DD in new Au Pair Job - Working Hours

[ForeignerMN]

My DD (18) has just started an aupair placement in Barcelona (she is a dual EU citizen). She has been working for almost two weeks now. She has a contract for 30 hours. She looks after a 2 1/2 year old boy. Both parents work full time, one WFH. She has to get the little boy up, ready and to nursery in the morning, then pick him up in the afternoon and entertain / feed / bath and put him to bed. There was little communication when DD arrived as to tasks and working hours when she arrived. The host mother (HM) is now making a schedule for the week after DD asked for one. The schedule is specified to 5 minute intervals. DD is finding that all the tasks are taking longer as 1) she isn't the child's mother 2) the child doesn't want DD to do things for him when his parents are in the house, either during the day with the WFH parent or in the evening when both parents are home but DD has to put the child to bed.

On top, the HM is only planning DD for 20-25 hours a week and creating a "hour bank" for the hours DD hasn't worked to be carried over to the next week. She has been there less than two weeks and apparently has -7 hours. Next week she has been given a schedule where she should look after the child in the morning when she's supposed to be in her third day of language class (20hrs a week in total) as there isn't any nursery. On top, she has been told that meeting friends and going out twice a week is "too much" and this au pair position is a "full time job". DD is already ready to walk. To make things worse, the Host Dad is actually an old work colleague and we thought this would be easier than an unknown family. Would I be unreasonable to phone and talk to them and help my DD clear this up? Is HM being unreasonable? Carrying the hours forward isn't right, right? If it goes on like this, she have to work an extra month by Christmas...

She needs to get out of there - they're totally taking the piss!

there's a "days" missing at the end there

There is no other side of the story. The exploitation of young au pairs is very common, it happened to me when I was 19. I was working 12 hour days, 5 days a week, with no language school to attend. Looking after a baby all day and baby’s two primary school aged siblings before and after school. Had to pick them up from school for lunch too- I still remember sorting those lunch times as being the hardest thing I’ve ever done, even since having my own. And I was one of the lucky ones as at least the family were super lovely and treated me like a family member. The other au pairs I met had it way worse with awful treatment as though they were slaves.

OP, if you know the host father then you should definitely speak to him on your daughters behalf. When I was au pairing I was too scared to make a fuss- it’s already overwhelming being far from home and working in an unfamiliar language. Being assertive then feels like too much on top of everything else.

AuntSalli
Well I’m very surprised I wouldn’t want some random non-police checked, non-qualified, non-first aid trained person looking after my non-verbal child, how quickly we forget louise Woodwood.

I have no idea who Louise Woodward is."

But you managed to correct the spelling of her name

Sorry not much to add to what's been said already but feel bad for your DD that she is being exploited by someone who you would expect to be able to trust to treat her well.

A quick look online and it looks like she could get another au pair job straight away, so I really hope she walks and gets a job with a decent family.

Poor dd. This happened to me years ago and was awful. I left and got another job and so should she.

Tell her to leave. There is literally nothing to be gained by her staying.

An au pair is not
a) a job, which is why its not paid a wage
b) a nanny, which is why its not paid a wage.

Its a scheme completely rife with CFs who want a nanny & won't/can't pay for one.

The whole point is supposed to be a homestay, where a young person stays with a family learning the language, and provides light childcare duties in return for pocket money.

Its an ideal solution for wraparoung to school, where the children are old enough to be relatively independent, much as teenagers often collect & mind a younger sibling for a couple of hours after school.

I hear SO many stories of people using au pairs as day time long hours care for young toddlers, its just horrendous.

@Muststopeating You are right ...you don't have to pay an au pair minimum wage. I know that 😃. I was using it for context to show the advantage to the host family ...paying less than 25% of minimum wage for childcare and other household jobs. Good deal for the host family when done properly. It should also be a good deal for the au pair. In mentioning what the au pair could expect in proper regular time off for study, cultural experiences, treat as family so going on outings ext with family, what part of the advantages of such an arrangement for au pairs is the op's daughter getting. If my teen daughter was doing all of this for pocket money wages I would want to ensure she was getting a fair experience. Banking hours not quite worked for pocket money wages doesn't seem to me to be in the spirit of the arrangement 😃

OP for contex we have an Italian au pair. She works approx 4 hours per day (nursery drop off and then pickup/entertainment for a few hours in the evening. 5 hours a week. I often take the DC to nursery so she had mornings off. I wouldn’t dream of banking hours that’s utterly ridiculous. This is slave labour and really exploitative. Get her out.
mad an aside, I pay mine £140 per week albeit I’m in the UK and not Spain.

5 days a week sorry.

Wow she needs to leave and find something worthwhile.

Au Pair literally translates to 'equal to' which means they should be an equal member of the household and not staff. She should be contributing to a reasonable and fair amount of household jobs and childcare in exchange for a roof over her head and spending money.

They are taking the piss, are cheap as shit and clearly have no interest in being fair.

Yes, to learn Spanish and just generally have a good experience before she starts Uni next year - it's a 9 month placement, but she's not going to last long at this rate 😫

As you know this family through work, i would call and clarify, even if the net result is the same, ie she leaves.
I would urge some caution though as I’ve been on both sides of this.
We once had to rescue an au pair from a horribly exploitative family who was a friend of our AP. She went on to stay with us for almost a year.
But we also had an experience where a young girl out of her depth and with issues couldn’t cope with the reality of minding children with all that brings. We never felt able to leave the kids for even the 2 hours a day we needed so we suggested it might not be working after some weeks and asked how we could solve it, and she decided to move out to a friend’s. Her parents abroad had heard a totally different version about us throwing her into the street and how she needed a deposit on a flat to get a different job etc. It was messy.. The girl clearly wanted to be in our city but not as part of a family dynamic. That was our last AP!
I’m sure this isn’t the case here but I would probe to be sure!

Indefinitely think she should get out of there. That’s far too much for an au pair.

We had au pairs for years at one point when I was with exh. Theyre not supposed to have sole care of a child under 2, so technically 2.5 is OK, but its not really the age group an au pair is most suited too. I agree school age is better.

Our au pairs basically clocked off, other than to eat a meal with us as one of the family, when one of us got home. Unless we had work to do from home and it was still afternoon, rather than evening. They certainly wouldn’t put the kids to bed if we were in, that’s ridiculous.

I think they want more than a nanny even, they want a proxy parent.

I also agree that banking hours is ridiculous. We used to pay extra if we wanted babysitting in the evenings.

I wasn't able to read your photo but I would say that it's inappropriate to schedule tasks in such a micro-managing way with a small child, especially when the person doing the scheduling appears to be doing so in a self-interested way for the purpose of creating the appearance that fewer hours were worked than were actually worked. I presume this is all so that they can justify the time banking? Sounds dubious.

Get her out, no more to say, she can find something better. Why are you quibbling over it?

@RIPQueen I'd like to hear your au pairs side of the story.

Ok, I've lived in Spain to learn Spanish. Barcelona is a catalan speaking area so I'd choose somewhere else. I've worked and studied abroad and in terms of learning and life experience, you learn more language in a setting like a shop or attraction with other young Spanish employees.

If the parents are out all day, or working, and she is looking after the child, I guess so the child can learn English? She's not going to be exposed to that much Spanish. And the extra faff time with the child, she is speaking to him during that time, giving him English lessons. How can she be penalised for that?!

She will have a better experience working somewhere like port aventura, in a gift shop for example.

IMO, kids are the best teachers - they correct you so shamelessly and gently laugh at your errors. It’s a very low pressure way of learning another language- and also it ensures you start at a basic and clear level (kids tend to talk slower, with less slang, and less advanced vocabulary/ topics). I learnt so much French that way. Though a 2.5 year old’s language skills may be too basic for that purpose.

But agree she’s have a better time working elsewhere as her host family sound awful.

We used to have au pairs they are meant to live as part of the family be given time to go to language school and just help with child care light housework etc not be left in sole charge of children accept maybe the odd evening of baby sitting. They cannot be stopped from socialising. We explained when I needed help usually first thing in the morning e.g. to help get kids off to school and late afternoon/early evening when cooking evening meal etc. the rest of the time was their own, I sometimes drive them to their English language school, or to meet friends my view when they were not helping me their time was their own and they could do what they liked although we included them is all our a activities day trips holidays outing meals in restaurants,meals/parties with friends and family etc (if they wanted to come) and paid for everything. We treated ours as if they were family and wouldn’t have dreamed of “carrying hours over”. The good ones were amazing and we made life long friends I frequently heard them recommending us to the next au pair as one said “lovely family” (“ but terribly untidy!!”). The lazy ones if I’m being honest took advantage of our generosity but we quickly sacked them!
You DD is being exploited but I’m not surprised I spoke to other au pairs and other parents who had au pairs and was often shocked at how badly they were treated even down to being fed different and cheaper food. Au pairs are not meant to be cheap labour.

I'm weirdly glad that I'm not alone feeling that this is a bad situation - now how to broach it with DD without ruining a really nice relationship with my old work colleague and his seemingly demanding and micromanaging wife.

Our au pair, about 19 years ago, had to do the following:

Collect DD2 from nursery, and DD1 from school an hour later (they spent this hour in the park by the school).

Play with them and give them their dinner. Bath if we weren’t home from work (rare)

She did a language class in the morning, and did some general tidying up and cleaning - clearing up after painting/crafting and dinner. We had a cleaner who came in to clean and iron.

We paid her €130 per week, more during the holidays. She got a month paid leave in the summer and two weeks at Christmas, and we paid her airfare home.

She told us years later that she used to send most of her money home to her grandmother, to supplement her pension. 😥

Honestly, at this stage, I wouldn't worry about your relationship with your ex-colleague, I don't think he's that bothered about his with you if he's prepared to treat your daughter like that.