hi OP, my mum was a cleaner for 50+ years and had a waiting list... to the point that when one of clients moved, he wouldn't sign it off until mum had seen it and agreed to come to the new home. She stayed with her clients because she liked them and they treated her well. If she did not enjoy it, she would disengage from the situation.
What I am trying to say is that it is the cleaner's choice, not your's or the former friend. My mum tried to leave one person when she was pregnant but she asked to be my Godmother... so mum who was soft was stuck with her for another 14 years!!!
Just ignore the other woman, perhaps she will learn that a little bit of kindness and civility goes a long way. Now stop overthinking things and tidy the house up for the cleaner!!! 
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