Do you ever watch your neighbor's children as a favor? You might be breaking the law.

[DizBelle]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090929/ap_on_re_us/us_baby_sitter_backlash_mich

Sheesh! Try to do something nice....

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

Too much frickin' government.

 

[Kim&Chris]

Too much frickin' government.

Agreed.

 

[disney junky]

plus nosy neighbors.

 

[KAMKIM]

They are trying to change the law which tells me a law was written without taking EVERYTHING into consideration and now it is being ammended for situations like this.

My issue is with the neighbor that called in the first place.

 

[minniebeth]

I couldn't believe this when I saw it in the newspaper today...
Isn't there bigger fish to fry in the world? GMAB!

 

[Heidict]

OMG, you have got to be kidding me. The state is that perfect that this is all they have to do now? Harass people helping out their neighbors?

Bet the person who "reported" her is getting a bit nervous, considering this is making national news. If she wasn't already the most unpopular one on the block, I bet she will be now, once everyone finds out it was her.

 

[cats mom]

My issue is with the neighbor that called in the first place.

I caught a little bit of an interview this morning and the mom who is watching the kids said the letter she got from the state was dated 2 days after the school year started.

Whoever ratted them out must have made the phone call the 1st day of school, if not before.

My guess: someone whose child was not invited to participate in the pre-bus bonding/childcare.

 

[WaltD4Me]

Too much frickin' government.

Ridiculous.

I wonder if they know who the nosy meddling neighbor is?

 

[magicgirl]

We have just had the samething here in the UK. Two policewomen job share and look after each others child when they are working. A neighbour has reported them and now they have been told they must apply to become official child careres in order to continue.

Whilst i appreciate that children need safeguarding common sense when applying some laws has gone completely out of the window.

 

[Becky2005]

I caught a little bit of an interview this morning and the mom who is watching the kids said the letter she got from the state was dated 2 days after the school year started.

Whoever ratted them out must have made the phone call the 1st day of school, if not before.

My guess: someone whose child was not invited to participate in the pre-bus bonding/childcare.

Another thought I read was someone who is a licensed babysitter mad because they weren't getting $$$ from those kids.

It was also someone who obviously knew the law.

I'm betting that a TON of people had no idea this was even a law there. I would never in a million years think we had something on the books that wouldn't allow what was happening to happen here. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist but I don't know every little law on the books & I'm sure this has happened a million times before in lots of houses throughout all the schools. I bet none of them had a clue they were breaking the law.

My guess is this wasn't a really heavy advertised law like some of the ones that go into affect Jan. 1 here are (when they changed the car seat age, when they required lights to be on in the rain no matter what time of day, etc...).

 

[Boxley]

You mean all those times I took care of other peoples' kids I was breaking the law? If I got in trouble as much as she did I would be a hardened criminal. I can imagine the cops coming to my house "Come out with your hands up!"
"But I am changing a diaper!"
"Umm....we'll give you five minutes."

Seriously nosy neighbor

 

[barkley]

I caught a little bit of an interview this morning and the mom who is watching the kids said the letter she got from the state was dated 2 days after the school year started.

Whoever ratted them out must have made the phone call the 1st day of school, if not before.

My guess: someone whose child was not invited to participate in the pre-bus bonding/childcare.

it does'nt say that the kids are close (geographical) neighbors so if the moms of those kids drop them off in cars it could have been one of the neigbors who got ticked off about additional cars coming on the street each morning. that was one of the biggest complaints some of my neighbors had about a legal family home daycare on our block.

might have also been an issue with another parent if those kids were'nt normaly assigned to that bus stop and were being allowed to use it for convenience sake while someone elses request to do so was denied, or (if it's like some of the bus stops around us) the loss of those kids to another bus stop eliminated the bus stop someone elses kid could have used near their own home (one of our districts requires a minimum number of students be using a bus stop otherwise they eliminate it and you have to get your kid to the next one on the route-can be such it eliminates the possibility for them to walk to the stop).

this is such an obscure law that i suspect whoever complained was'nt doing it for what the woman was cited for-maybe he/she called to see if there was a lic. daycare there (or zoning permitted it in the first place), maybe it was an issue with traffic or the bus, then when the situation got looked at someone in dshs had the requirement to put them on notice.

 

[DWGal210]

First of all, that neighbor clearly has too much time on his/her hands if they are calling the police on someone who is watching kids out of the goodness of her heart. I agree with a PP - I hadn't thought about that, but I bet you're right, it's a person that provides paid day care and is upset.

Why there is anything wrong with friend helping friend, neighbor helping neighbor is beyond me. Especially in these economic times, I am sure that these moms are delighted that a friend will keep their children safe before and after school. Day care is expensive, and also - most daycares won't take a child over a certain age. So if they fall into that category of too old for daycare, but not old enough to be at home by themselves for an hour or more, what is a parent supposed to do?!

And even though I don't have kids yet, I know for a fact that I have taken care of non-related children for a time period of greater than 4 weeks. I live in Iowa, so I'm not sure of the law in these parts, but I am going to investigate. Also, if I was a stay-at-home mom and knew that I had friends who were in a bind, I would watch their kids during the day, no prob, and not ask them for payment either. So would this have me in violation of the law?

It's a sad day when people can no longer do nice things for each other without worrying they are breaking some sort of inane law.

 

[Mickeypooh99]

This makes me so mad. This was in our local paper on Saturday. It happens to be in my town, and those kids go to the same school as my kids do. I did know about the law because I happen to be a licensed daycare provider. The law says she can't watch those unrelated children for any length of time regularly. Not even 5 minutes per day.

I wonder if this is already effecting our bus system. My kids got of the bus on Monday and said their route was changed and they have to be up there 5 minutes earlier everyday. We mostly have group stops where the kids walk to the neighbors to wait. Usually only 1 parent watches the kids while they wait. So I guess all those group stops are breaking the law.

I'm going to look into this and see if I can find out who the lady was that did the reporting. Just because I'm nosy!

 

[barkley]

This makes me so mad. This was in our local paper on Saturday. It happens to be in my town, and those kids go to the same school as my kids do. I did know about the law because I happen to be a licensed daycare provider. The law says she can't watch those unrelated children for any length of time regularly. Not even 5 minutes per day.

I wonder if this is already effecting our bus system. My kids got of the bus on Monday and said their route was changed and they have to be up there 5 minutes earlier everyday. We mostly have group stops where the kids walk to the neighbors to wait. Usually only 1 parent watches the kids while they wait. So I guess all those group stops are breaking the law.

I'm going to look into this and see if I can find out who the lady was that did the reporting. Just because I'm nosy!

curious-does your transportation department for the schools require the parents for kids under a certain age to fill out paperwork each school year saying who they designate as the authorized adult to leave the child with at the bus stop?

reason i ask is we have to fill one out-if the kid is under a certain age they have to have an adult drop off/pick them up at the bus stop, and we have to list their names. some of us list neighbors as authorized pick up people in case of an emergency. if that's the case, then the group bus stops might be legal as far as the bus rules go-but not as far as the current social services rules go (but i think a person could argue that if they are watching the kids on the public sidewalk vs. inside their home they are not in violation).


just for the heck of it i looked up my state's laws on this issue-they address this specificaly and it is spelled out that parents in this kind of arrangement are exempted from c/c licensing for the purpose of exactly the kind of arrangement these families had.

 

[look1angel]

I ran an in home registered day care in my home for 17 years & had to have every child documented whether they were here for 5 mins or 5 hours.

In the state of GA if you are caring for more than 2 paying children you need to reg with the state. As long as I accepted payment it was a business & you had to comply with the state law.

This poor woman was doing a neighborly thing & should NOT be punished. I gather the one who reported her was either left out of the loop or maybe didn't care for the noise coming from her backyard. And let me tell you, I was very grateful for my neighbors because kids can certainly make some noise!

 

[Mickeypooh99]

curious-does your transportation department for the schools require the parents for kids under a certain age to fill out paperwork each school year saying who they designate as the authorized adult to leave the child with at the bus stop?

reason i ask is we have to fill one out-if the kid is under a certain age they have to have an adult drop off/pick them up at the bus stop, and we have to list their names. some of us list neighbors as authorized pick up people in case of an emergency. if that's the case, then the group bus stops might be legal as far as the bus rules go-but not as far as the current social services rules go (but i think a person could argue that if they are watching the kids on the public sidewalk vs. inside their home they are not in violation).


just for the heck of it i looked up my state's laws on this issue-they address this specificaly and it is spelled out that parents in this kind of arrangement are exempted from c/c licensing for the purpose of exactly the kind of arrangement these families had.

There is no form to be filled out for the transportation dept. They assign the stops based on your home address or your child's daycare address. We only fill out a form for the school itself with authorized pick up people in case of an emergency. My house is a designated stop. Sometimes I have kids getting on the bus here who don't even live in our district. If the parents choose to send them to our school they are directed to the closest group stop to their home.

Our kids are not allowed to ride any bus other than the one they are assigned to. As for sidewalks most houses around here don't have them. We are very rural. So the kids would probably be on the property of the home owner.

You should see the comments facebook. Our community is not happy with the neighbor.

 

[merryweather20]

I tend to think EVERYONE in the state of Michigan would be breaking the law then. 4 weeks is what 20 business days? I absolutely had friends over 20 days each year.

 

[luvsJack]

That law is not good and should be changed or tweaked a bit to make it clearer and so that it doesn't include friends keeping the children of other friends.

The law should have a minimum number of children that can be cared for without a license. Here it is 5 that are not related to the caregiver. I guess they were trying to accomplish the same thing with the limit being on the number of weeks.

These laws are in place to protect children in child care. It keeps people from having way more kids than they can possibly supervise safely and from people keeping children in unsafe environments. If the person was running an illegal childcare center then it would have been a good thing that the neighbor called. The law just reads badly and includes situations like this one when it should not.