Au pair expectations - am I crazy?

[Purplepublic835]

Host family need help!

Hello! I am a host mother that needs some help.

We had a first au pair and loved her, unfortunately she got a new job in her home country and wanted to take it (of course we were happy she did!). We are now on our second au pair and are having a totally different experience.

Let me just explain what we offer as a host family:

- standard weekly pocket money. We work shifts (me and my SO) which means things vary. The au pair may work 0 hours per week or a couple of days incl over night (no over nights so far), depending on if my SO is home.

- phone bill paid

- cinema trips paid for with eldest child (this is not babysitting/minding, this is company for the oldest and not mandatory) tickets and snacks

- food and board (any groceries needed just need to be asked for).

- light house work (clean after yourself and the kiddo when working)

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This worked super well with our first au pair. She fitted in with us so well, wanted to be part of the family. Was so sad to see her go. However, we are on week 3 of work (max 2.5 days work last week and 1 the week before) and I got a text message at 6.30am, due to start at 6.45am that they were feeling unwell and were 'going back to bed until they feel right' and nothing else, its now almost 10am and no word. I get people get sick, but I feel that not even trying to discuss in person was very wrong and should have happened. I am not an ogre and am currently trying to work and juggle a toddler. Considering they have a trip for 2 weeks from Thursday booked (dates told to us last week as before that was vague) I find this all very hard to stomach.

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My questions are:

- What can I do to make this more of a fitting placement, I am not sure how to communicate any further what is expected as speaking with other host families, I have had shocked faces with my expectations and told it was a great offer. Do I have unreasonable expectations here?

- what are standard sick procedures for informing host families when you can't work?

- what is acceptable when 'room and board' is provided? I have no problem providing extra food, and was told there were no dietary requirements/dislikes, but was asked for an extra 50 euro worth of unusual and hard to find groceries on her first day (asian style and to make only one dish) - and another 40 euro in shampoo and hair care - is this normal?

- in regards to holiday pay, it is 2 weeks pay per 12 months. Considering I will be paying the pocket money over the next two weeks, do I just not pay any further monies for other holidays I know she will want?

- regularly finding dishes in the sink instead of dishwasher, pots and pans left and I had to clean the next day. I was very angry. Was I right to be?

I had no idea au pairs were like fostered babysitters, rich people are so weird.

😂😂

Au pairs are actually a bit like fostered baby sitters.

They aren’t employees but teens and early 20s - young adults with limited life experience, but capable of a certain level of responsibility - who go to a foreign country to widen their experience and be ‘taken -in’ by a host family who provide a level of care for them, in return for light duties - sort of Mother’s help stuff.

They aren’t qualified childcare, they dont work full time hours, they aren’t supposed to be in sole charge of under 2s. Hosts are expected to provide them pocket money not pay, but also emotional support, family support and to. Facilitate things like language learning. It is like being a part time surrogate parent in return for some help with childcare of kids who aren’t babies.

People who need more than this and want more than this or can’t provide the responsibility side, shouldn’t have au E people often want cheap live in childcare. They expect what a paid Nanny would provide and often expect far more hours, but don’t want to welcome someone into their family and include them or provide the support a you g adult abroad needs. Too many au pairs are exploited….and usually the families think the au pair has delivered them a poor deal.

@WombatChocolate, well said.

Expecting nanny quality care from someone who is not a nanny but a young person on a cultural exchange is the height of cheapskate cheeky fuckery.

@antelopevalley how can you say it is clearly not true. Were you there? It's so rude to accuse the op of lying about it, why would she bother? She has enough other reasons to be dissatisfied with the au pair.
I bought crackers in an Asian shop local to me and they were €10 for 2 packs. Those shops can be very expensive, especially when the choosing is being done by someone who's not paying.

@littlesnowdropfairy Because I have read all of this thread. It included herbal teas and ingredients to make ramen from scratch. That will mean buying ingredients that can be used for many meals. It is like following a British recipe where you have to buy everything on the recipe including herbs and spices, a pack of stock cubes, a bottle of oil and a bag of sugar when you only need a teaspoon for the recipe. I know how to make ramen from scratch. The OP made it sound like all the ingredients would be used for one meal and that is it.

@Purplepublic835
I'm Irish and the idea of texting anyone in my home who said she was sick sounds really strange to me.

www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/group-urges-families-to-be-aware-of-au-pairs-rights-1.3378240

Is your au pair registered at your local immigration office?
Does she have private health insurance provided either by you or self funded?
How much are you paying her per hour?
Is your schedule fixed enough to allow the au pair to register for language classes or to plan trips to see Irish landmarks or cultural venues of interest? Or does she have to sit in with your older child and watch TV every night?
There are regulations about time off and maximum consecutive hours of work allowed.

It sounds very much from your posts here that you have forgotten the cultural exchange part about au pairing (griping about ingredients for ramen for instance).

I strongly suspect from your comments complaining about how expensive this young woman is turning out to be that you see an au pair as a childcare option whose main attraction is that you don't have to pay nanny rates to an individual with experience or education in childcare. And you are paying her on the low end if her pocket money is €120. If you expect childcare including overnights followed by a day of work, and for her to be available with hours changing weekly she should be paid €9.80/hour, with extra pay for Sunday work.

An au pair who is the only person over 18 in a house where a child is sleeping is on duty - or do you expect her to put in earplugs and ignore your child if he cries, or save only herself if the house catches fire? You need to pay her overnight rates if she is working nights, which she is if you are not there.

If your job is so demanding and with such odd hours that you require someone pretty much full time with overnights thrown in once a month, then you need to figure out how to afford fully qualified and professional childcare and stop exploiting au pairs.

Here is an interesting thought for you, not everyone who eats Asian food is Asian!
You do know calling a poster a liar on Mumsnet is frowned upon don't you?

When it’s done properly the au pair experience is brilliant. We have had three, all treated as part of the family (including having semi parental duties to them sometimes!) and keep in regular touch with all. Have met their parents, and now feel like part of our extended family. But it is completely open to exploitation, some of their au pair friends were doing 40 plus hours a week and kept away from the family except to work.

Personally I would let her go. She seems to have an attitude. Try and find someone else or childminder

Your au pair sounds pretty terrible but you do need to be careful with the regards the law in Ireland. Au pairs do have to be treated as regular workers now which means €10.50 an hour for the over 20’s, registered for prsi and a max of €54 deducted per week for board and lodgings (which is a bit mad imo given what you would get to let our a room in Ireland). You also need to supply a written contract (you may have done that already). Based on this (€120 + €54 / €10.50) she should work about 16.5 hours a week - if she is collectively doing more than this in a months period you should top up her wages that month as overtime (ie one week 6 hours, next 22 would be average at 16)! Two weeks holidays would also be less than a worker is legally entitled to - I think it’s around 4 weeks.

There have been a lot of court cases the last few years where families have had to pay back payments and fines where the pocket money didn’t cover the minimum wage (which doesn’t seem to have happened with you yet). You could also get in trouble for the tax avoidance so I would definitely look into that - if you were to get someone who was annoyed and reported you you could end up in trouble!

Personally I think the system in other countries work better where if an au pair works below a certain number of hours it is treated differently from
other work. Some Irish people were making people work 40 hour weeks for pocket money which is why they adjusted the law.

Had about 12 au pairs and so used to this - 10 of them became family and we’re still close, one we had to ask to leave and one took herself off after two weeks.
Haven’t read all posts but sounds like you hit a dud one. Our bad one was the second so I feel for you - you’re not sure anymore what’s right. Trust your instincts. Your set up seems fair. She’s being unreasonable, and early on too. I’d find another.

I’d seen this trick many times. (This may be triggering for people who never had au pairs and live in nannys before, so keep the ignorant virtue signalling to yourselves please.)

She tested your boundaries by sending you running around sourcing her overpriced products and foods as if she were a visiting VIP. You proved yourself a pushover, so now she’s taking a comfy seat and letting you pick up all her slack like the VIP she is.

I don’t care how torn to shreds I get, I’ve seen this lazy manipulative behaviour time and time again across many families. You got lucky and blessed the first time. This time your self respect is seriously being tested.

You have 2 options:

1. Sit her down and tell her that initial luxury treatment was a one off to welcome her, but now she’s is testing your kindness and you have a friend who’s au pair is looking for a new family, so she needs to shape up immediately or she is being terminated, immediately.


2. Find a replacement then terminate her contract. Start again with proper boundaries.

I think you need to part ways.

Get rid of her. She clearly doesn’t understand what an au pair told is. I’ve had 8 au pairs for past 10 yrs since youngest was 3. They generally all stay one year then move back to their home country to continue their studies/careers. They did on av 20-30 hrs a week Monday to Friday with 1 night babysitting. Extra night babysitting paid as extra. They were paid £480 a month on average had gone up recently only, that includes room and board- ie food I have bought as family, they are free to eat with us or use the food to cook. If they wanted anything special to eat that was up to them. They had their own toiletries! I had a contract which clearly stated the hours, duties, sick pay, holiday,disciplinary process etc. communication is key. I am still very very close with every one of my au pairs. It is a totally unique and lovely experience for you and your kids if you get the right fit. But if it doesn’t feel right, don’t drag it on. Talk to her and say it’s not right and let her go home.

Do you mind me asking which website you use for the Au Pair? Everywhere I look they are so expensive! Help?!

YABU it sounds like you’ve already made up your mind about her and she probably doesn’t feel very comfortable which is why she’s had to text you that she’s unwell. There’s not much she can do about being unwell it’s just bad timing.
120 euros per week is not a lot, surely she should be getting minimum wage.

I think both of you are unreasonable, and if I were you, I would look for someone else. We’ve had au pairs for 4 years and they became a part of the family. Eat with us, cook together, go on trips with us, this made it so lovely. There was no communication on text, or them eating on a boarding arrangement, like you mentioned (or how I understood your description). So I think you just don’t click. The fact she sends you a text that she’s ill a few minutes before she’s about to start is not on. The fact you send her a text about dishes is not on. This should all be a conversation and given you don’t have it, my suggestion would be to change quickly.

So you expect this poor girl to cover your late shift from 10am - 7pm how many days a week?

Plus the 2 overnights a month.

What other shifts do you do OP? How many hours a week do you expect her to ever?

Sounds like you exploiting this poor girl and she'd be better off elsewhere.

She is taking the proverbial. Had many over the years, never bought any specialist toiletries costing more than what we used, or specialist foods. They have come to new country to learn the language, the culture and experience the lifestyle. I had o r that said she didn’t do laundry, so I would need to take it to the cleaners, I said sure, I will just take it out your wages in response, her amnesia suddenly cleared up.
you need to have an orientation where you tell her what is expected of her and what you won’t put up with. She is to also eat with the family and take part in family outings, as that will help with her integration and communication with all of you. You will also be able to see how she interacts with the children.
if she doesn’t pull her socks up after all that, I would advise her to pack.

Agree with @Cejm.

You are exploiting this young woman and if your previous au pair worked in your home under the same conditions then you were exploiting her too. She was too inexperienced to see it.

For the hours and duties you expect, you need to hire a live in nanny. If you can't afford that then you need to reevaluate your employment.

Either you or your OH should get a better job that would allow you to afford a nanny, or you or your OH should get jobs with normal hours so your children can do daycare.

Au pairs are not the solution to your cash flow or time crunch/ childcare problems. They don't owe you complete availability for pocket money. Ireland is not the middle east where you can get a Phillippino woman to work for slave wages.

I have had several aupairs and cleaners and my advice is if you feel this way about her now pay her two weeks pay and ask her to leave. It's just life - she lives in your home you need to be able to gel with her.

I think €120 per week is very good if she has little or no expenses. I’m in Ireland. Yes it is very expensive here but she has literally everything paid for her already. I worked as a live in nanny in my first job and had so much saved by the time I left it, because all my food and accommodation was included.

I do think that you got a great ap first time and maybe it has set your expectations quite high? A friend of mine has had a few German AP’s over the years, the first two the family were so close with, they have even visited them in Germany and the kids were in their wedding party, so when the 3rd one came and she wasn’t a good fit it was a surprise. I guess it’s not always going to be a good match.
In saying that it sounds like a cushy job only working a short few hours a week for that money. Maybe it’s just not a good fit for your family 🤷🏻‍♀️

She is doing a job so should have a written contract stating hours- flexible but with examples; tasks when working and standards when not working; payment and what will be covered. Expectations when not working. Then both parties know what is expected and have something to refer to. Anything else is not fair to the au pair and leaves both parties open to abuse.

How did things end up going @Purplepublic835 ?