Caring for My Child

I recently hired a 17-year-old babysitter, but when I came home, I found that she’d switched with her 12-year-old sister! I was very perturbed and didn’t want to pay her. It was irresponsible and not what I hired. Am I correct?

You’re correct to be perturbed since this isn’t who you thought you were hiring. But most probably what happened was that the 17-year-old needed to cancel at the last minute and asked (or pressured) her 12-year-old sister — whom she trusted — to bail her out. She likely rationalized that she was acting responsibly and doing you a big favor, and therefore you should pay the 12-year-old the going rate of what a 12-year-old makes in your neighborhood for babysitting.

I’m a morah with a playgroup in my house. There’s one girl who is simply not working out and causing disruption to the other kids in the group. Am I allowed to ask her parents to remove her in the middle of the year?

Certainly, if that girl is disrupting the rest of the kids of the group, you have a right (and a responsibility to the other parents) to inform the girl’s parents that this is just simply not working out for you (and her), and that they’ll have to find another playgroup for her. Obviously, this holds true only if you tried everything possible to make the child as content as possible, and you have run out of ideas as to how to alleviate the situation. You will also need to refund them any money if they prepaid in advance for the entire year.

I had a playgroup morah last year who I didn’t find satisfactory. Crucial elements like punctuality, cleanliness, and discipline all fell below my standards. At the beginning of this year, someone called and asked information about her. Would sharing my experiences be permitted?

Assuming that the person asking for information is doing so because she is interested in sending her child to this playgroup, you’re obligated to tell her of your opinion and share the facts of this playgroup to your best knowledge. But you must stress to her that this is your personal opinion due to the high standards that you expected to see in the playgroup. Other people may have a different level of expectations and might consider other factors as more crucial than the ones you have mentioned, and would be perfectly satisfied with this playgroup.

My baby’s playgroup morah is very relaxed about allowing kids with colds or even mild fever to attend playgroup. (I didn’t know this before signing up.) Shouldn’t it be required of her to ask all the mothers in the group how they feel about this without her deciding on her own? 

This is her playgroup and she sets the policy based on her business model and past experiences. It’s the responsibility of the parents to ask (before registration) any questions that they may have about the playgroup’s policies, and only then to make a decision whether or not they wish to send their child to this type of playgroup.