Vent

Am I wrong or right?

I paid day care $700/month to take care of my son. If I was sick, I still brought him to day care and then went home and slept. I mean I pay them anyway...

So now my mom is watching my son for $700/month - same thing.. She went to Florida for 3 days and left me with no sitter and I still had to pay her for the month.. Then I had a week off of school and I watched them but she was still getting paid.. Now today I took my first sick day!! So I go to give her the kids today and she goes oh - you took off of work today.. Good then I can go back to sleep!

***!! In a regular day care I pay $700/month always.. no matter what.. so I drop them off when Im sick! Now Im sick and I have to stay home with the baby drop Gabe off at school etc.. Shes sleeping and still getting paid!!!??

Am I wrong here b/c I am very upset.. She said she was going back to sleep and just kept walking when I was trying to speak with her!!

I am so angry!!

I would divide $700 by the total number of days in the month to see how much it comes out to per day. I would then subtract those days from the $700 when I went to pay her at the end of the month and explain it was for the days that you watched your kids.

I would be mad too. She is taking advantage of the fact that you are her daughter, and I almost feel like she is scamming that money out of you.

Pay her by day.

Is she the one that wanted your new travel system too?

Yup, I would def start a new system where you pay her by day. I wouldn't do it for the days that have already past tho since the monthly rate is what was agreed upon and you don't want to start something with your mom.

Either that or just bring them to a regualr day care!

Okay... you may not like my answer .. but here goes.

I think you should not have your mom watch the kids unless she is a last resort. I think you should arrange for daycare or another sitter or something.

She is not giving you any kind of real break financially if you are able to secure another sitter for the same $$. And she IS taking advantage of you. It may wind up ruining your relationship with her and potentially damaging her relationship with the kids.

My mom watched both my boys for me when they were younger. There were 2 main reasons I had her do it - the first reason was that she didn't charge me. The second reason was that I thought it would help her grow and stay closer with the kids. But she really pushed me to the limit sometimes when she was watching them. I couldn't say a word when she was late - but if I got caught in traffic on the way home? There was HOLY HELL to pay! She would leave me high and dry if she got pissed off at me and she gave them inappropriate foods when I asked her not to. It was creating a lot of friction in our relationship. We ultimately were able to work through it - but not without a hella lot of stress and aggravation. If I had it to do over again, I probably would have hired someone to watch the children and let her do it on days that the daycare couldn't.

In any event... If you determine to keep your mom as the primary babysitter, I would suggest that you sit down with her and establish some ground rules. Let her know that if you are going to pay her daycare rates, she must be available daycare hours. If she would prefer not to have them when you are sick or whatever - then she should be able to either accept a per diem pay - or take a cut in her monthly pay.