Am I being unreasonable about childcare for a friend?

[Baconrollplease]

I feel a bit awkward even posting this, but I need a sense check. a friend of mine has started asking me to have her child quite regularly while she’s working. I’ve had him twice this week already, both times for about 6 hours.

I genuinely don’t mind helping occasionally, and the kids play nicely together, but it’s starting to feel like I’m becoming her go-to childcare. She doesn’t offer any money or even send food, so I’m feeding and entertaining him for the whole time. She asked me on Monday if I could have him on Wednesday, so it’s not always last minute, but I don’t feel like I can easily say no without feeling guilty.

I think what’s bothering me is that it feels a bit assumed now rather than a favour, if that makes sense.

Am I being unreasonable to feel a bit taken advantage of? And how would you handle this without damaging the friendship?

She’s a CF 🤷‍♀️

You just say no.

A real friend wouldn’t take the piss like this….

School mum 'friends' can be brutal - they will cultivate relationships solely for the benefit of themselves/their kids. Many will think nothing of asking a sahm to pick up their childcare slack. Or asking a childminder to walk their kids to school since they are going there anyway!

This is absolutely true. Many school mums are just sniffing for other mums who they can use to make their own lives easier. They kid themselves that they're just finding "their village" but we all know they're just cheapskate CFs.

Red flags are ones who eagerly start a friendship by offering low-investment gestures like giving a ride to your child if they're both invited to the same birthday party. So you feel indebted to them in a way and they can call in much bigger favours later on such as leaving their child with you overnight.

Or if something comes up and they can't be arsed to pick up their child on time, they will text you to pick up both kids from school and keep them entertained until they can pick theirs up from your home.

They are usually married to totally useless or abusive men who they obviously know they can't rely on. So they try to engage in as many female friendships as possible as surrogacy for the tasks their partner needs to be doing.

You're going to have to either assert a boundary or keep doing this. She's not going to stop asking, and indeed you're showing her no signs of having a problem with it, so it's one or the other really.

Yep without fail, the partners are always twats! I understand at some point it might be survival instinct and they need to risk coming across as a CF to other mums or it means complete hell breaking loose at home. They're trying to build their own network of free childcare so the burden doesn't lie on their partner, who might already be threatening divorce or physically abusive when they get overstimulated with the children.

But it still doesn't mean you need to be the target. If you hold strong boundaries or she realises you're not a pushover the eagerly steps up to take her kids then she'll move onto someone else.

I also feel many of these mums are arrogant screentime snobs. So they like to schedule their kids entire day so full that they even don't have time to look at screens, which they can then smugly show off to others. However they don't have the interest, energy or creativity to entertain their own children so they will palm them off to as many play dates and families as possible. The value of another mum's time is far less than the important of keeping their own precious sprogs off the ipad.

Being like this with the OP isn't a long term plan. Reliable childcare is. Boundaries still need to be put in place. The OP can't just roll over and give in to demands because of the possibility that there are domestic problems.

Definitely nip this in the bud now. I’d a similar situation years ago. After a few occasions I just said no. With three under four at the time & not having much time to myself, I drew the line at free childminding when it moved from emergency situations to beautician appts, hair appts, meeting up with other friends since she knew I’d be free to childmind!

For those asking, my son is 6 and hers is 5, almost 6. They do get on fairly well. I actually took him for the night over Xmas so she could go out, she kept saying she’d reciprocate. Never happened. She did get me a bottle of wine last week.

You

Are

Being

Used.

Have you asked her to reciprocate?

Would you actually like that or is it not important to you?

If you would like it, then I would ask for it and every time she asks you, get in first "oh I was going to ask you if you could do Wednesday, I have to work" etc

If you don't want or need it, obviously just say no..

@Baconrollplease not sure if you’re aware but there is also the matter of not being an Ofsted Registered Childminder to be considered. You need to be if you are providing care of more than 2 hours at a time, in your own home. You would also need to be insured to provide this care. Perhaps this is your get out clause.

When I was a teen, I worked in a shop. An adult man wanted a discount on the items he was purchasing. Obviously I didn’t have the authority to do so, and this man hounded me to give him a discount (for a veteran, which he wasn’t, wanted me to use my employee discount, etc.). I called for my manager because he wasn’t taking no for an answer and she also told him no several times and in many different ways. By the end of it, I was nearly in tears and my manager angrily told him to either pay the price or walk away. He paid, then that jerk WINKED at me and said “hey, you’ve got to at least try, right?” And smirked as he walked out.

Since then, any time someone is pushy, I remember that arrogant man and it sets my spine. Some people will not care about your boundaries and will just keep pushing to try to get what they want and the reason they keep doing it is because a lot of people will cave.

You’ve had loads of good advice, what do you plan to do?

This

When I was asked to have her child for a few hours,the list was sooo long
No iPad
No tv
No sugar
No salt
No messy crafts
No felt tip pens
No video games
No park (too dangerous)
No local forest (local beauty spot) as they might fall over and get dirty
No nipping to the shop as 'they sell sweets)
No messy play
(cant remember what else,but the list was long)

I ended up with 4 kids (large ish age gaps between oldest and youngest) and according to mums rules,they could sit in the corner and stare blankly

I always follow mums (its normally mums (ive never had dealing with dad) rules if I have a child but this was taking the piss

All so she could brag about what a good mother she was as her kids didnt do iPads/eat sugar/get messy/did eat veg (only because they'd go hungry if they didnt)

Rather 'oddly' the same rules didnt apply when she was around them-i saw one walk in,turn the tv on and fire up the xbox with a doughnut in hand

Utter piss take-and her husband could not have been more hands off

He acted like they where nothing to do with him and they just inconvenienced him by being in the same house-her kids,her problem

Emergency? Fine
Temporary eg while finding new permanent childcare? Fine if you’re happy with it, but she pays for food as a minimum.
Anything beyond that? Especially if not even covering your costs let alone the courtesy of paying you for your labour. Nope

I wouldn't do temporary - she'll drag out finding childcare and OP will be stuck with them! Piss takers cannot be relied upon to do the decent thing.