Diabolical debate: Your friend's nanny is in the pub with her child… do you tell?

Your friend employs a nanny, at high cost, to care for her one-year-old child while she's at work, and boasts of the carer's excellent educational credentials and fondness for child-stimulating activities. Then, on a day off work, you see the nanny going into a high-street pub with a group of friends mid-afternoon, with the baby in her care. Do you call your friend right then to tell her what's happening?

Emily, 23, Dawn, 30, Sally, 33 and Anna, 41, are all from Edinburgh.

SALLY: Babies shouldn't be in pubs. They cry and soil themselves. Mind you, so do a lot of drunk people.

EMILY: I can't imagine many people being happy to have their baby taken into a pub, although maybe now that you're not allowed to smoke in them it's not quite so bad. I think I would probably feel that I knew my friend well enough to know if this is something she'd have a problem with. I imagine I'd tell her.

S: But it would be quite embarrassing if you told her and she already knew about it. Then she might think that you're suggesting she's a bad parent, because no good parent would allow their baby to be taken into a pub. People are always really snarky about being called on their parenting skills. I'd just leave it, I think. After all, what real harm would it do the kid? He or she would probably learn much more in a pub than in any nursery!

DAWN: No, I think you have to tell. If my friend has been waxing lyrical about how keen the nanny has been to get her child involved in lots of educational activities, I severely doubt taking the child to the pub with a bunch of mates is going to be one of them.

E: I actually think this is a serious issue – this is someone's child we're talking about here. Chances are the parent wouldn't dream of taking the baby into a high-street pub themselves, so they're unlikely to have sanctioned the nanny to do so, particularly with a group of friends. In a sense, the group of friends is actually the most alarming element of this situation – who are these people? The nanny may know your friend, but it's unlikely any of the rest of them do, so her child is essentially being cared for by a group of strangers. And not only that, but a group of strangers who are planning on getting drunk.

D: But how do you deal with it? I think I would phone my friend and perhaps play slightly dumb, just in case she has sanctioned the situation, and say: "Listen, you probably know this already, but I'm just looking out for you, this is what I've just seen…" and let matters take their course. It's the responsible thing to do. Imagine if something happened to the child and you hadn't done anything?

E: And put yourself in your friend's position. I know if it was my child, I would want to know immediately. It would also be one of those situations where, if I found out later that my friend had witnessed this and not let me know there and then, I would have been furious with her.

ANNA: As a dedicated non-parent, I feel a bit of a cheater saying this, but I'd also tell my friend what I saw. However, I wouldn't necessarily ring her right then and there – you save that kind of drama-queen behaviour for the sadder call that goes: "I've just seen your nanny emerge from the pub pished as a newt, and she and the child fell over into the gutter."

Everyone's entitled to a lunch break and now that there's a no-smoking policy in pubs and many have lovely garden… well, it could all be perfectly reasonable. The problem with taking the moral high ground is that it's so very easy to fall off.