Parents sending children to cm while they are on holiday themselves

[susiemumof]

Not looking for a argument or aibu type thread.

Am new to cm and have a 6mo mindee 60 hours per week, mum has a day off next week (which she did not even need to tell me about) but has said she will still send said mindee as she would like a day to herself.

I actually offer a large discount on days when mindees are not with me so can't even put it down to wanting to get her monies worth.

Was just really wondering how common other childminders have found this?

It's obviously no problem for me to have the child and I am loving my new job, it just makes me a bit sad for the baby itswim.

Well I know loads of childminders and they all have their own children. Ones without are in the minority.

You train childminders and you don't think it's professional to take children to work.

That's the funniest thing I have ever read on mumsnet.

I suggest you Are deluded or quite simply liar who is now trying to justify your previous comments.

Read what I'm saying. Honestly.

I am saying that childminding has changed, it has been ultra-professionalised and in the current climate and with current expectations I think it is going to be harder and harder to sustain the sort of situation where women CM so they can be with their young children. It will be different where the CM's children are coming in from school in the evenings etc but it really is quite tough now to do what needs to be done in the time allocated and not really that easy for women to be doing obs and planning and following the curriculum and documenting as well as doing a mother role at home too. I am frankly SHOCKEd that anyone professional inspecting would have encouraged a CMing could to have their mindees call them granny and granddad and suspect either a) they assumed it was an innocent one-off on the part of the child or b) that's a lie too.

It's not exactly a secret that women are leaving and have left in their droves since it has become more professionalised, you yourself are saying this is what you are going to do as you felt your children come last. I really don't understand what I am saying is so controversial. A lot of people feel that the role has become overprofessionalised, in much the same way that there is a major drive for the role of doula not to be. That's fine for those who really have a genuine passion and commitment to early education in and of itself but it really doesn't sit well with people cm'ing for money so they can stay home with their kids.

My job relates to child development and I do a lot of training of CM'ers and very many of them have said this very same thing to me.

Also, PLEASE tell me another example of a PROFESSIONAL role where it would be encouraged or recommended you take your kids to work with you.

Childminding is either professional.. or not. I am suggesting if it is a professional role, then the professional childminder has no business having their child with them. There are many roles that are not professional where these boundaries can be relaxed.

You can't have it both ways.

Oh dear it's views like yours that make cms leave.

We do the paperwork and obs etc, some of us actually had quite 'serious careers' before childminding.

Looking after children should b a professional business and all your posts now are avoiding my question.

Am I not professional to now stop work and put my dd first? Remember this has come out of the blue for me, you don't plan for events like this to change your life

And is tanith unprofessional to include her
Indeed into her family.

I still don't belive you train childminders though as your posts are soaring in knowledge, sorry.

MAD - isn't it the case that the government are talking about making it easier to be a childminder? I find that quite scary and another reason why I would not want to use one. I think childminders should be professional, should have to be accountable and so on. I also think encouraging babies/toddlers to call relatives of childminders 'granny' is very weird and confusing for a child. My 17 month old says 'daddy' randomly at the moment but he knows who daddy is and I would never encourage him to keep calling my mum's partner daddy for example.

thebody - out of interest. Had you not had children do you think you would be still in your 'serious career'?
Was it having children which made you decide to be a childminder or would you have become one anyway?

Not soaring far from it lacking.

"it has been ultra-professionalised "

But where does that leave someone like me who was looking for a homely environment for my child. I didn't want a nursery environment. Fortunately, I found someone who looked after my child full-time and another child part-time as well as her own 2 children. She was amazing in the way she incorporated the minded children into her family life. My child thrived. This was before the Ofsteding of Cm-ing. Now cm-ing seems to be more of a nursery-at-home. As I've heard before - if I had wanted to send my child to a nursery I would have done, I didn't. However, as cm are now more like nurseries, where is the real choice?

It's in my policies that Granny and Grandad come to visit and that's what they're called so no, not a lie. I'm struggling to believe this new revelation of yours, though. How very convenient! I did wonder at what point you'd be making it, though.
We're perfectly capable of reading your posts, by the way, and we know what you said. We disagree with your opinion.

So, while we're laying all our cards on the table (drip-feeding!), let me tell you some of my background. I have 10 years CM experience. I have a degree in Early Years and I train and support CMs, too. I'm in regular contact with other childcare professionals including nannies, childminding support teams, early years experts, child development experts etc. I am related by marriage to an Early Years Lifetime Achievement award winner who has devoted her life to improving Early Years provision.
So, there you go. Just as knowledgeable as you claim to be. In actual fact, I'd say more knowledgeable because I'm doing the job professionally - yes I am professional in spite of your ill-informed opinion - rather than gleaning my opinion from apparently chatting to a couple of childminders during course breaks, probably whose children are older and have merely commented to you that they don't know how they'd have managed years ago. The fact is, they would have managed, as I have done and thousands of others like me.

Shall I tell you why you are unprofessional and why I'm struggling to believe you?

It's precisely because of this judgemental stance you have. It's not professional to come on here, lecturing and hectoring those who don't agree with you.

Working with our own children is perfectly manageable. There's nothing unprofessional at all about that except in your own prejudices. From the EYFS point of view, they're treated as minded children and included in our numbers. There's nothing in the EYFS that recommends we send our children elsewhere, no directive from OFSTED, no best practice recommendations, yet here you are, insisting that your personal opinion is the right one.
That is why you are unprofessional. Calling us silly does nothing to convince me of your professionalism, either.

I used the word serious career sarcastically as your post seemed to suggest that child minders found all the paperwork difficult.

I personally don't as it's part of the business along with doing expenses etc.

My career was district nursing but I despaired at the growing slap dash and uncaring attitudes creeping into nursing that made me give up.

As a cm it's my own business and it's brilliant to offer a great service to parents not wanting to use nurserys.

My children were older when I started 4 years ago do no I
Isn't certainly didn't do this to be at home with them

Anyway enough from me but I think you really need to re think your prejudices, if you are indeed training cms ,as people like you are toxic with their dogmatic and simplistic attitudes

Would you have no child care alternative for parents but nursery??? Many parents would argue with you on that.

You are so so wrong.

Just wanted to add a quick and totally un-MN ((((hug)))) and best wishes to theBody and her daughter.

Juice, please don't despair, lots of brilliant cms about who are professional but homely, caring and warm.

Thanks tanith and as always great post.

Do you think it confuses children when the parents employ a "nanny"

I apologise for playing catch up here, but could interviewMAD please reassure me you don't tell your trainee childcarers it's OK to iron with children around?! As a Full-time CM (+ full-time Mummy) I pay a lady £20 a week to do my ironing. No, not a stranger in my house before that is assumed - she takes it and brings it back the following day. Just to relieve me of a weekend job so I can give attention to my own DDs

body, so sorry to hear about your dd :( wishing speedy recovery

tanith - your parents aka dc's grand parents sound lovely and tbh the reason parents chose a cm is usually to reflect family life

Thanks blonds, was just thinking we needed your commen sense on this post and big paws I do the same.

Sorry mad just don't belive you are in early years training D you seem ( pardon me) so ignorant.

I don't really understand any of the aggro here and I think you are really desperately trying to misinterpret my points, thebody. You say I am "so so wrong" and Tanith, you say I am "unprofessional" because I have a view that if we are going to professionalise childminding, then we have to either go the whole hog and be honest about that or accept that childminding doesn't have to be dressed up as "professional" to be worthwhile.

My background, as I said, is child development. I don't personally agree with the overprofessionalisation of childcare, I think it is quite antifeminist and I think (as I said from my first post) that things were very different back in the day when women took in children to care for alongside their own without the current guidance/procedures/policies etc... when it was one member of the community caring for another child from the community and the whole thing wasn't based on portfolios and health and safety regs etc, when the mother childminding was someone whose kids would play out with yours, who you would see at Church on a Sunday etc and where the financial transaction was so much pin money but worked because of community cohesion.

There were downsides, of course, and I do understand why we have health and safety guidelines and women can't iron while they have paying customers in the home because of our risk averse, safety-crazy reality now but so much of it is nonsense..

Juule, you know what I'm saying if no one else seems to want to read it. My grandmother cared for two children in their home in Ireland when she was aged 60-70. She is 90 now and has attended their weddings/graduations etc. She did have a position in the home as a sort of surrogate Granny... but that is not what Ofsted wants.

I despair of planning sheets for activities like "puddle jumping" . I think that trying to turn human experiences into observable, measurable activities that can be ticked off against the woolly claptrap checklists of early childhood curricula is horrendous. Yet I see DF's point too, we are in a risk averse age and we want assurances of safety and policies etc.. but honestly, you CM's so outraged by what I am saying can't see the inherent lie/dehumanising effect of a situation that causes you to write:

• [our children are] treated as minded children and included in our numbers.
• It's in my policies that Granny and Grandad come to visit and that's what they're called so no, not a lie.

Policies. Children included "as numbers". Directives. What a load of nonsense. There is no real human truth to this. In the end of the day, it is a valid question to ask who would you save in a fire because it is not about a community of people of whom your children are a part, it's about business/expenses/paperwork. Commodification. It's really very sad. Particularly as so much of it is pants. The EYFS is a steaming pile of poo. How many of you have been graded down because of inadequate "baselines" on a tool that has limited scientific validity or even relationship to developmental theory? Why does a CM environment have to cover the same curriculum as a nursery?

Look at ALL my posts. I have said again and again that I don't think that childminding these days is really compatible with having your own children in the home because of these changes (which I really don't support, to be honest).

There is nothing unprofessional in thinking as someone with an interest in child development that the current situation is not really ideal, sorry.

Thebody, I am very sorry your dd is unwell and I too wish her a speedy recovery.

definitely not ignorant MAD, a very coherant post.

Tanith: We're perfectly capable of reading your posts, by the way, and we know what you said. We disagree with your opinion.

Which is? What is your opinion? Do you honestly think all this proceduralisation and professionalisation is worthwhile? If you come from a background of district nursing you will have seen the same happen in a different caring profession so I am surprised you don't get my point here.

U teach EYFS yet you think it's a 'steaming pile of poo'. You are a very strange person and I have never met anyone involved In teaching or lecturing who would say that.

All the cms I know don't and it appears to be just your personal opinion.

Noone is wilfully misinterpreting your posts they are just your opinion and we don't agree with you.

You havnt said anything earth shattering or complicated.

Tanith is obviously far more qualified and aware than you appear to be.

I think you have lied to try and justify your silly views.

No... I teach Child Development. That is NOT the same as the EYFS. I have a lot of experience with the EYFS though...

You have never met anyone involved in teaching or lecturing who would say that? The EYFS has had quite a bit of criticism, my dear. It's not just me who has issues with it or the commodification of childcare...

However, you are choosing not to engage with the core substance of what I am saying here and seem desperately to want for me to be saying something else.

Also, if the EYFS as it is currently is so wonderful, why did the government feel the need to seek consultation and revise statutory guidance, reducing the early learning goals from 69 to 17... perhaps the new EYFS will be more fit for purpose but we'll find out in September...