To say that free rent for childcare is exploitative?

[Namechangedincaseshesonhere]

There was an ad posted on my local share page on Facebook for a couple looking to give up their spare bedroom to a student in return for various AuPair style duties.

This included helping to cook meals, clean, food shop, help kids (13,12 and 3) with homework, and also actual childcare when the student didn’t have classes.

My issue was, there was no mention of pocket money as an AuPair would get. Nor was there any mention of fixed hours of baby sitting, eg free rent (worth £400-500 pcm) in return for say 12 hours work per week.

It seemed to me they wanted a young person to live with them and be at their beck and call. In my opinion these arrangements should be clearly defined in terms of what is required in return for the rent. The family said in the comments they have had AuPairs in the past (probably can’t get another because of Brexit) so surely they should know how it works.

When people called her out for “looking for slave labour” the add was deleted.

So, who is being unreasonable, the mum wanting to swap housing for (potentially unspecified amounts of) labour, or the people commenting on the thread?

Is this normal? And is it a good deal in the current rental market?

In theory i don't see a problem with it however as you say specific terms would need to agreed before. Also arrangements for food ect, hours of work and general expectation

I don't think it's unreasonable per se, but expectations would need to be clear up front. Open ended childcare wouldn't be reasonable.

I think it could be a good deal so long as they didn't take advantage. There would have to be agreement over how much cooking, childcare etc. Also I think I would worry about childcare experience and safety as you wouldnt know this person .

It could be a decent arrangement though afaik it is illegal.
Au-pairs are now paid minimum wage plus board.

Yeah it's slavery and it's a hill I will die on. I'm not even particularly convinced by "au pairing" being legit - it always seems to be the families who can afford to pay for their childcare that always seek out au pairs. It's exploitative.

With set hours it could be a reasonable deal. Especially with 1 or 2 older children it would be more presence required than actual work.
But unlimited unknown hours and a 3 yr old requiring full on child care no.

My sister went to uni in London and in her third year no halls available so she stayed with a couple with a kid and got free rent and food in return for 15 hours babysitting of new baby. She kept in touch with family and little girl was her bridesmaid when she got married. I was allowed to sleep on sofa in her room on a few nights too. Only problem was she got broody.

id be more concerned about who would respond wanting to move into a home, having access to 3 children!

When my children were small, we rented out our fourth bedroom to a student from the local university and asked for one evenings babysitting in return for reduced rent.

It definitely sounds exploitative and dodgy. A terrible idea. Not sure it's slavery because there's not really any reason the person can't leave - unless they actually lock them in or such. Its just a really terrible and exploitative arrangement

If it was agreed as for example, 2 hours after school + 4 hours on Saturday it could work. But will almost certainly be taken advantage of. And you're in a vulnerable position if you're living there, all your stuff, Mail is there.

A lot of ads like this are actually posted by predators looking to exploit others into modern slavery.

In any event, I think it's awful and shouldn't be allowed. The young person could be vulnerable - desperate for housing due to poverty/impending homelessness etc - and then once they've moved in, they'll feel beholden to their 'employers'. It's easy to see how coercive control could be established here. If they dissent or try to refuse duties, they'll fear homelessness.

Stinks to me.

Absolutely. I'd expect the rent itself to 'buy' very little in the way of childcare, really - even in areas where rent is very expensive a room in a house where you're sharing with a family isn't usually appealing to many people. Assuming it includes all bills and potentially some food then it's worth more, but it certainly wouldn't buy childcare on tap. The terms would have to be set out very clearly beforehand or it's just a recipe for disaster and resentment all round.

When I was a PhD student there were quite a few adverts around for free or cheap rooms living with an elderly person and providing 'company' (adverts usually put up by their family member), and it seemed superficially appealing so I looked into a couple but it was immediately clear that their expectations were very high and perhaps a bit unrealistic. They said that it would be a brilliant deal because I wouldn't be doing actual care work, but in both cases I would be expected to be in every single evening unless I'd made prior arrangement with the family member (and it wasn't clear how often I could reasonably do that), couldn't go away overnight and couldn't have any guests of my own, and would actually be taking on a lot of responsibility including checking they didn't go wandering at night, etc. That's a lot of freedom to give up for reduced rent!

This does seem totally fair to me. A specific time of babysitting in return for rent. This ad I saw not so much.

It's not a good deal at all. But society c.f. capitalism upholds these sorts of practices even down to 'work experience / internships' or surrogates and even landlords. This is just an example of that.

I'm pretty sure this is illegal now, it's certainly exploitation.

Absolutely. I'd expect the rent itself to 'buy' very little in the way of childcare

A back of the envelope calculation says if the room is worth 600 a month, then based on the minimum wage for someone aged 18-20, it's worth 20 hours a week work. That sounds like a lot, although I suppose if that was 2 hours a day after-school care for five days a week, that doesn't sound that bad.

liz Smith did this when her children were young. It's been occurring for years. If both parties are happy, why not?

Without the exact details of expectations there’s no way of knowing if it’s exploitative or not
list is very general

The person placing the ad was being very unreasonable, but it's possible they didn't think it through clearly and although they may have planned to say to whomever answered that they expect 6hrs babysitting a week, for example, they forgot to specify it in the ad. If they truly did expect to hire someone to be at their beck and call 24/7 (for 3 kids no less!) with no salary, then it's illegal and clearly unreasonable.

That’s ten hours per week, though, not twenty.

So that’s every au-pair and live in nanny that you are suspicious of then?

If this gets to be "a thing" then beware of HMRC viewing it as payment in kind and wanting their slice of the pie. It is a truth universally acknowledged that barter (which is what this is, by the way) is not exempt from taxation.

Because "happy" can lead to exploitation. An illegal emigrant with great fear of being found out could be "happy" with such arrangement, but that doesn't make it right