To be confused as to why our au pair was like this

[OrangeCrushes]

Our au pair just left after nearly a year with us.

We tried to be nice to her and include her in family events. I gave her very nice, personalised Christmas gifts. We made a special dinner on her birthday.

She didn't even acknowledge the Christmas gifts and never gave us so much as a card.

I know that she loves our daughter, and she has always been nice to our daughter.

Today she didn't even say goodbye to me when she left our home at the end of her contract - just sent a text.

AIBU to wonder why this is and to feel sad that our au pair apparently didn't like us?

How old is she?
I'm not sure why you are confused, sounds like she had a difficult upbringing, a possible ED, and could be ND and/or gave anxiety. Plenty of young people from the UK do too. You sound quite ableist if anything.

Oh my god, seriously? Do you remember a time before the endless online culture wars, where ‘they’ was used for he or she, a little like ‘one’ was used for a person such as yourself. Many of us still use ‘they’ in that way. Not as a gender-queer pronoun thing. But sure, pop off another salvo in your boring culture war 🙄

If she wanted hot chocolate so bad she could have bought herself some. ! Unless you think she was sulking for almost a year , which is outrageous.

She either felt she missed her opportunity to say goodbye properly or just a bit awkward. And if you are her employer and she is living on her meagre wages ( meagre as in just pocket money sums ) she probably didn't think she should buy you Xmas presents. You bought her one gift - did you expect her to buy you, DH and DD a gift ?

Don't obsess it really doesn't matter now.

Why not read OP’s posts and find out?

She got £900 per month and she had no living expenses. I hardly think she was in bad financial shape. She went to loads of West End shows and stuff.

And I thought she could say thank you, give us a card, maybe demonstrate that she liked the gifts in some way rather than wordlessly taking them?

Ofcourse. That would be normal. But then again, she's a weirdo your husband says so rules do not apply.

You realise that he thinks she's weird BECAUSE of this behaviour?

ALSO, someone above said I bought her one Christmas gift. I actually bought her a number of thoughtful gifts for Christmas, which I put into/under a stocking next to everyone else's stockings. She took the stocking away when we weren't looking.

It was our hot chocolate. We didn't mind her drinking it sometimes, but it was a treat item for us and alarming to see it being depleted so quickly.

I wouldn’t give it any more thought OP.

God, I’m so pleased I’m well past the au pair stage now. We had them for 11 years and we had the whole range:

• Wonderful people who we are still in touch with and who come to stay and visit.
• Perfectly fine ones who were nice but no love lost in either direction when it was time to leave.
• Downright strange ones I couldn’t wait to see the back of.
• And fucking awful ones who I had to tell to leave immediately.

That’s very strange

There might be a range of explanations (so the reasons for not appearing to appreciate the gifts may not be connected to the reason for texting on leaving at all).

I might have a small amount of insight into the 'texting and slipping out' behaviour. Although I did have to say goodbye, as a student who was leaving a flat with 1 other person after about half a year, it was when they were in the swing a working day (and I wasn't). The act of taking the key off my keys to leave and knowing that my room was empty, not somewhere that I had available to come back to in a country where I knew nobody really, was a lot more emotional than I expected. In my home country I could have done the more upbeat and easy 'dance' of the conversation, but that was hard. Or she may not have wanted to upset your child either by making things too obvious, if that could have been a possibility.

Other than that, it may be the mismatch of expectations: she was in it for the greater independence and the West End shows etc. You were coming at it more from the family-and-good-host mindset.

Sorry , you are right OP. She should have behaved better . You sound like nice decent employers. Living in London and being paid £ 900 ? Hell , can I come work there ? 😁

It does? How?

I would have found this upsetting as an au pair. She’s meant to be part of the family, but certain drinks are limited? How is she meant to intuitively know this?

She was clearly rude in not saying thank you and leaving without saying goodbye, but I think part of the issue is that the whole au pair business just isn’t a thing in Australia. The notion of it being a cultural exchange and living as part of a family is not something young Australians would expect. I actually just asked my early 20s DD who happens to be WFH today what she thought an au pair would do and she said “isn’t that just a name for an unqualified nanny”. She has had a couple of friends work as nannies in London as part of their travels but I have never heard the term au pair being used.

Alarming?

I’m sure it’s not the only reason, but the incident with the hot chocolate may well have upset her.

Rather than telling her to not drink it very often, I would have just bought her a separate stash that she could have whenever she wanted. Your hot chocolate is therefore still there whenever you want a treat, and she’s not being weirdly rationed.

You’re paying £900 pm for an au pair - I’m sure you can stretch to hot chocolate as and when she wanted! You might not want to drink it very often but lots of people drink hot chocolate regularly and trying to ration her intake sounds oddly mean and controlling.

I’m sure there are other things that caused her aloofness but that incident - and any others that you may have forgotten about - may have left her feeling awkward around you. You say she didn’t like to eat with just you and your DH, that suggests she wasn’t comfortable around you perhaps.

It sounds as if you were kind to her on other occasions so maybe she couldn’t interpret the mixed messages coming from you. Any chance she was neurodivergent?

perhaps there were other things you did that she didnt like?

i am sure she was just shy, and young, given that she didnt want to eat with you, that can be overwhelming

Oh fgs. Op, I would step away from this thread now, if you haven’t already. It seems that some people will just pick apart everything, especially when it comes to defending young people and their blatant rudeness.

I mean, ffs who would justify leaving in a strop because of some bloody hot chocolate?!

@OrangeCrushes this sounds so lovely!
I am 45 with own home and family but I’d be your au pair in a flash in these conditions 😆😆😆

Seems like she has her own issues and I would just chalk it down to experience. Sounds like you were a great family. ‘Au pair’ means on an equal footing do as pp have said, you were doing it the traditional way and she was part of the family. To me, an au pair is not an employee in the conventional sense.

it’s a bit hurtful to leave without saying goodbye but everyone is different.

What a strange thing to comment on. I often say they when talking about someone else. Its completely normal to use for men or women.

OP, I think she is probably a young person with issues. Her behaviour is likely nothing at all to do with you. Don’t take it personally and just chalk it up to experience.