Childcare these days is incredibly expensive and often unavailable. But that doesn't mean her parents can shift the burden onto others, as one mother did with her son's boxing instructor.
The mother used her son's boxing instructor to take advantage of free childcare.
An anonymous man took to Reddit to share his experience and ask for advice on how to proceed.
“I teach boxing in my spare time. I teach boxing to kids one day a week,” he explained. “I have a mom who is starting to feel like this class is taking advantage of her. She is picking up her child later and later after sessions.”
The instructor explained the woman's situation and explained that she was not in dire need of the free child care she was struggling with.
“For context, this is a wealthy woman,” he wrote. “She doesn't work outside the home. She's a housewife. She doesn't have any other children. She told me this because she was already late and… Because her favorite thing to do is to have really long conversations with me.”
After being late all month of March, the instructor began tracking how late the mother was picking up her son.
“I made her see the timer and warned her what was coming. [sic] Please remove her child from my class. ” he said. “She tried to derail her conversation, so I raised her timer and turned it back on. She said I was being 'unreasonably rude.'”
The instructor had a good plan, but unfortunately it backfired. “She reported our conversation to my boss, but she distorted it,” he said. “She said I threatened to remove her child from the program.”
The man revealed that the woman's report was not completely accurate, but he still answered the phone in the end. “My boss still lectured me that I don't have that kind of power and that I can't make statements like I do. He's trying to improve his professionalism and how this mother-in-law may have other situations going on.” I told him how harsh I was on him.”
Reddit commenters were completely on the man's side.
The overwhelming majority of Reddit users agreed with the instructor, claiming he was entitled to fair treatment and compensation.
One person suggested, “Call your boss whenever he's going to be late.” “And I’ll call you back every five times.” [minutes] Just to let them know she's not there yet. ”
Another person wrote: “If you're babysitting a child for an hour after hours, you should be charged with wage theft.”
A third user asked, “Why doesn't your program have some kind of contract for this?” That's something you have to tell your boss. ”
Charging parents for late pick-ups is an effective way to avoid that.
Penn State says it's a good idea to charge extra fees if your child stays in the program later than scheduled.
“One way to ensure parents show up on time is to charge them extra for late pick-ups,” they said. “If parents know they will have to pay extra for being late, they won't stop at the store or run an errand before picking up their child. They want to arrive on time. Sho.”
Yes, what this man is going through is incredibly unfair. He should not expect to see the child after school hours are over. In this situation, charging a fee for late pickup seems like a good option.
In the update, the man revealed that he had actually gone to his boss and requested such a policy.
Unfortunately, it didn't go as he expected. ”[My boss] I tried to trivialize the situation and kept making it seem like I was in the wrong. He said I was greedy,” he wrote in a second post on Reddit.
“Having the right policies in place not only protects our staff, it protects our children. [expletive] “It's business,” the boxing instructor continued, “and after I clarified my point of view (in an almost professional manner), he changed his mind a bit.”
Her boss refused to refund her salary for the extra hours she worked while waiting for her child's parents, but agreed to implement a late fee policy going forward. Thankfully, that seems to have helped, as the mother hasn't yet. It's been late since then.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango, covering entertainment, news and relationships topics.