kitty, I hear what you are saying
I too was a childminder and gave up due to the utter lack of respect from the parents, their kids were usually lovely, but unfortunately the parents soon tried treating the childminder like the hired help, paying you late, arriving too early in the morning and then arriving half an hour late at night. They often forgot that you too were a working parent and self employed too, not just there to work around their lives. And too often this selfishness rubbed off the wrong way on their kids, who were too used to coming second in the parents priorities.
I don't know if you have been on MN for long, but you'll soon realise on this site any criticism of WOHM's is a complete no no, you'll be patronised and told to stop being smug etc etc
It sounds like you have been on the receiving end of too much s**t from mums who don't spend much time with their kids and don't have a clue the effect it is having on their kids and you've gave up childminding because of this. I was the same. My kids still talk about the kids who came here, they really adored them, one little one in particular. But they couldn't understand why the little one always came here full of the cold, with antibiotics, with calpol, with a bad cough. Even though mine were young they thought the little one should have been at home with their parent, even if just until they got better. But the mum insisted the child was "fine". I always thought she couldn't see what was in front of her eyes, and that she needed to spend a bit more time with her child and to take her head out of the clouds.
Anyway, all I wanted to say before I got carried away is that I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but on this site you'll find most mums seem to work outside the home full time or at least most of the time and will shout you down if you disagree with them.