Adventures In Babysitting

[filkertom]

Letting the neighbors' kids wait for the school bus in your house is illegal. Turns out it counts as running an unlicensed day care center.

The State of Michigan does seem to be on this one, and making moves in the direction of common sense and community spirit, but Oy frickin Gevalt. This whole thing started because some other neighbor lodged a complaint. I wonder what the hell that complaint said.

Most of us have taken care of, or at least extensively interacted with, kids at some point in our lives. How do you handle 'em? My nieces and nephews usually bombard me with whatever's cool that day, and I look at what they've got and ask questions and let 'em know I'm interested and paying attention. Sometimes it's a very quick thing, but my brother's oldest boy can go for a half-hour without taking a breath.

Comments

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

If that's the case, then certainly any time any minor is in your house without the parents, you're running an unlicensed day care. Going to friends houses, certainly sleepovers, etc.

[coat-of-brown.livejournal.com]

wow- that's nuts! Where does that put those of us who live in these "neighborhood watch" communities then?

my neighbors have a 14 year old daughter, two sons younger and a foster baby. When the daughter got frustrated one day with not being "heard" and usual teenage internal melodrama, she jumped on her bike and just left. Freaked her mother right out and my husband watched her other kids while I drove her around looking for the daughter. By the time all of this got arranged and we actually went looking for her, we found her on her way home. After a quiet talk with her (that followed the hysterical "Do you REALIZE what might have happened out there" freak out) we established that our house was a safe non-brother-filled place for the girl to head when her house got too much and she could come to me at any time and tell me anything in confidence. They never needed it, and moved when a job transfer came in, but I was happy to know I could provide a port in a storm for a young child.

Now I find out some nut case might come up with something stupid to file a complaint about such things! *sigh and head shake*

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Heh. Back in the day, I ran away from home for a few hours. Really, full-blown, running away from home. My mom was married to a fucking Hun, and he was destroying our family, and I didn't know what to do. Ended up going over to a friend's house, and she and her dad were incredible, and eventually my mom came over and we talked and I went back home that night but it was the beginning of the end for a lot of things and I still owe that friend for that night.

Except, according to this, her dad was running an unlicensed day care.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Well, not really unless you were there for a total of more than 4 weeks per year.

[jcbemis.livejournal.com]

I think HHS said if the parents were at home it was ok, but if they went to work, out to dinner, etc and it happened more than 30 days then it was unlicensed daycare. but still WTF

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Point. You're right, my bad. But if I'd ended up crashing on their couch for a month, it would've.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

This is the sort of thing that gives the gummint a bad name.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

That's just silly. I can't see this law being enforced in all cases. I don't interact much with children, but I wouldn't turn away one of the neighbor's kids if they needed a safe place to stay for a few hours. (But the first thing I'd do is make sure one or both parents know where their child is. I'm not going to open myself up to some nasty criminal charges.)

[pooh27bear.livejournal.com]

Does this make babysitting illegal then?

kid-trading is a wonderful custom

[capplor.livejournal.com]

We've got a good relation with a couple of the neighbors now. Short-notice, kid drop-in. Our place, their place, sometimes we swap a kid for a kid, so that 4 children can have some time away from their sisters. ("Good fences make good neighbors", but Robert Frost should have mentioned how occasional separations make REALLY good sisters).

At this point it's complete indifference whose house, but if one more person got a day-job, it could end up like that situation.

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

*rolls eyes* So the lovely older lady who lived across the street from me and would watch me until my parents got off work on base was doing something illegal? Several levels of 'dumb' apply here. Good-da-ness, with everything going on in this world, *this* is what people are freaking out about? 'But it's to protect the CHILDREN!' people yell. Well gee, then I wasn't 'protected' at all growing up. And you know what? It seems to have worked okay in the end.

And as for dealing with little ones...I let my roommate's 2 1/2 year old nephew put a laundry basket on my head before I chase him around on hands and knees. He seems to enjoy it, even if my knees don't. :-)

[jss]

Apparently, only if done for more than four months of the year.

Edited to fix typo.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Unless the parent is taking in money for the service, I don't see how it can be considered running any sort of business at all, be it day care or anything.

But turnabout is fair play. Surely a complaint about said neighbor having people over one night so he has to be running a crack house is in order...

[skunktaur.livejournal.com]

As a kid, I used to go play and spend afternoons at friends' places, and they would come do the same at my parents house... so after a while of doing that, it'd have been illegal?
I learned pretty much most of what I needed to learn and function as a proper person during those times. How to behave as a guest, how to behave as a host, how to share properly (as opposed to in school where you never wanted to share because there were only 3 cool toys and if you had them, you kept them).

As for dealing with children, I tend to steer clear from children if I can. However, I have a 13-year old sister (Me being 31) whom I helped raise and it pleases me to see that I managed to imprint a healthy curiosity and a love for reading books. She's doing well in school and rather has a new book to read for her birthday than money or videogames :D

[fair-witness.livejournal.com]

I'm the oldest of four and an experienced babysitter, so I tend to handle kids pretty well, for a non-parent. My old college roommate was impressed with how I managed to keep her toddler daughter distracted--uh, "occupied"--while the grown-ups were talking.

I'm wondering what the heck the neighbor was really complaining about, because just from the story you linked to, it sounds like there's something else going on there.

[capt-amos.livejournal.com]

While I did have an older lady take care of me when I was of school age, I think no one has commented on the other side of the coin.

There ARE some neighbors who have NO respect for the people who live around them. I have several.
These people INFLICT their dogs and children upon everyone around them with NO regard for their neighbors.
They release the multiple hounds at 5:45 AM while it is pitch black outside and allow them to bark outside for an hour straight. The other side has multiple children who are outside screaming at 6 AM.

I have never called the cops because I know they will not do anything to actually stop it.
However, when I heard this story, I did picture 10 kids outside someones house at dark 30 in the morning screaming while waiting for the bus.
I think it could warrant a complaint.
Just stating the other side of the coin, I don't really think it should be against the law. :-)

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

This is just one of the reasons why I think that if we didn't have social workers . . . we would probably all be a lot better off.

[mtgat]

Overhyped.

From the article, it sounds like the neighbor saw the kids at her house and thought she was watching them all day. Possibly they were being noisy and disruptive; show me a group of kids who isn't at some point. Complaint got bounced and the standard "No unlicensed daycares" letter was sent. Since she wasn't receiving money for it, the whole thing should have ended there. It would have been best had the neighbor just knocked on the door and talked it over in the first place.

In Illinois, the law is that you can't watch more than three kids (including your own) for money without a license. So if I've got my two kids home for the summer, and I watch the girl two doors down, that's okay, but I can't watch the sisters who live across the street as well without potentially running into trouble. People do it anyway. When we were looking for childcare for the kids, we checked out licensed and unlicensed home daycares. There was a huge difference, at least in the ones we saw. We went with a licensed in-home provider, even though she was more expensive, because she didn't have cigarette burns in the couch, exposed insulation in what passed for the playroom, unfastened babygates just kind of resting against the stairs, or tell us flat out that the main activity would be watching TV. (I am not making this up. We left the diaper bag by accident at the cigarette/insulation/babygate house after our walkthrough and we seriously considered not going back for it.)

So there are commonsense features built into the laws, but these are laws designed to protect kids first. Stories like this are going to circulate much faster than "Actual unlicensed daycare shut down for code violations" or "Licensed daycare asked to put in fire ladder."

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Maybe sanity will prevail. There has been no court ruling that this counts as "Day Care". There hasn't even been an administrative agency ruling. There has only been a cease and desist letter from a bureaucrat who sent it having only heard the complaint's side of the story, which may have been inaccurate. Maybe the bureaucrat was falsely told that the neighbor was getting paid, or had the children of people who weren't her known neighbors or something. That letter may have already been overruled by the director.

If Michigan is anything like my home planet, if the neighbor keeps letting the kids wait for the bus at her place, and the agency takes further action, she has a right to an administrative hearing, and if that doesn't work, to judicial review. The fact that she's doing it for free for families she knows ought to exempt it from day-care licensing requirements.

And apparently they're changing the regulations, if necessary, to remove all doubt.

[lizziecrowe.livejournal.com]

Being the second eldest of 20 cousins, a good 15 of which are boys, I too have been bombarded in my time. it's actually neat to be a part of their lives, and watch their ideas and stances as well as tastes change as they grow. Being a part of that change and questioning them in order to deepen their understanding of themselves and let them codify their ideas into something new is an amazing feeling. And the greatest thing is still at the end of the day eating junk food and playing video games, as we always have.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

They're needed sometimes...and they're a mixed bag.

Most social workers in my area are there because that's what was available when they were looking for work. Several others have an agenda for good or ill, whether it's to protect children or to enforce Christian family values or to keep families together at all costs. It's the ones that put everything through their strong bias filters who are the scariest. I've seen children made safe and protected due to needed intervention, I've seen families in need receive meaningful help, and I've also seen kids and families destroyed by busybodies, and neglected when something should have been done. Are you feeling lucky?

[jenrose]

So the summer my best friend and I were staying at each other's houses every single day for 3 months would have meant our mothers were running daycares? Holy crap.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

I don't spend much time around a lot of kids. My 4-year old nephew is a hoot, and some friends have a 2 year old who I suspect will be a handful. I pay attention, play with them and don't talk down to them.

People are paranoid these days when it comes to children. I remember when I was maybe 6 I was playing at a creek with a friend. I fell into a big ant pile and was covered with them. We ran to the nearest house and rang the doorbell. The lady who answered took one look at me, yanked me inside, tossed me in the tub, pulled off my clothes and ran the shower on me. These days somebody would call her a pervert. O_O

The other end of that is an old friend of mine who (many years ago) was renting a room in a house owned by a family who were friends of his. Turned out the dad was molesting the daughter in that household. He knew nothing about it and was never a suspect. He was just questioned in relation to it. It still changed how some people treated him. To this day he refuses to be left alone with a minor.

[wingus.livejournal.com]

Huh.

Never actually done babysitting, but I've done substitute teaching for some of the younger grades. That can be a handful at times. (Lovely first-day exeperience - drive halfway across the neighboring county to fill in for a second-grade teacher the day after I turned in my application. That was a major learning experience!)

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I've got a general routine for my kids -- when we're expecting to do what -- and I'll chivvy them toward the necessities more or less on time, because there's a reason for that. But in between I handle 'em pretty much the way you described. They bounce all over me telling me the stuff that interests them right then, asking questions, saying, "Look at this!!" and my job is to grin (which is easy) and answer the questions and applaud whatever they're showing me they can do, and exclaim over the artwork, and listen with attentive interest to whatever they're telling me they saw today from the car, and let their interests carry the moment. And give them lots of hugs and silliness, to let them know that I love them, and that love and silliness are good.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I suspect from the reaction of the public officials who have found out about it, that if this one gets as far as court, the complaint will get thrown out rapidly. It may get thrown out at the bureaucratic level now that it's been noticed.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Except babysitting is usually done at the parents' house while the parents are away. It's only arguably day-care if kids are dropped off someplace else.

also, hopefully there's something distinguishing looking after kids from all one family vs. kids from several families.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Yep, my niece talks a lot too :D

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

How do I deal with kids?

Depends on the kid.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

As a social worker, I'd like to take you along the next time I go take pictures of children's spiral fractured arms and black eyes and genital warts.


Or the next time I go remove an elderly person from a home where they have been left to rot (literally) until they have bedsores which reveal muscle tissue/bone.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

This means my best friend and I though are running unliscensed day care. We regularily help each other with the children, so we can do things like have a sanity break, shop, or such.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

Yes, there ARE good social workers... There are also bad ones. And you have to investigate even the spite claims, like when someone called SRS and said I had drug needles and pop bottle caps around the baby. (All charges were cleared, I got a very nice letter) But for the innocent, it comes off as harassment by the government when that happens.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

You get paid for watching your own kids?

[mtgat]

You are considered paid for it, for the purposes of counting noses. The difference is, if you have five kids of your own, watching them does not constitute a daycare, but watching them plus one that isn't yours for pay does. At least, that's how our daycare providers explained it.

It's a safety thing and, believe it or not, a sensible thing. They're not going to step in to a family situation unless there's a complaint/notification. When someone else's children are involved, the rules are stickier. No one wants to overburden the occasional babysitters or the grandma/pa taking care of the kids while Mom and Dad are working. At the same time, it is in the state's interests to set minimum standards for childcare because children who are mistreated or neglected often (note qualifier) grow up to need more services as teens and adults. Since the act of taking payment for childcare makes it commerce, the state can do that.

[violinsontv.livejournal.com]

"It would have been best had the neighbor just knocked on the door and talked it over in the first place."

Bing bing bing bingety bing!!!!! We have a winnah!!!!!

The crux of the problem to my mind is that a lot of people don't seem to know how to be a neighbor any more. It's a skill, like any other. But a lot of us have become so suspicious of anyone outside our increasingly narrow social comfort zones that it actually is easier for some people to Get The Authorities Involved than go knock on someone's door (with or without strategic plate of cookies) and ask what's going on or can't those pesky kids pipe down.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

It's the busybodies that bother me the most. The ones who always think that they know what's best, not those silly parents. I just get the impression that there are far too many of them in the system; enough to make me think that if Child Services (or whatever it might be called) gets involved, you would have a better chance playing Russian roulette with five bullets in the cylinder.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

No offense, but the overwhelming impression I get is that most social workers have the mindset of "you're guilty until proven innocent, and even then you're still guilty." And I would like to know what checks and balances are in place to prevent anh abuse of power on their part.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

My offense doesn't come from the statement that there are some bad social workers. There are. Just like there are some bad police/politicians/teachers/whathaveyou.

My offense comes from hearing people say that people would be "better off" without our doing what we do, when the majority of us spend our days trying to protect helpless people from those who abuse them physically, mentally, sexually, spiritually, and fiscally.

There ARE cases of social workers doing The Wrong Thing for The Wrong reason. Absolutely.

But to say that the whole group is useless because of that?

We make mistakes, but we also help the weakest of the weak leave situations you can't begin to imagine.

If you don't like the way social workers do things, become one and do it the "right way."

[lariss.livejournal.com]

With regards to checks and balances, there are many, but most of them are ill-conceived and ill-used.

[smittythesmith.livejournal.com]

Well on the good side, it looks like this is in the process of being fixed.

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

my brother's oldest boy can go for a half-hour without taking a breath.

We should introduce he and Sammy, just to see who passes out from oxygen deprivation first. *grin*

[smparadox.livejournal.com]

According to the report I heard on the radio, it had to do with the fact that they were there for an hour three or more days per week. Basically, it is simply a situation that was not anticipated when the law's definition was written. But that is pretty typical of laws in general - situations like this only reaffirm my belief that anarchism is superior to legalism...