Really uncomfortable with CMs slating Mums in front of their mindees...

[thearistocat]

So I am a fairly new CM (few months in - love it!!) My DS is fairly grown up now but I went back to work when he was just a few weeks old and worked full time most of his childhood so I have every sympathy and respect for busy working Mums. Maybe that's why i feel the way I did today...

At the local CM playgroup the children were all milling about and the conversations started as one CM said that a mother had asked if she would start having her children from 7.30am instead of 8am. Someone said "what time to you have them until and the CM said 6pm... cue lots of tutting and huffing and someone commenting that she doesn't understand why some people bother having kids! The child that she minds was stood right next to her and about 2 and a half so old enough to take this stuff in. Then someone else chipped in "Well how about this... Mum didn't even bother to send a coat for him today!! poor little mite, I noticed that she had a coat on herself though!!" again, with the child right next to her.

It made my blood run cold. Is this normal chat at these places or have I found myself a dodgy one? I am 99.9% sure that this didn't happen around my daughter as my childminder was an absolute angel. But I did feel pretty sad - for the Mums and the kids. I mean, who hasn't left the house without their child's coat once in thir life?!?! I didn't speak up as I'm the new girl but I think I will if it happens next week.

It put a little dark cloud over something that I have been really enjoying

I'm a new childminder too (also really enjoying it!) and haven't been to any CM groups yet. I used to work in a playgroup and this kind of talk was very prevalent, it used to really depress me. All kinds of normal toddler behaviour by the kids (none of them over 3 years of age) was picked apart by staff and put down to some kind of parental failure - kids crying when they were dropped off? Obviously their parents have made them too dependent on them and not allowed anyone else to look after them. Kids coming in happily without a backwards glance at their parents? Clearly they don't have a proper bond with their parents who must ignore them at home. Normal 2 year old tantrums always = spoilt by parents. Quiet children were too quiet and the causes of this were always speculated on negatively, confident children were too loud or cocky and the causes of this were also speculated on negatively.

Argh, I hated it!! Best thing about being a childminder though is at least we CAN choose to avoid these kind of people...

I don't go to our cm group, it's a horrible group of people who made me feel bullied just because a child moved to me. I would much rather go to our nice school tots group where the children enjoy going and aren't in that horrible environment.

it is call a staff room..

how do you think get to know about the bad payers and kids that cause trouble

awful, horrid and unprofessional

shame on them

you don't have to go to the group, find somewhere else to go, do your networking at best practice sessions

bad payers is one thing

kids that cause trouble? that's not very nice

slagging off children and their parents (bet no one slates the fathers though, eh?) is pretty grim

"and kids that cause trouble"

We're talking pre-schoolers here, right?

oh Lynette sometimes these threads are great for eye-opening

Well, I've been warned that 2 of my customers are bad payers. They haven't been at all. I rather suspect that their side of the story would have been very different. I'd take that kind of talk with a pinch of salt.

My child (2 and a wee bit) is with a CM in her home and has been since he was 1. He adores her, she is part of the family to me. I am confident that if she had an issue with something that we were doing she would call and we would talk about it in a calm and professional manner. As far as I am concerned she is co-parenting my baby and I am lucky to have her and respect her views. She makes my life liveable and I would be devastated if I heard that she was not respecting me in the same way.

I used to go to two different toddler groups.

One had CMs like the ones mentioned in the OP. One day I was sat next to a CM as we watched a crying baby being passed from CM to CM. The woman next to me (a CM herself) said "I would never leave my child with a CM. The other group I went to had really lovely CMs and I could never tell who was a granny, who was a mum and who was a CM.

What I did notice sometimes was that some people thought it totally acceptable to be uncomplimentary about what a child was dressed in to the CM.(Usually when the child had some expensive designer dress on) A six month old baby may not be able to understand words, but can understand tone. Hurtful to the CM, and plain rude behind parents backs, whether you know them or not.

That was my first thought - About the fathers!! I wanted to ask her why her DH bothered having children if he was just going to go out to work every day!

I was warned about two of 'the kids that cause trouble' and they have now been with me for almost 2 years .

Our local toddler group is mostly made up of cms and I feel I am definitely not part of their clique. I haven't been since about June because I find it all a bit tedious and would rather play with my mindees at home than be made to feel odd because I interact with my mindees at the group.

The things you heard at your group are similar to the conversations that go on at my local toddlers which is another reason why I don't go anymore.

I would find it very difficult to continue in this job if I lived my week the way a lot of these cms do ie. toddlers 4 mornings a week, softplay the 5th morning. I like to follow a routine but I can't be doing the same thing everyday...surely everyone gets bored pretty quickly.

I'm lucky to have a good friend who registered around the same time as me. There are also a couple of other cms who I sometimes meet at softplay who are lovely.

Are there other groups you could try?

Sounds like you need to find another group ... however ... if you say something, you might find a new friend, who agrees with you.