AIBU to give the au pair sandwiches for lunch?!?!

[munchee]

So, we've recently embarked on having an au pair for the first time. She is French. We are single person household with just me and my young son (aged 3).

For lunch, my son generally eats sandwiches-cheese/tuna/ham etc or perhaps beans or eggs on toast. The AP eats with him and therefore has the same sort of food. The AP has complained that she feels ill from eating bread for lunch everyday and that she would like to eat a cooked lunch with meat etc (more like what we would usually have for dinner)

AIBU to say no? I am of the opinion that "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" and (unless I am completely ignorant of the norm) I thought most families tended to have bread etc for lunch.

Thoughts please?

Could she have a salad instead? with cold meat?
or soup...or baked potato?

Well if she wants a cooked meal with meat, she can make it then can't she? She's supposed to be part of the family isn't she?

Lying the family my son stayed with ate nothing but junk food

Even he got sick of it after a week and believe me, that takes quite some doing!

How about when you cook a meal liek chilli or bolognese the leftovers can be used the following day

Can she have baked potatoes, stick them in the over while cooking the evening meal ready for the next day then thats not much hassel for you is it.

Soup
Baked Pots
Omlettes

Hmm. If she's willing to make her own lunch, then I think it's only fair to provide ingredients for food she'd like to eat. Not necessarily meat and veg, but you could get salad things or soups/omlettes for her. Or you could give her some housekeeping money to sort her own food out. We had a short term nanny who was a gluten intolerant vegetarian, and really couldn't have fed her, so I gave her housekeeping money to buy her own food (as she was live in). I gave her 50, but that was to cover her travel as well. Obviously that's a lot of a weekly food budget (most of mine) but could you discuss it with her and reach a compromise.

YABU - let her eat what she wants. Why wouldn't you?

OP surely it's only decent to ask her if there are thing other than bread she would like and try and accomodate her, if she wants to cook surely she can? Pasta takes 10 minutes to boil. Baked potato a few mins in microwave. There are loads of things that can be cooked in 15 minutes or less.

Blimey Worra, new fangled French people they must be? Salad Lyonnaise was the closest we got to junk food; it's basically salad with poached eggs, bacon lardons and frites, actually in the salad. Fab!

Did he rate the pizzas much? They persist in putting French cheese on it instead of mozzarella and cheddar. I deplore French cheese at the best of times. My colleagues liked cheddar too, I took 18kg with me last time and a few jars of Marmite in my handbag.

I was going to suggest what andsmile said.
She might not want cooked dinner and only have salad and cold meat for dinner so she can have the dinner next day for lunch. Thats how i used to eat when i came here.

It sounds like you are trying to 'teach her a lesson' - ie 'my way or the high way'.

She is telling you that sandwiches are making her feel ill.

You still want her to eat only sandwiches.

Why do you want to make her feel ill?

Doesn't seem very kind to me.

(I have IBS and two days of sandwiches would make me so ill I'd be incapable of looking after your son).

I don't think the AP has said sandwiches make her fell ill - I think that is thread drift....one poster suggests bread makes their IBS flare up and suddenly the thread drifts to the AP being force fed foods which will kill her.

Our go to quick lunches include salads, soup and bread (what about buying the posh stuff or making a pot at the weekend), plates of cold meat and dips and bread, leftovers etc.

Maybe OP it made you question your food choices as a parent and thats why you feel a bit

Well this is a cultural exchange wy not embrace this and ask her to cook a typical french lunch see how it goes?

I was willing to back you up when I read your OP, as from previous employers talking about their au pairs, I know how frustrating it is having someone living with you who has different dietary requirements. (Especially for my previous employers where their live in nanny before au pairs ate anything remotely edible )

But actually, reading your reply further down the thread, you come across like you won't even consider other options and you're annoyed she won't just do as you say.

I think you should take some tips from PPs. If she had an allergy, you wouldn't expect her to just get on with it because that's what you eat.

....I hope.

Wait, if she's the au pair, what does your work commitments have to do with it? Surely the point is that she looks after your child while you are working? Do you cook/make lunch for everyone? Because maybe she should be doing that - then the problem is solved.

Personally I'd eat sandwiches at every meal if I could, but surely you can see that you should be a bit more flexible if it's making her feel unwell. Yes, she's there for cultural exchange, but it's not like evryone in the UK dines exclusively on sandwiches every day - she can absorb our culture while eating wraps/jacket spuds/salads etc.

It's a very British thing to eat sandwiches every day for lunch. When Spanish people go to the UK on exchanges and language learning trips, it is the thing they complain about the most

You should be adaptable and friendly, I guess that it what you want her to be to your children?

A French au pair will not be satisfied with sandwiches for lunch. French people eat a cooked, hot meal at lunch time.

Why can't you do some batch cooking, then put a small portion in to a couple of separate containers for her lunch. Do 3 or 4 different meals, then that is a few days of evening meals for you all, and a few days of lunches for your AP.
Then get some potatoes (I can recommend the frozen ones for when you are in a rush) for her to have jacket and various fillings. Eggs for omelettes (with different ingredients added - meat, tomato etc).
Or even the odd ready meal.
Plenty of options that won't cost you much. Then say to the AP that she can heat / cook one of the above if you don't have time.
Why would you want to upset the person who is caring for your child over such a non issue?

Why are you making up sandwiches for their lunch?....she could prepare something nice and get your ds involved....

She probably doesn't want the equivalent of a lunch box left in the fridge each morning.

I wouldn't want to eat sandwiches every day either. While it's true that in the UK we tend to have a lighter lunch and main evening meal, that doesn't mean eating only bread!

Let this woman make her own lunch - can't you provide jacket potatoes, pasta, soup, salad stuff?

My French DSSs think that a microwave heat-up meal from M&S is a treat fab lunch, btw. You don't necessarily have to set to and cook from scratch all the time.

Rose it's in the OP that the au pair said too much bread makes her ill. I couldn't have bread for lunch every day either, and if someone caring for my child was feeling ill I would do everything I could to make them more comfortable. I don't see why you can't just offer her the option of different choices to cook for herself?

Actually Rose in her original post the OP says

munchee Wed 28-May-14 10:12:49

The AP has complained that she feels ill from eating bread for lunch everyday and that she would like to eat a cooked lunch with meat etc (more like what we would usually have for dinner)

Sorry, cross post!

Why can't she choose and make her own lunch? She's not a child you can decide for!

I very rarely have a sandwich.
I would hate to be told I had to have one everyday when it would make me feel ill.
I think you need to sit down and have a chat with her about what she does like for lunch and come to a compromise.