I don’t want my DD to be an Au Pair for a single dad

[Cyanbadmintonplayer]

Hi,
My DD is 19, we live in Germany but we are a British family. DD really wants to give a go at being an Au Pair for a couple of years while doing open uni.
Shes using an agency and has been matched with a single dad and his 7 year old daughter, from what I can gather no mother on the scene.

He wants DD to take his child to and from school everyday, and then to and from
clubs every evening bar 1 and Saturday.
No cleaning expectations, no need to drive (tube or taxi depending). She would need to make dinner for the child 4 days a week and a packed lunch for between activities on the Saturday. Occasional babysitting but this could come with an extra payment.
DD would get some time off over school holidays but would occasionally be asked to travel with them.
The pay would be £150 p/w, food and accommodation provided (large room with en-suite), travel card provided, phone bill paid for. DD would like to see if a gym membership would be possible on top of this but doesn’t want to be greedy.

It all sounds good I know but I hate the thought of her working for a single dad!
It seems a lot less safe and significantly riskier. I’m also worried that it might not be the safest area she’d be living in (London S/W).

AIBU thinking DD should wait it out for a different family and working for a single man is just too risky?

Yes, that's a good question. I'm sure she has her perfectly valid reasons for feeling this way.

Plus accommodation, plus all bills including phone and transport, plus all her meals paid for...

Agree. Glad to see some more realistic comments now the thread has developed. I would feel the same as the OP - based on my lived experience of even 'nice' men.

I agree. Managing risk is part of being a woman in this world and we can't let it stop us doing everything.

Let's be realistic though if something bad did happen and it made the press or the OP posted here about it then 3/4 of the comments would be saying what did a young woman expect going to live in a foreign country with a man who was a stranger.

Woman and girls can't win - if we pre-judge men apparently it's misandrist and NAMALT but we also are blamed when we end up in dangerous and vulnerable situations with men.

If the OP wants this opportunity and has weighed up the benefits then the most sensible thing to do is go in with open eyes and manage the risk as far as she can with the support of her family.

She needs to talk to the two previous au pairs and then decide.

She would be doing open uni in the school days when the child was at school.

She'll be okay doing an Open University course in certain subjects like sciences and maths and IT, but you need to know that the Open University is terrible for the humanities these days and degrees in certain subjects aren't worth the paper they're written on. I know a couple of people who got their original degrees with the OU 30+ years ago and who rejoined it as academics in recent years. They were horrified at how low the level of expectation and teaching has fallen. The OU has also been very badly infected with Gender Ideology and in subjects such as social sciences your daughter will not be encouraged to read anything that challenges GI. Both of the academics I know who worked there have left for other universities. I currently have a friend who provides counselling and learning support for OU students, and she deals with distressed students who know they're not getting a fully-rounded education there. I would suggest she tries to find an alternative.

FFS.

I’ve read the replies and thread and I think it’s a good deal for her and the area is very nice and safe.

The one thing I would say to her is if she experiences difficulties or problems then she needs to be able to speak up and speak to the parent or agency. Also as you’re her mum I’d give her money for flight home (emergency) and also find out about London generally for her.

The thing I would point out to your DD is she’s working every evening as well as a Saturday (part of). Or part of evenings. Will she really be happy about that? And it’s nice when it’s sunny and light but when it gets colder and dark it’s not so nice. She does need to think about personal safety even though it’s a nice area.

My NDN/friend’s DD is 20 now but at 19 moved out of her DM’s house to live in a flat with her boyfriend she’d met at work (they were together for a year). Of course her DM is concerned but knows she needs to live her life.

I'd be way more concerned about working for a single woman - you'd have no idea of the random men she might choose to bring back home.

Having read all your updates OP another factor for your DD to consider before deciding is the fact this is a family in grief. It’s not clear how long ago the mum died but if the girl has had two au pairs since she was 3 and this is the first since then I’m assuming relatively recently and this is the family’s start of “getting back to normal” (new normal without mum).

The child is 7 and whilst it sounds like she has a supportive network (dad and grandparents see her weekly etc) she’ll still be grieving. Has your DD considered how she’ll cope with that aspect? I agree with whoever mentioned that they’d have thought the agency would have placed a more experienced au pair with the family due to their circumstances.

He's just a male.

Are you aware that 98% of all sex offenders in prisons in the UK are male? And that every week hundreds of rapes and sexual assaults are either not reported or aren't prosecuted because of a lack of evidence? There's an epidemic of sexual crime: 'nice' men are watching hardcore porn at work, policemen are raping and killing young women.

The chance of an au pair being sexually attacked or coerced into a sexual relationship with a single, previously married woman are so low as to be negligible. The chance of an au pair being sexually attacked or coerced into a sexual relationship with a single, previously married man are significantly higher. It's a significant risk factor and a mother who ignored it would be considered negligent.

Going against the grain somewhat - I think it sounds like a great opportunity.
Of course there is some risk but this can be mitigated somewhat by speaking to the previous au pairs and talking to the agency. I don't know the going rate for this work but with accommodation, food, travel and phone paid for and the hours/tasks mentioned this seems like a good deal. SW4 is safe and friendly and lively - full of bars and restaurants and loads of young people. It would be completely out of the price range of most 18/19 year olds.

No there are not bad men as there are bad women. This simply is not true. The pattern of offending and behaviour is different. Men commit nearly all sexual offenses, nearly all of the legal sexual harassing of women and commit the majority of non-sexual violent offenses in every country in the world.

And you often can’t tell the bad ones from the good ones.

I think that is pretty judgemental. You have no idea of the circumstances. Does the agency do any vetting? She should definitely meet him and get a feel for it but to rule it out on that basis is short sighted IMO

How will you stop her?

You don't hear about the good ones because any time you try to share GOOD experiences with men (or bad/SA experiences with women) then you get called a man, told you are supporting men and its disgusting etc, only bad experiences matter on MN

In an ideal world it shouldn't matter OP. But we don't live in an ideal world and your instinct is to protect your daughter when she is alone in an unfamiliar place. I would feel the same as you.

You don't know this man so why would you trust him? Look at the statistics for VAWG and see what sex the majority of the perpetrators are.

He might be perfectly safe, he might not.

That's not a balanced view of Mumsnet. I've heard many posters on Mumsnet saying their DH is one of the good ones and people not challenging them on that. Why would they?

You obviously don’t have a reasonably attractive daughter of a similar age who is frequently groped at work only by men. My daughter is often propositioned and gets unwanted feels by men of all ages. It’s not an unreasonable concern for the OP to have as it happens a lot at that age.”

No, our beautiful daughter is nearly 30 now. Tbh, if anyone had tried to grope her at work, she would probably have laid them out 😁 (she’s 6ft tall)

Concerns, that you keep to yourself, ok maybe. But some respondents have immediately leapt to the suggestion that as the employer is a man, he must be a threat. Which is clearly nonsense.

Utter rubbish, if you’ve had that response I would guess it’s because you’ve posted such comments on threads about violence against women and are completely tone deaf.

Good God, don't do this. If I was employing someone to look after my kids and they started asking questions about my ex, I'd think they were being overly intrusive and wouldn't give them a job.

If you're concerned about predatory men, them being married won't make a difference. My friend's dad was shagging the au pair (30 years younger than him) and he was "happily" married so I wouldn't take marital status into account. If this is an issue for you then being an au pair in general probably is.

Your Daughter is a adult. What you want is immaterial. Talk to her about boundries and wave her goodbye with a smile on your face.

So my feeling is that if he's rich and widowed, he could probably get a relationship with/without childcare without going through the admin of employing an au pair. It sounds that he outsources home-work when he can and because he can afford to (cleaner, au pair) which makes me think that he has a pretty pragmatic approach to staff, and would be less likely to jeopordise that. I understand the concerns and you can never predict, but honestly I feel that married men are more likely to be problematic than a recently widowed single dad, because he wouldn't have the headspace for leching on the live-in help.

My view is probably coloured by the fact we had au pairs growing up - single dad. What was funny was the dislike my dad took to our one male au pair. The sexism there ran deep...

I spent a year as an au pair after I graduated. It was the best thing I ever did.

Clapham Common (on the common) is a very nice area and full of young people (and other au pairs).

Your daughter could have a great time and provide much needed support to this family. I would also be wary of how recently the mum died and how to support the daughter in her grief.

I think the money sounds reasonable. All in all, I would jump at this opportunity.