To Think This Must Be The Worst Au Pair Job In The World?

[HoneyStepMummy]

www.gumtree.com/p/jobs/live-in-au-pair-st-john-wood/1022335782
I mean who wouldn't want to share a couch with someone else's kids, iron, cook, clean, and babysit for 12 hrs a day for $120 a week??? This must be a joke, surely???

The idiots have left a phone number whistles innocently. Actually the reason I've mentioned it is because social services may be interested in people being taken advantage of in this way.

has the original ad been changed, because it doesnt seem to be anything like the comments that have been posted here from the first link..

The ad has been heavily edited. I wonder how many e-mails they received.

Hell hath no fury like a Mumsnetter who's been scandalised!

The ad has gone!

Oh, it's been very edited, squeaky, from working 8am-8pm, doing all the cooking and cleaning but being entitled to eat the meals you prepared with the family, to either sleeping with the kids or kipping on the sofa in the sitting room (which they called a lounge).

You nest of vipers have scared them off gumtree altogether! they've deleted it!

I'm sure they'll reword it and post again tomorrow. Oh well, some poor innocent au pair is safe, at least for now!

They're disgusting.

I bet they're really bemused trying to figure out why they got a sudden flurry of angry emails

Ah, the power of Mumsnet

I wonder if they will take a long hard look at themselves and work out just what made people so angry.

Probably not.

My FDD is privately fostered. Among other things, she was being left with a string of disinterested au pairs for long periods of time, under employment terms actually illegal in this country. I really, really hope these parents know what they are getting themselves into.

On a different note, nothing tops this ad. www.gumtree.com/p/jobs/vibrant-school-teachernanny-required-for-summer/1022389305 How many primary school teachers are going to want to be a nanny to primary aged children during the summer holidays, they already have to spend all year with them!

I doubt it. Some people feel so superior it is their right to exploit others at every turn, to the point where they don't even see it and don't even notice, just expect it, and then wonder why the au pairs leave all the time.

I know of a couple of Filipinas who have been brought here and get treated much in the way the original ad wants. Immigration issued them visas based on their employer agreeing all the legal working conditions including hours and pay. Nobody follows up to see that these conditions are adhered to. The women don't complain, this is how they were treated in another country and they don't want to be sent away. I know one of them has tried to change employer but as a non driver got nowhere, the job in this ad might have been attractive if she'd seen it. The other just wants to keep her head down until she has been here long enough to apply for an Indefinite Leave to Remain status.

There have been a few cases here in Australia where some Indian families have brought in young girls/men on relative's visas and then had them working in similar conditions for far below the minimum wage (but sometimes still a good wage by Indian standards, that is, if they get paid at all). They're essentially trapped in their employers home (who sometimes may be related to them but usually distantly). Sometimes it's really been a case of slipping a neighbour a note that they are being forced to work against their will and being locked up in the daytime etc. Now that they've made the conditions of getting relatives in quite a bit tougher, you hear far less of that sort of thing now. Now it's far more common to bring in elderly grandparents and they do the bulk of the childcare - however, it seems to be an arrangement in which all are much happier as it's expected that there will be mutual care and there usually is.

The ad has gone

I know a family with 3 children. They don't have au pairs any more. They would sometimes leave their children in full charge of an au pair from 7am - 8pm. Two of the children were at school but the third was only 3 at the time though she was in part time nursery 3 days a week.

The difference? They had TWO au pairs who shared the work between them and during term time at least they we free except for an hour or two of housework from 8-5 4 days a week. They had one day a week each of looking after the little one. Also anything they did over 33 hours a week was paid at NMW - i.e. baby sitting, covering for other au pair if they were sick. They were also expected to help the children learn Spanish (which since they were both Spanish probably wasn't a major problem)

They were paid £110 a week plus bus pass, all meals and snacks and allowed to phone home as often as they liked.

Not perfect but I know which job I'd rather have

Oh and that was 6 years ago

I would like to think the ad has been removed because they are deeply ashamed of their slave like demands.

I doubt it though.

Lets keep an eye out for it returning and then

"release the dogs of war" :)

I just did a check on the Australian version of Gumtree and there are similar 'wanted' ads. One family with four children under six years (youngest is under two) and three older teenagers (blended family it seems) want a live in au-pair for ten hour days four days a week plus additional hours which can be 'negotiated'. Lots of euphemisms like "willingness to be not an employee but a valued member of our family", an "older sister" and "reasonable allowance" indicate they are not willing to pay very much at all. Then again, they were still offering own room etc so perhaps not quite as bad as OP's. Still it would be awful for an aupair to have to work forty plus hour weeks for so little and be stuck in a rural area.

I don't see what's wrong with the school teacher/nanny post. People sometimes need money, and a young childfree primary teacher might find that a good way to help raise the deposit on a flat as long as it was paying OK. The travelling bit might be a bonus with a reasonable family.

We use a TA to nanny our primary age DC for some of the summer holidays - it works well.

This thread reminds me of one where someone had a nanny who had to sleep on the sofa in Dubai, a load of people piled in and said that it wasn't reasonable not to give her a room of her own. The OP and a number of other expats said it really wasn't that bad, life was different there and they knew some people who made their nanny sleep on the balcony, so it was all relative

It's gone now....I never got to see it!! How bad was it?

You can still see it if you click on "Read full description"