to want a non-smoking nursery key worker for my baby?

[jkklpu]

My ds2 will be joining ds1 at my work nursery for 3 days/week when he's 9 months old. Nursery is fantastic with lovely staff and low turnover.

The thing is, there are 4 f-t staff in the baby room and 1 is a smoker. I know this because she's usually outside the building finishing her fag when I drop ds1 off in the morning. I really don't want my baby to spend much of his day being cuddled by someone who stinks of cigarettes and am thinking of asking the manager discreetly whether he can have any of the others as key workers instead.

What do you think?

flowerybeanbag, When you say "There are no laws protecting smokers from discrimination" I think the point is that there are laws protecting people from discrimination and smokers are people too.

I would imagine that it was illegal to apply any test which was irrelevant to the job they were applying for. Therefore you can't refuse to employ someone as a signpainter for being black or irish, but you could for being dyslexic since they couldn't do the job.

For what it's worth if I were employing someone who had to be in my home I would turn down people for lots of reasons which might be illegal. I'd reject them if they smelled bad whether it was BO, smoke or incense. I'd reject religious people since I wouldn't want them spouting nonsense round the kids and I'd reject people with a difficult to understand accent since my hearing isn't great at the best of times.

YANBU

Even putting aside the health risks, its just unpleasant to be snuggled up close to someone who stinks.
Why on earth would I want my child to have to put up with that when I wouldnt want to?

(I was a smoker and I gave up before the DCs were born, so have been there)

a nursery close to where I live has 3 or 4 staff members who smoke outside. I picked up a friend's child (18 months) from there one evening and his hair smelt of smoke. To me it seemed horrible.
YANBU

Greyriverside there are specific laws protecting specific groups from discrimination, not 'people' generally. Otherwise where would you draw the line? People frequently complain (often quite rightly) that things that happen in employment are unfair, and often say surely it's 'discrimination'. Unless you can say it's something which is happening because someone belongs to a protected group, it's not discrimination, it's just (possibly) unfair.

It's obviously best practice to apply selection criteria which are appropriate for the job, and one of the reasons for that (apart from getting the best candidate) is that if you don't, you may be vulnerable to a discrimination claim. But not from a smoker.

Leaving aside that, even when recruitment criteria could be considered discriminatory, often if you can demonstrate that there is a genuine occupational requirement for a candidate to have or not have some quality, it is fine. I would say even if someone is able to point me to what legislation protects smokers from discrimination, I would say working with children is a genuine occupational requirement for someone not to be a smoker.

I work in a nursery. There are several members of staff who smoke during their "coffee break" which is 10 minutes long. They then come straight back into work and pick up, hold and play with very young children (from 6 weeks). I have objected in the strongest terms to the nursery manager about this. Staff are offered smoking cessation support, but so far, the manager has not been willing to put any guidelines in place about not being with children for, say, 20 minutes after smoking.

I am a non-smoker, have made a deliberate decision not to subject my chid to the dangers of second hand smoke etc. If my child was in the nursery, I would be extremely unhappy if the people employed to care for my child were subjecting her to smoke products.

Rofl at Daily Mail - sounds like a reasonable selection criteria to me!

I don't agree that the law would cover new categories automatically I'm afraid - there has been specific legislation most recently about age discrimination, and it was new legislation, not clarification of interpretation of existing legislation.

FWIW I don't agree with such policies at all generally - I think a blanket ban on recruiting smokers is not good selection policy and doesn't help anybody. I don't see how such a ban could be challenged on a technical legal basis as discrimination, but it's certainly unfair and a bit daft imo, unless there's a genuine occupation need as mentioned.

I would not advise any employer to implement it if they were very anti-smoking and wanted to demonstrate that. I would instead suggest they implement a programme of support for employees wishing to give up smoking - something I have implemented a couple of times for employers. Far more positive and in the spirit of things I'd say.

At my DD's old nursery (she is now 17 - so this was ages ago) I was on the Parents committee when they were changing their rules to non-smoking staff.

The nursery is on hospital premises so no smoking outside on grounds, and they decided that anyone who smoked would not be allowed to work in the baby room. I thought that was good idea.

They wanted to change rules so any new employee would be non-smoker but don't know if that ever was allowed/happened.

You are not being ridiculous. Cigarette smoke is a poison and stays on the breath for 12 hours. Your baby will breathe it in. You are not being precious.

But the question of whether you can require the nursery to provide a non-smoking key worker is another matter.

Personally I would take my baby away from the work nursery and use a non-smoking childminder.

I wouldnt want my baby / child to be acred for by someone breathing smoke all over them either
(but then i wouldnt send them to nrsary either)

personally i DONT think its an unreasonable request...

i passionatley hate smoking and personally i dont think it should be done anywhere near, or even in view of babies / children)

Just because you ask that she in't his keyworker doesn't mean she wont hug him,pick him up, play with him, change him, feed him, it just means she won't do his developmental checks.

Coming at this from a slightly different angle, when my dd was at nursery she was assigned a key worker, as I believe nurseries have to do. But tbh, it was in effect purely nominal and in practice she spent no more time being cuddled by this person than she did with any other nursery worker. Your nursery may do things differently, of course, but you may be worrying unnecessarily.
I would have hated it if dd had come back smelling of smoke, but wouldn't have said anything if I thought dd was particularly attached to her - that, to me, would be more important (and I loathe smoking).

smoking is legal, but smokers stink and they breathe out toxins for ages afterwards. if i was paying a small fortune for my baby to be looked after i wouldn't want her to be looked after by a smoker. i'm a bit at the fact that the manager lets her smoke outside the building tbh.

I don't think YABU - I wouldn't want this for my baby either.

YANBU - I would not want my baby coming home from nursery smelling of smoke.

I wouldnt like my child to be cared for by a smoker at such a young age. It clearly states in the cot death safety literature that it is better to give up smoking completely when you havea child. There is nothing worse than having someone breathe on you after they have been smoking imo - its vile. My MIL does this and DP can't understand why i give him daggers as she does condescend to stand in the doorway and direct her smoke out of the door .

Its a difficult situation, i would suggest then if you feel that strongly about it, go to another nursery or don't send him at all, as to be honest, it is a bit much i guess to suggest that someone can't look after children because they smoke. I do think you have raised a very valid issue here though.

YANBU. It is a choice to take up smoking so the discrimination argument doesnt stand up. i would not want my baby to be cuddled by a keyworker who smoked.

I have not read all the posts. I would say that I would not be happy using a nursery that employed smoking carers, even if they did not do so during working hours. A child is looked after by ALL carers in the room, not just the key carer. It would be obvious if they were cuddled by a smoker because my dcs would come back with a hint of smoke.

It'll actually make bugger all difference who is the key-worker to be honest, that just means she does the paperwork and development checks etc for your child. Any member of staff at the Nursery could end up cuddling your child.

Every recruitment decision involves discrimination of some kind, only usually we call it selection. Discrimination is only unlawful if it is based on a person belonging to one of the protected groups, as flowery rightly argues.

I can discriminate against people who people who support Chelsea over Man United if I want, only I run the risk of not selecting the best candidate. It wouldn't be unlawful.

If I wanted to not recruit a smoker, then that is fine. I could discriminate against people who red if I want. My business would suffer for it though. Lots of people subscribe to the diversity argument not because they want to protect the rights of protected groups, but because it makes good business sense.

Anyway, I hate smoking and the smell of it makes me sick. I'd hate my son to smell of smoke because of contact with a key worker but I'd want to wait until to happened before complaining about it.

What a lot of hysteria.

Ooh nice to see a bit of anti-nursery feeling inching it's way in, nannyl (but then I wouldn't send my child to nursery either) speaks volumes eh?! Judgmentalism is alive and kicking on mn as ever good to see (prob not a real word but I don't care).

I can understand the ops predicament. I see staff from my dds nursery smoking during their breaks in the surrounding avenues and it makes me cringe. I've nothing against smokers just wish it wasn't during nursery hours but hey, it's not illegal and they're not breathing smoke all over them. I know there's the toxic chemicals bit but plenty of people who care smoke, if they were banned from doing so they'd probably get a job where they could smoke in their breaks.

I think it's a bit precious to dictate that no one who smokes should come into contact with your baby tbh, the health promotion stuff is about parents who smoke particularly in the house.

God forbid some of the posters on here if anyone they cared about got a mental illness and needed to go into hospital. Smoking is rife amongst the psychiatric nurses!

peacelily, I would not mind being treated by a nurse or doctor who smokes.

I mind if my dcs come into contact with smoke on the clothes of people who spend a large part of their day with children. I am paying good money and I am entitled to vote with my feet and choose the best nursery for my dcs.

My dcs attend a nursery chain. Amazing none of their staff smoke. I gather they realised how parents feel about smokers.

i wouldn't mind dd being treated by a doc or nurse who smokes, as i don't think the relationship is so direct.

but... as it happens, we lived underneath an old lady who was paying for a lot of extra care and it was very noticeable when those carers who smoked had been in her house. they hadn't been smoking there, just in and out, it was pretty gross and did upset her a bit.

so you know, blah blah blah hysteria, blah blah blah over-reaction etc... for me it comes down to the fact that i really don't think that smokers realise how bad they smell. and if you're actually paying good money, you should get to choose, just like i wouldn't go into a restaurant and order a meal if the room honked, i suppose.