Am beginning to hate my Au-pair

Gosh, sounds supremely slappable!

Good practice for teenagerdom though.

I think part of the problem with au-pairs is that cross between status they have. Are they teenagers or grown ups? Sometimes they haven't decided themselves and one suddenly finds oneself having to deal with a teenager one hasn't actually given birth to, so let's face it, it's an unattractive prospect. (One one has given birth to is also unattractive, but perhaps slightly less so.)

I think I've been lucky in that everyone I've employed has been recommended (apart from the nanny from hell, and she was fine to start with).

On au pairs, I would be cautious about employing someone young again. We had one who was barely 20. She had been completely spoiled at home, had never so much as made a cup of coffee in her life, and having to do some housework came as a rude shock to her. Once she had got over this initial shock, she was OK, but a bit teenagery - eg we had friends over for dinner, told her she was welcome to join us, or could eat earlier with the children. She opted for the latter, then, when our guests were arriving, was slumped in front of MTV, volume up really loudly. Asked her to turn it down, she glared at us and turned it up, whereupon DH (he has a short fuse) walked over, turned it off, she stormed out of the sitting room slamming the door and decamped to her room, playing music so loudly it made the house vibrate. Think she needed a good slap!

Dizzydo- Worcestershire- 45 mins from Birmingham and 2.5 hours from London...............

25 years ago (oh god was it that long...) I was an aupair. i worked my butt off, but I assumed that was what I was there for. There were no terms of employment no rights for aupairs I absolutely did what I was told wihtout question (pack lunches everyday full on child care on Saturdays homework cooking childrens tea, there rooms all rooms, hoovering 3 hours housework aday incl floor scrubbing)and there were 10 people living in the house including me -oh and a rather rank dog. My day started at 7am and finished at about 10pm when I finished the dishes from supper (whether I had been there or not) and laid the table for breakfast the next day (a task often performed a bit later,pissed after a night out wiht friends!).I had 2 days off a week and 3 hours in the afternoon. I adored my kids and loved the family who were mad and chaotic. Ironing well there was mountains of it.

So when I had my kids and wanted a bit of help I though I'll get me one of those. Instead I got a series of lopey initative devoid teenagers who had never 'helped at home' at all when they were growing up.
If it taught me anything it was that I must without fail give my kids the life skills needed to exist away from home when they leave me.

For the moment we live in utter chaos and exhaustion. Incidentally despite driving me nuts we too have stayed great friends with the crazy lazy girls who drifted amiably but rather uselessly through our house.

Goldenoldie- you seem to have lots of experience with au pairs... Well I can say so far so good (after 2 years of non-stop au pairs, 2 girls at a time) all the applicances are in working condition and nothing is missing. Only the one AP which was not very clever (left the iron on etc.) left a few minor damages but no big deal. Disrespectful, unconsiderate, unfriendly and malicious people will never be welcome in our house. One AP almost put my dd to sleep in a damp sleeping bag, knowing it was damp. I caught this by chance... and was very upset. I asked her if she would do this to her own daughter and she said "no", after big long buts, and ifs and this and that. There are honest mistakes which I can accept but this kind of mistake?! She was shown the door the same day.

None of my au pairs had ever been in the UK before- most of them flew for the first time in their lifes. Some hadn't seen the internet! BUT they were good girls and they learn sooo quickly, within a matter of hours/days. Because my new au pairs came in before the old ones left we always had a 3-4 week handover/training period where the existing au pair would train the new au pairs so after the first set I virtually didn't need to explain anything!

One thing I find is how much we spend on the food, naturally, but that is OK because food is the least we can provide so I get the best for everyone. However I don't buy ready stuff (pizza, chicken kiev, chips, canned soups, etc.) because we don't eat these at home anyway. So cooking needs to be learnt and has been by all the girls. So in a way I am giving something other than money and a bed. They learn how to set tables nicely, cooking, house design, flower arrangements etc. I do most of these anyway but after they get the hang of it they start taking over with pleasure.

I must say the good au pairs we have had (had 5 so far) were great and the bad ones (2) I couldn't live another day with so they had to go. I think it is important to get someone who I can make/keep happy so I try to choose girls who come from more rural areas so that they are not disappointed when they see our little town. (We do take them to bigger cities on weekends or they go by train) I make sure I choose girls who are happy to live in a big house with lots of new modern things (computers/telephones in their rooms/ensuites/washing machines/driers etc.. )
Those of you living in London don't have a location problem of course- and most au pairs want to go to London- but those are the ones with higher expectations and I can't give them what they want!

PMSL at GoldenOldie's descriptions of au-pair situations. So familiar!

Been following the thread and AP's are never perfect. They really do just fill the gap when we are over stretched. It is true to say that house hold management boils down to us mums and if we are not on top of ,it it all falls down. Good example. I have lunch out ONCE a week this is my treat and luxury ( my kids come home from school for lunch everyday). Just about to start eating and phone rings, thought it was work but it was tear ful DS aged 7 who had been picked on on bus on way home. I am his mum so who is he going to call? Managed to comfort him on phone and he was fine.
My AP is brilliant at housework and washing and she loves to iron I even found her ironing bed sheets????
But kids stuff she is not so good at. Basically you can't have it all its about choices. YOu have to find someone who does waht you need them to do.
I am lucky I am around when kids need me but life was too stressful working part time and doing house stuff. AP takes over chores, I work and have quality time with kids (I think). No money at end of month but sanity.
Also am on 2nd washing machine and had to recently buy new blender!!! What do they do? Also there are never any bowls in our cupboard, recently found a stash under AP's bed. I think she eats ice cream in secret at night!!! And she manages to go through washing powder at a speedy rate!!!

I'm still relatively new at the au pair game, but I am now favouring young au pairs who have a good future - basically girls on their gap year. Definitely from the west. Communication skills are so important.

My first au pair didn't speak English, and I didn't think this would be a problem because, after all, the whole point of becoming an au pair is to learn English. But I should have been suspicious at no English - what did they do at school? This girl stayed with us five months and made very little improvement on nothing, sadly.

It is so stressful on many levels when you can't communicate effectively -not going back there. I'd be happy to take on an au pair with moderate English skills, such as GCSE MFL level. I'd have no problem with a French girl with this kind of English, as I'd at least be able to fill in in French until her standard improves.

The downside of having good English (yes, there is one) is that the girls don't want to go to language classes, so they can easily become unfocussed and bored.

Have to say the best au-apairs we have had all had three things in common: Experience as an au-pair, good English, and previously lived in the UK.

They had all been au-pairs before -IN THE WEST, not just looked after their younger cousins now and again in Solvbaklov - or wherever.

They all spoke good English, i.e. they could hold a conversation and respond appropriately, at normal speed, without constant quizzical looks, or just continually nodding instead of speaking becuse they don't understand what is being said.

Another good test is leaving a written shopping list - standard things - washing-up-liquid, dishwasher tablets, loaf of sliced wholemeal bread, milk and so on so on. Don't discuss it before-hand and just wait and see what returns.

All the good au-pairs were able to bring back the correct shopping because even when they were not sure about something their English was good enough for them to ask a member of staff for help. The worst ones were those that came back with half the shopping and no money - cause they had bought a load of food they liked the look of...............salami all round then........

Those that had lived in the UK or the US before were a dream - they knew how the bus/tube/train system worked or were not afraid to find out. Did not have to hold their hand and explain the complexities of London Transport. They could take kids out to cinema/theatre/museum, no problem at all. They were also able to use 'normal' household appliances - dishwaher, microwave, dryer.

This is very important - nearly had the house burnt down by one au-pair (who had not been in the west before) who decided to warm a bit of cake in the microwave for 3 minutes instead of 30 seconds - said cake burst into flames - inside of microwave completely blackened.

Also found au-pairs are very hard on appliances. We go through at least one hoover a year - sometimes two - hose bits are often snapped off?.........Irons last slightly longer, but not much, and yes, unless you tell them, they do leave them on and go and do something else in another part of the house. Plates, cups, bowls dissapear at an alarming rate - they never say when something is broken - I just work it out by a process of deduction, if it's not in the cupboard, dishwasher, or on the kitchen table - it's been broken.

Anyone else have high rates of au-pair wear and tear on their homes?

oh lookey... this thread is on the home page.

majorstress, I'm sorry you've had major stress, but I must say, your posts are funny!they made me laugh - so keep your chin up!
good luck to you, hope you have found the slobetka of your dreams

THE GOOD POINTS:
au pairs are: cheap (sort of!!!!) easier to get to help at short notice, plentiful, usually expect to do at least light (more like gossamer!) housework; what else? (Mine cost me a bomb actually in food and wheedling me out of money whenever I felt too tired out to argue. Also shouldn;t be trusted with toddler).

a live out nanny is: able to care for a toddler, expensive, experienced, doesn't need feeding or housing, does language classes or whatever in her own time not yours; might refuse to do housework but I think the arrangement has a more "professional" feel-if it's in the contract you probably won't get "but slobetka next door doesn't have to do x and gets paid y" whining. Also if you are paying £6 to £7 an hour, and they balk, you can say fine, end of story, and take away some of their hours to pay a proper cleaner. I don't want any additional complaining parties in my universe! I get enough of that from my family and work. I can't do much housework with 2 littlies running round myself TBH, so now I only expect them to do it when the kids are out at nursery.

My au pair was actually quite spoiled by her divorced parents. I think they were using her to fight! They sounded hard working, but certainly owned nice houses with gardens and a summer house too. She recommended from experience "in my country": new tv with built in dvd and subtitles (dh bought for her); new radio and CD player(ditto); wireless mouse for our PC that she used a lot(ditto) and needed lots of help installing her new and very expensive digital camera software; for me laser eye surgery !!!(funny, DH did not buy that!) lol. SO she was slumming it with us.

Completely agree with your comments about rich west vs poor east. We definitely had those issues. My au pair loathed the dishwasher - thought it was a total waste and refused to load it properly - although she did rather like the dryer once she discovered it. Once things started to head south with that au pair, she really started to show how resentful she was about our "wealth" (if only she understood) and abused our telephone, wasted food, left lights on etc.

Now, I'm going through a phase of getting western au pairs - much easier, I've found.

Getting a good au pair can be a big hassle and even if you are doing everything right to make sure you are getting someone who will fit well within your family it is still possible to make huge errors! I think it is just a risk associated with the reward but can be minimized by using good agencies. I was trying to find an au pair on my own on the internet and selected two au pairs which turned out to be a nightmare. One of them smoked even though she knew we were looking for a non smoker- the other would do things like leaving the iron on in the kitchen and going to her room to have lunch!!! In terms of attitude and general character traits they just weren't suitable for us so when this became clear I immediatelyt let them go. For me, it is unbearable to have someone which we don't like/who doesn't like us around the house. I don't think any family should give in to the unreasonable demands of au pairs and/or put up with their attitude. They are guests in our houses as well as being helping hands- either way they need to be polite and respectful, and of course can expect the same.

Choose an agency who listens to your needs- my agency has sent me CVs which fit perfectly with our requirements and I was spoilt for choice. The agency didn't send me dozens of CVs, just a few carefully selected ones.

Also remember that eastern european au pairs can be a bit jealous/resentful of the west or rich families etc. because they may be coming from very simple/poor backgrounds. This is why you get a lot of sentences starting with "in my country". These kinds of girls will not be grateful for whatever hospitality you are showing them because they just despise the fact that you are living in conditions she/her family can never afford or dream of affording. There is still no social/economic balance in these countries and some people will never have the chance to work and make life better for themselves even if they work hard or study hard. Finding a job is difficult, it maybe that in the UK they are making more money in a week than their fathers are making in a month. However one does not need to put up with these! After all you are getting these au pairs to make life easier for you. We do the best we can for them to learn English and a foreign culture so that when they go back to their countries it will make a difference for them.

I agree that between 6 months to a year is a max term for an au pair- especially the good ones because they are probably clever and ambitious anyway and can't stick around for too long.

Uwila she starts tomorrow at 7 am. This is really good news, but I AM a bit residually fed up, DH just keeps disappearing out to climbing apparently on the grounds that my parents are here so he isn;t needed, I am worn out from interviewing - each girl stayed over an hour and a half- wouldn't take hints to go-and rather than physically lift them off the chair and throw them bodily out, I thought oh well they do need to observe us, to know if they can stand it too! I am very cheesed off about the one who I took annual leave yesterday to see and because of whom I got saddled with dd2 as well for logistical reasons, but she didn't show, followed by miss flounce who got huffy because I was interviewing someone else before her (?!), - and I got cross with my mum, who kept berating me about being rude by letting flouncy see the previous one-but my mum was totally useless, she and my father are here to help but have forgotten how to notice there's no dinner and I am interviewing someone to look after their small and only grandchildren on sole charge-kind of important!-and THEY could throw something together, or take toddler to garden so mum can hear interviewee down the phone, or see something needs doing and just DO it--like having Inertia my au pair back!!!not quite

So- au pairs- there are too many out there and many are duds- finding one and then selecting is VERY hard work, agencies didn't help me much, just sent me more no-hopers to screen out myself(wrong time of year, March April). Many cannot understand the requirements of your advertisement or job description no matter how you word it. Most do not answer their telephones, mesages, texts or emails, even in reply to the one they sent to me. Many think that they are in fact nannies, because they babysat their cousin once. And you also have to recruit someone bearable, who won't kill your kids or you, while simultaneously holding down your job, doing all the housework and minding the bored ignored kids screaming and pulling on your clothes-SO BE CAREFUL, dizzydo. Don't ditch her until you've got plan B sorted is all I can suggest-but it will be difficult to sort out someone while she is still there without her upping sticks I'd think. I definitely from now on will go for a set length of contract of about 6 months. Then if we all love one another they can stay on. I feel like this search for a person to help me has been 99% futile, consumed all my time and energy for months and in the end pretty much ruined my life and marriage, made me into a nasty hateful person to all of my own family as I instead use up all my patience on silly immature people I don't know, and the saga is still ongoing. I don't want to look for an employee as a hobby! I want to HAVE a hobby, or at least do something that I LIKE occasionally. And with this sort of "help", I can't.

When does she start?

I hope the last gloomy sentence of your previous post was a joke!?

Are you okay?

hi uwila, yes she came out of the blue but I thikn there is hope here-when I asked hers some of your questions she gave the same answer I would say-ie the right one! and I didn't even ask some of them, she just volunteered her ideas for entertaining toddler, and opinion on tv-and it was exactly the same as mine! I have learned too talk less and let them say it all over the weekend, a good lesson for me but I really wasn't in the mood AT ALL.

So, now I have spent hours and hours interviewing by phone and in person for the last 5 days-it has been gruelling and upset everyone in the house. Out of 8 interviews arranged at my home, 3 didn't show and one flounced out because she saw the previous interviewee (great choice obviously!). 2 were resonable and one was impressive so I picked her-they were all previous au pairs for several years and now want to live with hubby, boyfriend, cousin whatever. I am going to pay her £7 an hour, £70 a day for 10 hours work on 2 days-if she didn't want to do the housework then I wouldn't pay her for the 2-3 hours that dd2 is in nursery those 2 days (she does want to do it). I also meanwhile found another lady to do the dreaded ironing and other chores on Sat or Sun so I will use her to pick up the slack at the weekends. I have better uses for that money, but I have to recover my own health, start to do my doctors-orders exercise, and do all that other stuff that has lapsed during the past year, that only I can do, like household paperwork, decluttering etc. TBH I am feeling so low about it all that I don't know whether to give up work (I will make no money for 2.5 more years with all the childcare costs I have), or leave my husband and children. So let's hope this lady is of the Mary Poppins persuasion, bacause I for one have lost the will to live over this work-home dilemma...

So, you've hired someone?

Congratulations.

I just hired a live out "nanny" for 2 days a week to plug the childcare gap left by my 23 year old au pair who thought she was at a holiday camp and that I was her adoptive mother. It has been an extremely difficult time and I now see that getting an unknown au pair (yes she had excellent references) was a mistake. Living with a stranger is hard, and although she was getting more than minimum wage when you include the extra food, lodging and English classes I provided, she was always complaining and saying in her country (well we aren't English either). I was trying, but very halfheartedly, to replace her, as well as hugely struggling to keep my job, when I saw the light-I can't bear to risk getting another person who is going to move in and exploit ME. I ended up in hospital with a slipped disc I believe mainly from all the extra housework I ended up doing.