Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Original poster

to have a serious chat with our au pair about my expectations?

106 replies

Honesttodog · 06/12/2015 20:13

Feeling a bit stressed about this and would like some advice about how not to get a positive result.

Au pair has been slightly slack, her main job is getting kids up, tidying up after brekkie, picking up kids at various times, helping out at supper, doing bath and occasional bed but i mostly do bed.

However, we are a bit of an untidy family due to coming and going a lot, lots of toys and lots of rooms to spread crap around in.

I need the au pair to step up and be more tidy and be a good example to the kids with keeping tidy.

She regularly leaves the dinner table with food all over it, leave kitchen surfaces dirty, collections of mugs in her bedroom, doesn't think to pick up toys while kids are in bath... lots of small things which are all aggravating me because i know that if I don't sort out all these small messes, they will stay there till cleaner comes.

I want to have a chat with her about being more tidy, mindful of leaving a room tidy when she takes the kids upstairs - so toys back in boxes, blankets in tv room folded... but I am worried i am just going to sound like a whiny bitch if I itemize everything. However other advice i have read is just to specify everything you want done if you want it to get done. We have had her for 3 months and I admit, i have let things fester a bit which i know is a big no-no.

It feels tricky because she is not naturally tidy and every other person who has ever cared for our kids has been naturally tidy, wouldn't leave the kitchen in a mess if babysitting etc.

Part of me just wants to get a different au pair but I know she is really enjoying her time here and is still a bit immature, and part of being an au pair is gaining a bit of maturity!!!

Any advice on keeping things positive between us while having The Chat?

OP posts:

Only1scoop · 06/12/2015 22:45

Also not quite getting the 'jealousy' thing.

Thought the Op quite happy with responses and off to have a chat with AP.

AnyFucker · 06/12/2015 22:48

yay, not just me ! < eyebrow >

M48294Y · 06/12/2015 22:48

Your reply to op's opening post was "Yep pick up your own shit" AnyFucker. So you think that's ok?

AnyFucker · 06/12/2015 22:50

Yes, I do think it's ok

OP needs to pick up her own shit and perhaps the young woman she is employing will follow her example

she wants her own children to learn by example, so the concept is not an outlandish one

exWifebeginsat40 · 06/12/2015 22:52

don't talk to the au pair yourself, OP! how vulgar. have the Gardener do it.

seasidesally · 06/12/2015 22:52

but some posters in the chilcare section have posted hrs,pay and it was only when others that have had AP's have replied that they are not paying the correct amount,to many hrs,duties not appropriate

some employers expect to much

so it does help to know the details

M48294Y · 06/12/2015 22:55

"Sounds as though you expect a full time maid on an au pairs salary"

there's another spurious comment.

AnyFucker - if op wants to be untidy and strew her own mess around her own house then that is absolutely fine. Why not? Who are you to say she has to be tidy and a good housekeeper?

If she wants her au pair to tidy up when she has prepared meals for the children and tidy away the children's toys when the children have finished playing with them, and that is all within her normal working hours for which she is being paid, then that is fine too.

Nowhere in the op has she suggested that she wants her Au Pair to pick up her own "shit". Nowhere at all.

AvaCrowder · 06/12/2015 22:55

My mum had au pairs for us. She just wanted somebody to be there when we got home from school, she told them no ironing, no cleaning. Hang out and make tea. I loved our au pairs, my mum is still friends with them, we've been to weddings and holidays with them. I think my mum had it right with them. They are young.

hibbleddible · 06/12/2015 22:55

any fucker I accept your point that I misread your wording on that particular point.

But I still agree with m48 that your original answer was pretty rude, and not at all helpful.

MrsSchadenfreude · 06/12/2015 22:55

I think the OP has got some good advice on this thread including mine. And I do think employers of au pairs and nannies can sometimes be defensive on here, because there is always someone who comes in and pipes up, oh, slave labour, why have children when you get someone else to look after them, etc etc, regardless of what the facts are.

I got utterly flamed many years ago on MN because I asked for advice about sacking my nanny, who was pregnant, because she was being cruel to my children. The vast majority of posters predictably clutched their pearls, and shrieked, sacking a pregnant woman, how can you? While ignoring the fact that she was being neglectful and cruel to my children.

AnyFucker · 06/12/2015 22:56

thanks, hib

I accept my phraseology is not to everyone's taste.

MrsSchadenfreude · 06/12/2015 22:57

"don't talk to the au pair yourself, OP! how vulgar. have the Gardener do it."

Like this. Chippy, rude and unhelpful, but probably supposed to be funny.

exWifebeginsat40 · 06/12/2015 23:03

oh shush. we had au pairs growing up, and even MY mother didn't expect to do all the housework, and my mother is fucking bonkers.

exWifebeginsat40 · 06/12/2015 23:04

expect them to. durr.

M48294Y · 06/12/2015 23:05

Do you mean your mother didn't expect to do all the housework - or your mother didn't expect the au pair to do all the housework ExWife?

Potatoface2 · 06/12/2015 23:07

'every other person who has cared for our kids has been naturally tidy' where have they gone then....maybe thats a clue due to your own untidiness

catfordbetty · 06/12/2015 23:08

Anyone who sets the scene with, "Au pair has been slightly slack ..." deserves a little leg pulling.

M48294Y · 06/12/2015 23:09

Ok then, but op doesn't expect au pair to do all the housework, does she?

I mean it says in the fucking op fgs that they have a cleaner.

All op wants is for au pair to tidy up kitchen a bit after cooking, not leave mugs in her bedroom, get children to put toys and coats away.

M48294Y · 06/12/2015 23:11

Ah ... leg pulling. Of course!

Hamishandthefoxes · 06/12/2015 23:12

Au airs typically only stay with a family for a year while they get experience in child care and learn English. There is no need to be snarky about changing au pairs regularly.

exWifebeginsat40 · 06/12/2015 23:13

sorry, my mother didn't expect au pairs to do all the housework. she didn't expect the German one to sleep with my dad either though. heh.

catfordbetty · 06/12/2015 23:16

M48 you have chosen to get worked up on the OP's behalf when, really, there wasn't much to get worked up about. I'm finding it very difficult to take your outrage seriously.

oliveoyl72 · 06/12/2015 23:18

You could say to her that now the children are getting a little bigger you want to introduce a star chart or something for them, and as the au pair, she will be largely responsible for teaching them to tidy up after themselves and rewarding them with the stars. If you spell it out what you want done each day to earn the stars, I can't see that she'd take offence.

Vixxfacee · 06/12/2015 23:18

Why is she doing so much anyway.

M48294Y · 06/12/2015 23:35

No, I'm not outraged and I don't expect you to take me seriously. I'm not worked up either.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5