To feel really annoyed that our Italian au pair....

[Madonnasbiggestfan]

Arrived last Thursday and is going home on Sunday. Basically she's 20 and has never lived away from home before, including visiting anywhere else in her home country. She hasn't worked since leaving school at 18 (she has a £1k iPhone NOT that I'm jealous). We found out she has a serious dairy allergy (we knew from our Skype calls she had an issue with eating dairy) we only found out on Sunday that she carries an epipen and can't touch cheese.
She's decided to go back home because she just was crying all the time. She's not offered to help at all and I just had to ask her to clean up after herself when she makes a meal, i.e crumbs and washing up the plate. DH and I had to go to a funeral today (elderly relative) and I got dressed up with high heels some make up and a fairly dressy navy dressed compared to what I've worn since she's been here. Before we left she couldn't stop staring at me and I felt very uncomfortable, I'm in my 40s with two DCs for goodness sake! I've now got four more days of this, she doesn't want me to leave her on her own! Heeelp. I do want her to go. I feel on one hand a bitch for feeling like this and on the other very annoyed...

proudbrows: She was only working 10 hours a week for £100 and free board and lodging in London?! Good grief! That’s a bloody good job!!

My colleagues frequently joke they want to be my aupair. It is a pretty cushy set up for the right girl.

Hang on, so she arrived on Thursday straight into a house dealing with a bereavement and funeral stuff, was expected to jump straight in without a chance to catch her breath or orientate herself in a foreign country and you somehow think that this means that she is incapable?

Poor woman

What has this got to do with her being Italian?

I think you are getting a unnecessarily hard time here OP, that's Mumsnet for you. I agree she sounds far from ideal and you are best letting her go
It sounds like you have been kinder than many would have been

It’s probably a massive culture shock for her, give her some compassion, it sounds like she has made a mistake. Poor girl. She might be 20 but it doesn’t stop her from being homesick

Anyone commenting on this who does NOT have an au pair or any previous experience of this, please STFU.

You have every right to be annoyed. She should have been more transparent about her allergy and I don't understand why she is so emotional? I have had one or two that skyped very well and were then different people at heart. I had to send one home as it turned out she had a severe vision issue that she knew about but had chosen not to get treated. No way was she tooling around town with my kids in the car.

I don't know how you source yours but I use aupairworld and it is generally OK but my profile is extremely detailed about

1. family dynamics: I'm a single mum with limited funds and some au pairs are looking for a rich family in London who will take them on skiing holidays and give them a car
2. lifestyle: I make it very clear that we eat everything and have animals and cannot accommodate anyone vegan or with severe allergies
3. duties: all my prospective au pairs are provided a schedule for the week at interview stage which includes about 0.5-1.5 hrs of housework each day. It totals 3-4 hours of boring work per week.

Most of mine have been over 25 due to the car insurance so have generally lived more but some of them are still flaky af.

Don't sweat it, get rid and find a new one.

Goldie

@harshbuttrue1980 - why should the au pair scheme be scrapped?

From the au pair persepctive: Most of my au pairs have benefited hugely from coming over here to learn 'real' English and three of them are still here, working hard at building professional lives for themselves and kicking butt. They still see my kids and I was 'mum' for a year and they still check in when they need me, as their own families are far away.

From the family perspective: If the au pair scheme got scrapped, I would have to find alternative part time care. Here are the maths: morning and afterschool clubs is about a tenner per child per session. That in itself is £40 per day and would cost me about 8k over the year, plus holiday clubs which are £30 per day per child and I used 4 weeks last year = 1.2k. They would not be able to do any afterschool activities as they'd miss the 'pick up'.

That's pretty much even steven on costs with an au pair. However, my kids would have to leave the house at 7am and get home about 7pm and then have dinner and do homework. Our quality of life as a family would be totally diminished. With an au pair, they are looked after in our home. Furthermore, I work until 6pm and would not be able to commute home in time to collect them from afterschool clubs. I'd have to either find another job or change my hours and go down in pay.

Assuming I get a nanny, they charge about £10-£15 an hour here, plus the whole NI/pension issue and I simply cannot afford that and keep working. A friend has had three nannies so far go off on paid maternity leave.

So your flippant remark about scrapping the scheme does not consider the impact it would have on (mainly) working women in the UK.

UPDATE: for all of you telling me how awful and unwelcoming I am. The au pair has just told me her sister is flying over from Italy because she doesn't want to go on the flight back on her own...
How did she think she would manage as an au pair? Also I've discovered she has tried and failed to get a job as cabin crew 5 times. She only wanted to come here to learn English - she admitted and didn't really want to look after children...

Goldie thank you x

Lovely au pair moments - my favourite was "I am exhausted because I don't have a siesta here" (has free time from about 10am to 3pm every day)

I think the OPs reference to the iPhone was because although she was 20, she had never worked and yet had the money for expensive goods. This might suggest that she is quite pampered at home and has had no need to develop a good work ethic.

I think the thing with the staring certainly suggests less than ideal social skills. Maybe she was desperate for the OP to not leave her alone so was silently pleading for her to stay. Or maybe she was just surprised at the way she was dressed. Whatever the reason, it's a massive jump to assume that the OP is jealous or imagines that the au pair fancies her. I think some people just want to cause an argument.

I can't imagine the logic to those saying that the au pair is being treated like a slave. What other job could you do with no experience, no qualifications for the job, poor English skills and only have to work only 25ish hours per week, yet have it pay well enough to live in a nice place in London, afford all food and bills and have £100 a week left over for spending money?

OP, I don't think there is a robust way of interviewing, because they could say whatever they want. I think it's really hit and miss with au pairs and nothing in your posts suggests that you've been unreasonable. In my job description, I say I want really chatty people, that is my number one criteria and I reiterate it in the interviews. Yet I've still had a really shy person who barely spoke. It's just the nature of employing au pairs. Put it down to experience and try again, because when it works, it can work really well.

Blimey, the poor girl has made a mistake and is miserable, have some compassion! Is your attitude helping her feel better? I doubt it. Be kind, chalk it up to experience and review your employment strategy next time!

“She doesn’t want to go on the flight back on her own”. Think that’s a prerequisite for someone to be cabin crew material. And not wanting to look after children? Does that mean she just wanted to be an extra child and get £100 a week? I do feel sorry for her as I said upthread. She’s been babied by her parents by the sound of it.

@madonna, the girl is very naive, however, you are equally naive to think that a young student who isn’t a childcare professional may struggle when she’s over here. I can see the benefits in the au pair system , however I can also see how exploitative it can be and how some hosts seem to think they’re being short changed if their charge isn’t Mary Poppins!!!

Goldie, that argument could be used by any employer who doesn't want to pay minimum wage. In America there are signs that the scheme may end up being scrapped, and I hope we will follow suit post Brexit. I agree that childcare needs to be more affordable for working mums, but I don't think that justifies paying someone below minimum wage. If you can't pay a living wage, then to me it means that you can't afford the luxury of 1:1 childcare.

Any other live-in worker needs to be paid minimum wage minus a set offset for accommodation, and I don't see why there should be a class of people who don't get this protection. Maybe more people will chip in for nanny shares if the au pair scheme ended, and then for example people who used to have an aupair can pay their pittance wages to a nanny and the nanny would end up with a living wage.

@harshbuttrue I completely agree with you. I also find there’s a sheen of smugness over having an au pair, as if it’s a rite of passage to being middle class. In truth it’s just a tight way to get childcare. If you can’t afford to pay minimum wage, find alternative childcare , eg after school clubs, child minder, wrap around care.

@harshbuttrue 'sheen of smugness' - I was paying £1000 a month for childcare until last October!!!

@madonna, join the club! I pay a nanny. Someone who I’ve met, extensively interviewed, who’s met my child, is a formal employee, is on way above minimum wage, has a pension etc...etc...I’m very lucky I can afford this. If you can’t afford 1:1 then don’t exploit a student and then moan when it doesn’t work out. I’d expect it NOT to work out on the basis there’s no way you can do the necessary due diligence.

Nannying is a completely different job from being an au pair. We’ve had nannies and we’ve had au pairs. I’m not so unintelligent as to think that nannying is inherently more ethical - it’s just different.

Au pairing is a great job for students with no qualifications other than exams, to get to learn the language and experience the culture. That’s the whole point of it.

Our au pairs were paid £200 a week for a maximum of 20 hours per week (usually nothing like), we paid their food at around £50 per week, and they paid no rent - which on a double bedroom and bathroom in this part of London would be around £200 per week.

That works out at the equivalent of £22 per hour. Even if we budgeted only £30 for food that would be £21.50 per hour.

Out of a minimum wage job you have to pay for everything.

If au pairing such a poor deal why are so many people so keen to do it? Why are we still in touch with old au pairs who enjoyed their time here so much they come back to visit? In fact, my family are still in touch with the au pairs we had when we were children.

Nanny's are completely different. They are qualified, fluent in English, often ofsted registered, do long days of sole childcare, do proper cooking, assist with the child's emotional and educational development and even if they are live in, their lives are separate from the employers.

Au pairs do no have sole care of babies, they do short hours, have little experience, less than perfect English, no qualifications, only really heat up pre-made food rather than cook. Their main role is to occupy the children between after school and when the parent gets home. Au pairs need a lot of help from the host family. They can't initially buy train/bus tickets for when they go out, they need help finding a language course, finding local people to make friends with. Nannies are totally self sufficient.

The two are worlds apart. Nannies do a really hard job and deserve a professional wage; au pairs are babysitters, the same as the teenager down the road that you might use if you are going out for the evening.

This is pretty common with au pairs , they are just kids and you are wanting very cheap childcare . My freind has been through loads .. 😬😬

For heaven's sake, she's 20 ! In my book thats an adult. When i was same age I decided to find job on Riviera, never been away from home before, lovely Dad saw me off with minimum fuss, caught train, went across on ferry, found train to Paris, changed stations to go south. Terrifying, but it grew me up ! Learned French, swam, looked after ( poisonous ) French childen, came home new person. She obviously can't cope withbeing away. Let her go asap! What is wrong with today's young ?

It’s a scheme that can work really well, but of course you are sometimes going to get CFs - both the au pairs and the host families. Perhaps there should be an Au Pair Advisor (Like Tripadvisor) so people could warn each other about lazy snowflakes or cold-hearted cheapskate employers.

@harshbuttrue your maths are flawed. This is why: The au pair is unqualified so lets compare to similar unqualified jobs, same age etc. around here. With £100 cash straight in the pocket each week, plus overtime for any nights I'm late from work or have an event, that's effectively the pay yes, but if you compare it to what she would "have" working the SAME HOURS, i.e. 15-20 per week in a 'real' job, then having to pay tax on that and rent a room which is going for at least £400 pcm around here, plus bills for groceries, gas/leccy, TV/Broadband....... she'd be a LOT worse off. In fact, she would not be able to live and study which most of mine do as they have so much free time.

@strongmummy - refer back to the childcare calculations I provided above before commenting on 'alternative options' please - you clearly haven't got a clue. The fact of the matter is this is what I can afford without having to change jobs.
My au pairs have more disposable income for "fun" than I do each month after I've paid all overheads for me, the kids and her. So I'm not sure what this middleclass "sheen of smugness" you refer to is coming from?

autumnleaf1 "only heat up pre-made food".....??? We cook together when I'm here and most of my au pairs can cook from scratch and WANT to. Maybe we are different, but part of the joy we have as a family is their home dishes and vice versa. Most young girls like to bake and I like to share recipes with them. A lot of my au pairs have not experienced Indian, Thai, etc. food and the odd take-away we have is extremely popular.

There is no funnier/disgusted face than that of an Italian au pair when they first experience a Hawaiian pizza :-D

I was 19, arrived in New York from the darkest depths of Lancashire, got on a bus from Port Authority and arrived at a kids summer camp in Upper State New York only to be told that actually they didn't need me anymore.

Okaaayyy

Luckily another camp did need me so I worked there for 3 months.

Crying and panicking never entered my mind.