Things that annoy you about your aupair...

On MN an aupair must be included in everything a family does, must do nothing more strenuous than walk children to school and must never ever do any housekeeping. In my experience most aupairs do a combination of childcare and housekeeping including, shock horror, cleaning toilets.

I had aupairs for years, I was always very clear that the role would include cleaning and ironing as well as childcare we never had a separate cleaner. I also included babysitting every Saturday night for no extra pay and you know what it was fine!

All our aupairs stayed a minimum of a year, the second last stayed 20 months and our last aupair stayed 2.5 years. They stayed because we were clear about our expectations from the start, we supported them when they dealt with the children and we made sure that the children treated them with respect. We also paid a decent salary: £80 a week for a 20 hour aupair with minimal childcare responsibilities and £120 a week for 30 hours where they had more sole care. At times I was a SAHM with an aupair, at other times I was working and they did pre and after school care.

Like a previous poster said, it gave DH and I a social life and it meant we never had to drag all children out to activities. We don't have an aupair anymore as we reached the point where we felt that we wanted our house back and the children are a bit older but I imagine we must be terrible people to work for as I've just spent 2 hours having a coffee with our old aupair who has stayed in the area, who facetimes the children regularly and who is coming to stay with my mum for 3 nights later this year whilst DH and I go away although I guess that she shouldn't be doing that as she was only an aupair, not someone who is 25 and who we have known for 3.5 years who the children adore and who will get £250 for her time even though she offered to do it for free.

Olb... the waxing story! Hahaha
Wow
Shocked
Bet you kept her on despite it.
In my experience, au pairs are people. I annoy them more than they annoy me, I'm sure.
I've been an au pair three times. Can't say I loved it but it WAS a good experience, each time - in retrospect. I grew up, became more responsible and enjoyed my relationships with the children for whom I cared.
My experience pf MN threads on au pairs has been that most who actually comment are completely biased and have never had or been one. (So aren't wirth taking any notice of, OP).

Mine used all my truffle oil and I found her eating my caviar on a slice of warburtons! The final straw was when she brought fabreeze instead of my usual citrus infused room sprays... Well she just had to go! Back to the Ukraine with you Magda, I bellowed.

I am joking, I don't have an au pair. But if I did I'd work them like a dog the way I am feeling today!

chocolatebiscuit to the £1,000 phone bill.. OMG.. she'd be out on her ear from my house too.

I'm interested in the number of people on this thread who have never had childcare and feel that it makes you an unfit / lazy parent... Did you stumble on this area of the forum by accident? Were you looking for the 'smug / frazzled / sanctimonious parent-care only' area? If so.. you missed it.. this is the area for Parents who need / want / fancy getting our little darlings looked after by SOMEONE ELSE WHO WANTS THE JOB.

I'm sure the OP didn't kidnap her au pair and force her into labour against her will (although if you did, OP.. tut tut, put her back :-) )

There's nothing wrong with hiring childcare. However, if you want someone to look after a house, three children and a dog, then you need to find someone more qualified and experienced than an au pair, who are often just teenagers themselves. Of course, the pay will reflect this! OP, you have now recognised this, and have hired a nanny. Au pairs are supposed to be an extra pair of hands and a part of the family - you can expect them to do some basic hoovering and childcare, but you can't expect the childcare or cleaning standards of a nanny or housekeeper. If you want things done to that standard, hire a nanny and housekeeper, or do some of the work yourself and get an aupair to fill in the gaps.

July; that was my point! The Op seemed to think that AIBU is made up of similarly titled rants about MILs, PILs etc.. It's not. She'd be pulled up there, too - far more harshly than here.

I challenge the Op to start a similar thread on the nursery section about nursery workers and see the reaction she gets there.
No?

So why is an au pair fair game?

So true, July.

I also noted 'they would hang your hide out to dry' on AIBU - so it's immature/ rude/ shocking etc. to have a rant at someone who just racked up a £1000 phone bill, among other things, but it's perfectly fine to lash out at them in return and call them all sorts of names, preferably as a pack?

OP - I have had many au pairs, some great, others less so, and sometimes living with them is really tough. One thing I've learnt is to never ever complain or even ask for advice about it here.

Tanith that's already happened here.

You seem very immature.

'Classic' MN putdown, there...

Any more entrants for the Queen of the Comeback Cliche Award 2015?

Have no PPs yet uttered the crappy 'classic' "OP, you seem very entitled" trope yet?

This thread late April fool effort, right?

Of course you can OP, but maybe see it as a learning curve.
Did you put it in the contract, Do not use the land line to make any calls? Did you ask the phone company to block outgoing calls? Did the Aupair sign your house rules stating calls must only be made via wifi and that any calls on landline must be paid by the au pair?
There are friends and family deals you can add to your phoneline to give you free calls to certain countries (not to mobile numbers).
Did you approach the au pair with the bill and ask her to pay?
In my contract i clearly state the rules for mobile and home phone usage, the mobile is a capped contract so its impossible to run up bills, and i clearly state that any damage bills etc is to be covered by the ap. She signs and keeps a copy of the house rules.
If I were you I would have asked the au pair to pay the bill, but if you hadnt made it clear then where do you stand?

You're not entitled to slag anyone off, no matter how pissed off you are.

You seem very immature.

Op, if you were to start a thread on AIBU titled "Things that annoy you about your MIL" etc., they would hang your hide out to dry!

Especially as the things in your OP really don't sound that bad.

There's nothing wrong with hiring help! But starting an au pair bashing thread is totally unprofessional and rude OP! I'm a nanny and if I found my employers had done this I would be sitting them down for a long chat about respect! If you have issues with youe staff talk to her not a forum full of strangers.

It's the employer/employee relationship which makes it difficult.

It's not acceptable to rant about all sorts of things on a chat forum. For instance, teachers don't rant about their individual pupils, and I wouldn't expect carers to rant about their patients, among other things.

It's just not professional.

But don't you think it would have been better to post a thread asking for support about your particular disaster? I'm not saying you didn't have bad luck, but instead of just wanting a bit of a rant about your situation, you've invited people to slate all au pairs. That's how it reads, anyway...

Well you're certainly entitled to be pissed off, but in the context of employer/employee "slagging her off" isn't very professional.

If I made a mistake in my job, I'd expect my manager to be pissed off. I wouldn't expect her to slag me off publicly, or privately.

Thank you Printscreen for being the voice of reason. And for all the others who actually get why you have au pairs.

Recruit wisely, set expectations, follow through, give weekly feedback, you are the adult employer. Dont come on mumsnet and slag your employee off because you made a mistake in your recruitment.

Another reason to have au pairs is the obvious language help. My childrens second language would not have been as good if we hadnt had au pairs helping me speak with them and practice.

Finally, yes we are the parents but we cannot teach our children everything. Why is it wrong to introduce another person to help you complement your parenting? For example I am terrified of dogs, and have no idea how to handle them. One previous aupair was great with animals and have taught the children how to approach and handle dogs, something I could never have done. Just one example of how our amazing aupairs have enriched our family.

Absolutely agree with you Lego.

Can I just ask, how would it go if something started a thread called 'things that annoy you about parents' from a nanny/au pair perspective?

I'm getting quite fed up of generalisations and people-bashing that's going on in MN at the moment. Yes, some au pairs aren't as good at their jobs. Just like in any profession, there are some who are good and some who are bad. same as employers

Inviting people to slate others is not nice, whether light hearted or not.

She is considerably younger/less jaded than me.

She goes out into Paris, socialising with her friends, on evenings when she is not working.

She eats highly calorific food without any noticeable detrimental effects.

She seems to have different views/aspirations to me.

She doesn't smile very much when ironing my vast piles of Sloggi underwear.

My children seem to love her.

She is not overly keen on smacking my 4 children as instructed.

(Just a few of the things that clearly annoyed my employer about me, a million years ago, when I was an au pair).

OP - sounds terrible!

I have two teen DSSs and I wouldn't wish them as au pairs upon my worst enemy . Housework skills are very undeveloped.

However, they are very responsible when looking after DD (10) and engage her fully - and always have done. Your au pair sounds very feeble.

Because now that MN has gone bigger than a Very Big Thing the proportion of utter divs who patrol the boards determined to have a dig has also, unfortunately, exponentially grown.

If you think all parents who hire a nanny or aupair are selfish and lazy, why are you on the Home Childcare thread?