Dispute between Childminder and husband

splishsplash

I agree with everyone else, your OH was in the wrong and should have apologised sincerely by now.

However, your childminder sounds a bit rough, tbh. If she undertook to mind your children then it's very unfair of her to muck around with your hours in such a cavalier fashion, regardless of her arrangements with the other parents.

If my childminder had ever made it so clear to me that my children were playing second fiddle to others, they'd have been out of there like a shot.

Bad mistakes were made and the situation was badly handled all round. Tell your husband to apologise as common courtesy demands, then find yourself a new and improved childminder.

aliasojo

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Even to an outsider?

I would never not back my DH publicly. I have never had some one not back their OH in front of me. It is loyalty and I would always back him - although as I said not to his face he would receive an absolute roasting if I thought he had done something wrong.

To anyone.

It's misplaced loyalty.

elvis86

splishsplash wrote: »

However, your childminder sounds a bit rough, tbh. If she undertook to mind your children then it's very unfair of her to muck around with your hours in such a cavalier fashion, regardless of her arrangements with the other parents.

If my childminder had ever made it so clear to me that my children were playing second fiddle to others, they'd have been out of there like a shot.

Bad mistakes were made and the situation was badly handled all round. Tell your husband to apologise as common courtesy demands, then find yourself a new and improved childminder.

Another slight over-reaction, perhaps? It's not like the CM was proposing to shut the OP's children in a room with bread and water whilst she focused all of her attention on the other family's kids.:cool:

By the sounds of it, the other family, from whom she earns more money, needed her to make a change to accomodate their needs, and in the interests of sticking to the rules RE how many kids she could have in her care at the time (which is entirely the responsible thing to do), she asked the OP and her OH to accept a change to enable them to continue using her services.

Admittedly, the short notice wasn't helpful and has left the OP in a predicament and possibly having to find a new CM at short notice. But at the end of the day the woman is trying to make a living and probably couldn't afford to risk losing the other family's business. It wasn't some kind of statement of her disregard for the OP's children.

Errata

Surely the point is that the CM suggested a time change and the parents after due consideration chose to agree to it. Nobody was holding a gun to their head, and if buyer's remorse has now reared its head it's up to the parents to agree a different arrangment with the CM or find another one.

duchy

It's pretty common for chidminders who care for more than one family to approach parents about changes if their other clients want changes. After all the CM is earning their living and needs to accomadate everyone to optimize their earnings. Just like in any other business the client who makes the most money for the business is going to get preference -in this case the family who say uses the CM every day rather than one or two days a week the OP appears to have her for. Most childminders try to work it so everyone is happy .
Changes are pretty common as needs change as children grow-perhaps start nursery or parent's work patterns change or siblings need care too-often a CM willing to be flexible about changes is a big advantage

elvis86

Errata wrote: »

Surely the point is that the CM suggested a time change and the parents after due consideration chose to agree to it. Nobody was holding a gun to their head, and if buyer's remorse has now reared its head it's up to the parents to agree a different arrangment with the CM or find another one.

In fairness, it sounds like the new family informed the CM of their need for the change at short notice, meaning that she wasn't able to give the OP much time for "due consideration" of the proposed new arrangements. I've never tried, but I can't imagine it's easy to find a new CM at the drop of a hot. This of course doesn't excuse the husband's behaviour, but could go some way to explaining it. Everyone has such black and white views on this!

duchy

elvis86 wrote: »

Is it possible that the revised arrangements really don't work for OH, but due to OP's reluctance to disturb the children he feels that this kind of "protest" is the only way he can get her to consider finding a new CM? I know most posters feel that they know these people and their marriage inside out, and that the OP is bullied and intimidated by her abusive husband (:cool:), but it could be possible that he doesn't feel able to assert himself over this issue for fear of him appearing selfish by wanting to disrupt the children "to suit him", and would rather they were "forced" to find a new CM who can better accomodate their needs..? Admittedly, it's a p!ss poor way to go about things, but sometimes people have weird ideas about a means to an end! It's just an idea...

Sounds awfully manipulative behaviour to me-I got the impression that the OP's OH was a huff and puff when things don't go his way type rather than taking the sneaky approach.

I've been in the situation where a CM did change her availability to fit in with another family who gave her more business when the child had a sibling born. It's one of the trade offs of CM v Nursery -you are dealing with a "sole trader" rather than a group of employees and sometimes there isn't enough to go around-although -especially for a younger child it's still my preferred childcare option.

My husband could be a bit blinkered in his view of childcare too-but had he ever behaved like that(he was a panicker so could have kicked off like the Op's OH did ) I'd have made it very clear that 1 It was unacceptable behaviour and he needed to make amends pronto and 2 If he wanted me to work rather than stay home -he'd better never screw up like that again

newcook

pozalina wrote: »

No, children haven't been to CM since so oh says he's going to speak to her when he sees her on Tuesday (which will be a week since it all happened). I would have preferred if he had responded to the text she sent him about it - he did start to compose a reply but didn't send it. I asked him about this and he says he will say sorry when he sees her.

He should be going out of his way to apologise to her not waiting a week after its happened! and apologising by text is lame!

your OH needs to grow a pair and face this woman before 'normal business' resumes.

Pollycat

Errata wrote: »

Loyalty can often be misplaced. I wonder where patchwork cat would draw the line and not back their OH.

I agree with this totally.

If my OH had acted in the same way that Pozalina's had, I could never publicly back him in his actions.
If I had been there, I would have had to tell him that he was out of order & rude and should apologise immediately - I would say this in front of the child minder.
If I hadn't been there at the time, I would have told the child minder that I found his behaviour totally unacceptable and would be telling him so at the first opportunity.

Loyalty to your OH shouldn't mean condoning bullying and boorish behaviour.

aliasojo

duchy wrote: »

Sounds awfully manipulative behaviour to me-I got the impression that the OP's OH was a huff and puff when things don't go his way type rather than taking the sneaky approach

My impression also, simply from the OP's comments.

Sorry elvis but I don't think it's particularly helpful to start suggesting 'possibles' such as the one on your post. All it does is cloudy the waters.

The OP seems (to me) to come across as a pretty 'straight' poster, I can't help but feel if there were issues such as you suggest, then she would know about them and would have listed them as a mitigating factor, if you like.