Overnight Guests

Oh my, poor AP and poor highlight! Hehe. I couldn't have sex in my host fams living room... they have windows all across one side of it with no curtains

Seriously though, it's quite entertaining, I'm quite impressed with how highlight seemed to have taken it! Especially with the other comments of fiuring the girl on there!

The thread that AN referred to here

PMSL at the vicar not being allowed to come round!

I'm slightly scared of our vicar so would probably gladly use that as an excuse for him not to make a house call.

not :O

Oh AN! I had forgotten about that one! Wasn't it a new rug, and she left her pants behind????
:O

I would say yes, I want advance notice/approval, and no boys in the house when I am not home and never overnight. Although I did once have a nanny who told the vicar he couldn't come over because I wasn't home.

I'm much more relaxed after I've gotten to know the nanny. But, I can never forget that thread about the au pair and her boyfriend soin' it on the livingroom floor.

I didn't realise that! Oo, that makes things a little more difficult then hm :/ I do think that it is a semi-decent step in protecting the more vulnerable girls from the worst families, but at the same time that really screws people over when they have the crappy APs!
I don't see how any childcarer can be irresponsible enough to potentially endanger their charges by bringing in somebody unsuitable to be around kids?! I know that they do but really, they wouldn't do it with their own children [one should hope anyways] so why with other peoples children?

(not so) silently hurrahs the reference to employment status of APs

Back on topic: having been a live-in nanny I certainly don't object to having to provide advance notice AS LONG AS in an absolute pinch you'd be prepared to be understanding and you made it clear it was a total emergency that that person had to stay over. I don't know what your transport links are like/whether your AP has to have a car but much as I don't routinely get sloshed in my room with my friends there was one time when a friend came over to watch a DVD, we'd consumed a bottle of wine between us and she clearly wasn't in a state to drive home so she bunked down on my floor - that was the more sensible option given that the other was her driving home.

So....after a couple of months, then yes. But personally I would limit it to no more than 2 consecutive overnight stays (that allows friends from home to visit), females or long-term (preferably known to her parents) boyfriends only and only 1 at a time. You might want to limit it to only 1 a month for foreign guests and possibly relax the rules a little for local APs.

Do you have any local AP employers who could let you know what's the norm for APs in your area? It's a bit of a swizz if your AP is the only one who can't offer a girls night in/place to stop over but it's a fine line between that and it being open house!

WRT the nanny/AP being able to choose who is around the children I don't believe that for a second. As far as other nannies/mums go then of course you have to trust your carers discretion/common sense up to a point - my employer doesn't know the weekday carers of my charge's friends and if I never went and talked to people in the park he'd never have any new playdates! But I certainly wouldn't go round introducing him to, say, my friends from church or people I met in a club last Saturday. So people working in childcare, fine. My fiance has met and been approved by my charge's parents (and A adores him) so everyone's comfortable with him being around. Other friends of mine may pick up from school with me/hang out at the park but I certainly wouldn't let them be alone with me and my charge and never in my employer's house.

But you do need to follow normal employment law for au pairs now - because of the visa changes - they are 'live in mother's helps'. Have you read the MN thread about the family who is being threatened by their former AP for holiday pay etc!
This thread is about whether you should trust an AP to make wise decisions about who stays overnight in the host family house - I can imagine that you could have an AP who is great with the kids but doesn't make the same choices with regard to her (boy)friends as her host family would make and therefore would not be 'trusted' to have these friends stay.
eg. I had a nanny who was ok at her job, but the bloke she lived with had a criminal record and was not someone I liked to have around my children - she was live out (so it shouldn't have been an issue!) - but had she been live-in, it might have caused problems. (As it was, it caused problems because she was letting him into my house during her working hours and letting him sleep on my sofa, watch tv etc (he had no job at the time))..but we parted company over other issues :O

What I really meant to aim that at was those parents who go on about how bad their AP/Nanny is and how they can't trust them with anything, we all know that these parents exist, yet they don't bother changing their childcare and then they tar the rest of us with the same brush.

It's frustrating because they say they don't trust their childcarer to look after their children, yet they don't consider getting somebody else in?! I know in the case of nanny's you do need proof for a dismissal so that you aren't sued for unfair dismissal, but in the case of an AP you don't need that at all so easily replaced.

But Trust is not an all encompassing thing is it..e.g. I would trust dh to care for the kids but I wouldn't trust him to do the shopping without spending far too much on tat that we don't need (so I do the shopping :-) ). And when you employ a new childcarer you have to give them almost blind-trust (ie. you need to trust their references) and continue to do so until such a time as you are proven wrong eg. they bring home a different bloke every night of the week or they get speeding tickets in your car..and at that point you reassess what you still trust them with (looking after the kids but not bringing friends home, looking after kids but not driving them anywhere).
It's not an all or nothing Trust.

(And I can't understand why people say - if you trust someone to look after your children you should trust them to lead a life according to your principles.)

Oh, and the trusting APs to look after kids thing? I hate it when parents say they don't trust their AP yet they still leave their children with them?! If I had kids and an AP then didn't trust her I'd replace her immediately, why would you leave the most precious things in the world in incapable hands?

Being told in advance is fair enough, I hate intruding on my host family with a guest, especially at short notice! Only done it once and that was went me and a poi boy organised a meet back when the weather was about to turn snowy: we retreated to my host fams kitchen for tea after a couple of hours in the cold! Host Mum found it funny and made the tea for us as we couldn't hold the kettle...

I try and give plenty of warning when the bf is staying, like they already know that he's popping down for a few days in September...

If you trust your au pair to look after your kids, then surely you should be able to trust them to choose their partners/friends with reasonable care.

I have always asked to be told in advance (but that generally means a couple of days in advance). I wouldn't dream of interfering in their social life when they're not working, and that extends (of course) to allowing them to have guests in our house.

Don't have an au pair, but if I did, I don't know if I'd be comfortable with having an adult male who I didn't know, in the house (excuse the heterosexist assumption!). It would have to be someone that she had know for a good while and I'd have to be fairly convinced that the AP was a good judge of character. So, I guess, initially I'd say no stopovers. (Stop outs a different matter altogether!)

SolidgoldSneezelikeApig - no DDs only DSs here

We allow overnight guests for our AP and we have allowed an AP to have her long-term boyfriend to stay (in fact he stayed here the first night she arrived because he helped her with her bags/flight). We do ask for advance notice though and I would not be happy with strange faces around the breakfast table on a regular basis... in general the APs seem to have the occasional female friend over to watch dvds in their room/sleepover (although some of the APs in this area have their own 'granny flats' so tend to host dvd nights), and then there is a friend from home who stays for a few days (we have had both APs' mums, boyfriend, and best friend from home).
What I would put into house rules in future is that any visitors should not disrupt the working time of the AP and that although we are happy to provide breakfast and we would like to share at least one meal with them, the AP/Friend should supply some food or eat out some of the time.(Having danced attendance to AP and her best mate this week and having had our cupboards emptied). Oh, and that AP strips bed and washes bedlinen/towels afterwards. (Feels like I'm running a hotel).

Cheapskatemum: Well that's true, but would such families be equally suspicious that any boyfriends of their DD would be car thieves? Bearing in mind that most young people who cop off with other young people and want to sneak into each other's homes for a shag are not that likely to be thieves or murderers?

I remember my host Mum saying to me that if the kids didn't like my boyfriend then she would not have him round again which I feel is perfectly understandable(!) but I also feel that it depends on the people.

You can get a good idea about people before they even turn up. If an AP is very dependant and maybe talks about her partner/friend constantly, I wouldn't like the idea of their partner coming because I'd feel that she'd lack in her work and also, if she's dependant on the host parents then it'd probably be worse with the boyfriend!

I think (hope? lol) my bosses trust me enough to decide who'll come and go because they know that I wouldn't risk the kids, and the friends I would ask to come round (with employers permission always) would be other activity instructors or my best mate, who handles money for a living lol And they're all CRBd too, coincidentally enough

But I dont have people round often (if ever) so I can understand an employers concerns if their AP is a bit of a socialite.

An AP's wages wouldn't cover theft of a new car, for example. Therefore many families would rather not take the risk.

I don't have any au pairs and am unlikely to, but I am a bit bewildered at this fussing about 'letting' them have sex lives (because that's what all this 'overnight guests' is about, isn't it?). They are adults, after all.
It would strike me as more sensible to tell them that any guests must be gone by breakfast time and that the AP is directly responsible for any theft or damage done by guests (as I suppose you are worrying that random blokes will nick the video or something).

When I was an aupair my family let me have anybody round I wanted whenever I wanted, though boys were to stay in the family room. The only rule about sleepovers were no boys and whoever slept over had to stay in my room as I had the spare bedroom (db didn't want to walk into family room and find one of my friends asleep on the couch)Out of politeness I always asked if friends could come round though

Though, adding to that, I suppose it would depend on what your AP was like. If I were to have guests, they would most likely be men (my best friend is a guy, the few friends I can rely on are all men) but then I don't let my friends get in the way of my job, if my boyfriend comes over then he helps rather than hinders and I'm not the type of person who goes out often or would have friends over shrugs

My employers let me have my boyfriend over for two or three nights running! We're long distance and if it weren't for my employers we wouldn't be together still. He's the only person who has been here really though (in regards to me anyways!)