Should I pay the babysitter for not giving her a notice?

Question

In the beginning, I signed a paper that said I agreed to pay a fee if I didn't give her a 2 week notice. She assured me that the kids would have lots of outside play time (my kids are 4, 5 & 10 mos). She even gave me a schedule of their day. After day one the 4 & 5 yr olds were complaining that she wasn't nice and they didn't want to go back. The fifth and final day they came home and was upset as they had been the other four days. One day they said she didn't let them have lunch. She also agreed in the contract to provide meals and snacks. My five year old claimed she kicked him in the stomach w/her knee. So, instead of making a big deal I just discreetly withdrew them from her care. Now she expects me to pay $200 for not giving a notice. I plan to send a certified letter telling her why I abruptly withdrew my children. I'm just going to state that I had concerns due to the reports of my children. I'm not going into detail. If she wants details she can call me. What would you do?

Answer 1

h**l NO! Do NOT pay her! In fact if you dont report her not only are you a bad parent but you obviously do not care if she hurts another child. You can remain anonymous and just ask someone to look into it.

Contacts generally have a "not satisfied within this time period" clause. If not just report her, get the ball rolling and if she pesters you about being paid then tell her she didnt live up to her end of the contract... and restraining orders are really cheap. Do not hesitate.. these are YOUR BABIES!!! I can't believe you tolerated it for 5 days!

I am glad you pulled them out of there!

Answer 2

She needs to be reported.

Forget paying her..but all your efforts into reporting this person. You can not be charged with false allegations when you report something in good faith. You say you believe your children, why on earth would you allow someone to get away with something like that???

Answer 3

i wouldn't pay her, send the letter... i doubt she will make any attempt to hold you to the contract seeing how she broke it as well

Answer 4

I wouldn't have let it go quietly, she would have known what I thought of her care.

Send that letter, and don't you dare pay her money. Then report her care to the state. That is DISGUSTING

I assume your kids wouldn't lie about that & as a parent, if they are you know they are??

I can always tell when mine are lying to me. My 4yo, blushes badly -hehe

Answer 5

I hate to say it, because it certainly doesn't sound like she deserves the money, but you did sign the contract promising to pay the fee if you didn't give 2 wks notice, and you didn't give the notice (not that anyone could blame you!) so you really ought to pay the fee.

Sorry!!

Answer 6

Report her to the proper authorities so she can not harm anymore children. Personally I would press chargers of assult too.

Answer 7

Simple, dont pay her.. she cant force you too and it would cost alot morethan 200 dollars to take you to small claims court, plus the minute you bring up your kids words about her actions im sure she would back away... I would deffinatly write her a letter stating why you stopped taking them there.. that is really sad, and kids 5 and under rarely ever make up stories.. besides i ahve a 5 year old boy and im sure as much as im sure you are it is VERY easy to tell when they are fibbing lol...   I hope she accidently kneed him, and this isnt something happeneing to other kids :(  and why in the world would she not feed them lunch?!?!!!  I do not believe in withholding food from a kid no matter what they did.  Poor things..  I hope they are happier at the new place and never have to experience that again, especially a little 10 month old who cant telll you what the lady did to her/him..    You signed a contract of what she expected and you signed one of what you expected.. she did not hold up to it, so you deffinatly do not have too.  GL

Answer 8

hello - sounds reasonable to me, but having recently seen something like this on judge judy you may end up having to pay anyway.  i usually think JJ is right on target, but that time i was a little surprised, at the end of the day child safety is important.  the case on jj was not exactly what yours is, just similar, so could be it will be fine.

Answer 9

thanks for the two points.

(and good luck with the babysitter)

Answer 10

She doesn't deserve the money but youwant to be finished with her.  Pay her the money or half of it anyway.  Be glad that your children were not afraid to tell you what she was like and that they are away from her.

It sounds like she may have progressed into abuse if they had continued to stay with her.

Next time you may want to have a clause in the contract that states you don't have to pay a severance if the service is not what was agreed upon.

Answer 11

If you signed a contract you may have to pay, but I would report her.  Especially if she is watching younger children that cannot tell their parents what is happening.

Answer 12

If she did not provide meals and activities that were agreed upon than she broke the contract once she did not provide them.  Once a contract is broken she can't say well it says in the contract that she has to give me two weeks notice. You don't owe her any money.  You should have had a conversation with her about it though especially if there are other children involved also. By just walking away you put other people at risk.

Answer 13

Well, you did sign the contract.

Understandably, you would believe your kids, but did you even look into it? Were you fair to the babysitter and ask her side of the story? Maybe your kids just plainly don't like her and exaggerated what really happened. Whether your believe your kids, you should have looked into it deeper before firing her.  

I know i'd be upset if someone fired me for something i may have not done. CHildren are children, and i know from my experience, that they like to over-exaggerate their stories.

If you have no proof of what your children told you, then you need to pay the fee that you agreed to.

Answer 14

Did the contract state that you can waive this $200 'no notice fee' if the reason you didn't give a notice was do to her negligence? If it does not, I say go ahead and pay her - or else, SHE might be taking you to court. Next time, include that in your contract. I know that morally, she doesn't deserve it - but legally, she does - and you really can't fight the law based on morals. Sad but true.