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Original poster

Au pair conundrum

29 replies

Cat111 · 18/10/2014 00:38

We are on our second au pair. We had a successful time with our first who was a lovely Spanish girl, but she had to go back to university as she was only in the UK over summer. Several weeks ago our second arrived and it is fair to say that the experience has not been particularly successful. She is 19 and has never been away from home or had a boyfriend and is very childish. She is also lazy and very demanding. I feel like I have another child in the house - and not a very charming one at that - which was not my previous experience of having an au pair.

Then last night she came to us and said that she was not happy and wanted to leave. I think she may have been expecting us to beg her to stay but we agreed that we are not the right family for her –but said there might be a better match out there and it was worth another try through her agency. She said that she wanted to make a decision on whether to try to find another family or whether to go back to Germany and asked for a few days to make this decision. We said that this was fine and said we would support her in whatever decision she made and that we should just carry on as usual with her 'working' and us paying her - which she said she would do by Monday. All good. However tonight she came to us and asked for a lift to see a friend in a week's time. We had hoped that she might have left by then but she informed us that she was going to stay for two weeks as this was part of her contract. We have two small boys and since she has made the decision to go I do not want to confuse them by having her hanging around –and don't really feel like feeding and watering her when she provides us with very little help.

She came through an agency but the owner is on holiday at the moment so I cannot ask her for her advice. Does anybody else have any experience of a scenario like this - or what do you think? If needs be we can sit it out for another few weeks but I don't feel like being a taxi service for her in the meantime and under the circumstances I am not sure that requests like this are reasonable.

Cat

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Jinxxx · 18/10/2014 14:08

Surely you have to pay, feed and house her for her notice period, and treat her as usual in other respects. She has said that she is thinking of leaving but not yet given formal notice (unless you have omitted to mention that), but it sounds as if you have seized upon what she has said to try to get her to leave immediately. I think she is perfectly within her rights to expect you to continue as normal for the time being until she makes a definite decision. If you would have given her a lift, then I don't see how the circumstances alter anything.

OutragedFromLeeds · 18/10/2014 13:00

You can pay her the two weeks notice and have her out immediately or you can let her work the two weeks. That's why you have a contract with notice in it, so you each know where you are in this situation. She is being entirely reasonable in working her notice.

BeattieBow · 18/10/2014 08:04

I think you just need to suck up the 2 weeks tbh. But make it clear that it's 2 weeks and then you need her to be out as you need to sort out a replacement and you need certainty about the dates. I would say that you expect her to do her duties during those 2 weeks (unless you can do without her).

I don't think your 2 boys will be confused.

LondonLocal · 18/10/2014 07:58

Feel sorry for the poor girl. You decided to have an Au Pair, you deal with what comes with it, some people have good experiences, some bad! Especially if it's in her contract to stay for two weeks after notice, I think it's perfectly fair that's she's still there!

'Dont feel like feeding and watering her' To me that's just awful! How would you feel if one of your sons was staying with a host family and the parents 'couldn't be bothered feeding him or to drive him around'

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