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Childcare other than Daycare and Preschool
Reply to "Neighbors/friends taking advantage of us/our nannies"
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Since summer time we have had two after school nannies (really grad students), each working two afternoons a week and occasional mornings when my husband is out of town. On top of this, we have another morning person that we frequently use. We worked really hard to find these nannies, do back ground checks, have trial runs. We adore them and they've been great with us. I work upwards of 60 to 80 hour weeks with a schedule that is not flexible and I have no chance of reducing those hours in the next two years. Issue is, we have some friends that live practically next door, our back yards are connected and our kids are about the same age. They have no additional child care - mind you, not because they can't afford it, but because they think one of their kids won't do well with a "new" person in their life. Their kids have come over so often, or they've invited our nannies and kids over there so often that they think their kids will only do well with our nannies. Obviously, this is stupid. Our nannies were strangers to all of us before we vetted them. I'm most uncomfortable with the idea that they are using our nannies as supplemental child care. Both sets of kids in the last month or so have set an expectation that they will all play together every afternoon. This makes it hard on our nannies to say no as the older kids literally just run out the door and show up at one another's homes, and I can tell that they often feel forced to go there. At other times, the other family sends their kids to our house. I dislike this, they are not paying our nannies and I am pretty sure they're not watching their own kids when our kids/nanny are at their house. Also, they've gotten our nannies numbers and have started texting them trying to set up regular child care for themselves. I feel as if they're trying to "steal" these people in a way and I cannot understand why they can't just go find their own caregivers. It's particularly hard because we've been very good friends with this family for about 5 years, spending most afternoons with them and helping each other out. We love their family and we love their kids, but I'm feeling very taken advantage of at this point. We've told one of our nannies that the visits need to be cut down, and I"m in the process of signing my kids up for classes (for most of the fall about half of their afternoons were full, which helped avoid some of this mess), but it is just very upsetting to me. The other family has agreed to contact us before trying to hire one of these nannies after my husband got really pissed that one of the morning we needed them they claimed they were busy b/c of this other family. I have mixed feelings about this because i know these women need money, but one of the reasons we pay them pretty well is that we understand at times, particularly in the morning, we expect some flexibility since my husband travels so much. Note that we have no other help other than the people we find and hire to help us. We have no family. We've worked really hard to develop friendships in this area and during my maternity leave I even helped out tons of friends with their kids, in particular these neighbors, because I truly believe it takes a village. But I am incredibly upset that these people we considered friends and people whose children I helped with so much are taking advantage of us.. I'm not sure how to approach this. All of our nannies are heading away for the holidays, and when they get back I want a plan. At this point I'm thinking classes at least one day, maybe two days a week. I already told them that I'm limiting our kids going there to one day a week and their kids coming here one day a week. That being said, I was shocked when I found out that they were sending their kids here with no supervision on their part. And I'm pissed b/c I feel like 4 kids to one grad school nanny is too much. Anyways, sorry I've written so much, but would love some honest opinions on how to proceed. [/quote] Real friends would not be taking advantage of you or trying to steal your nannies. So I would cut the play dates to maybe once a week and alternate - your kids come to my house (with their adult), my kids come to your house (with their adult). I would absolutely say no to picking up from school even if they split nanny's bill. It's obvious you don't want to share nannies so they need to find their own.[/quote]
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