Au Pair Problems

[BerkshireMum]

This may be a rather long post, please stick with it - I need advice!

K has been with us since Easter. She is 22, an only child, German with excellent English. She is due to be with us for 12 months. She doesn't go to college as she is doing a psychology course from her home university by distance learning. Not sure it's relevant but she describes herself as a goth (she wears all black clothing and a fairly heavy make-up when she goes out). This doesn't interfere with her duties so I don't care! The children love her. She isn't very talkative, but she is pleasant with a good sense of humour.

Our agreement, spelled out clearly during Skype interviews, and by email and once she arrived (both verbally and in writing) is that she has certain housework and laundry duties plus responsibility for DD 10 and DS 8 after school and about 2 nights babysitting each week. We pay her £80 - which is more than the 2 other au pairs in our village even though the duties a comparable. She is off duty most weekends - just a few Saturday nights sitting agreed way in advance. She uses a car to drive the children and has use of it most of her off duty time if she wants it.

My real problem is that she has no initiative. She is incapable of doing ANYTHING unless I spell it out to her that morning. I have done lists of daily, twice weekly and weekly tasks plus a breakdown of jobs to do each weekday but she just doesn't get it. She is chronically untidy - her clothes (clean and dirty) are kept on the floor of her room and every surface is covered with cosmetics, papers, crisp packets etc.

I was annoyed last week because, among other things, she didn't do any laundry between Monday and Friday leading to a huge backlog. She is expected to sort the laundry twice a week - on Monday and Thursday. There is now a day's worth of solid ironing and we are all running out of clothes

I spoke to her yesterday and said very clearly that she needs to be more proactive and, whilst I am happy to help her to plan, she needs to do the things on her lists without being told. She said she understood and I gave her the list again.

Today she has done less than half the things on her list. I'm not talking big things - wipe round loo and basin in bathroom, put away some clothes on DD's chair. She also hasn't done the major job of the day which is to dust and Hoover in the children's rooms. Takes me 45 minutes if I do it thoroughly.

K doesn't really go out. She has refused to meet the other au pairs in the village or use the web sites to meet others. Last week, she went to London on bank holiday Monday. That was the only time in 10 days she left the house except to fetch the children from school or to go out with us as a family.

K is our 6th au pair. All the previous ones have stayed for 6 months which was the time agreed at the outset. We are in touch with 4 of the previous 5 and 3 of them came to visit last year and are planning return trips. I say this as background to show that I can't be all bad!

What do I do? I can cope with her not being perfect - the others weren't and neither am I. But this is driving me mad. I work from home quite a bit and that makes it worse. We said at the interview stage that we were looking for another adult to come and live with our family, join in with many of our activities and share the responsibilities. I feel like I have a teenage daughter who can be trusted to keep the children safe and happy but nothing more.

Help!

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/ Au Pair A?Z / Housework

Is an au pair required to help with housework?

The family can expect light housework from the au pair. This does not include ironing of difficult pieces of laundry like blouses. Spring cleaning (no matter in which season it takes place) does not belong to that either. If the au pair shall be responsible for the laundry, this should be restricted to hanging out the clothes to dry, folding and ironing. The sorting of dirty underwear is not the task of the au pair and neither is the cleaning of the toilets unless the au pair is the only person who uses this toilet. Many au pairs do not know how to cook. If this will be necessary in your household, you should clear this out in advance.

All my aupairs clean all the bathrooms, including the toilet, whether or not they use it. I make it clear to them from the outset before they join. I would clean the toilet if I had the time and frequently do so on weekends if guests come to visit.

It is part and parcel of aupair's cleaning duties. It is nothing to be precious about.

This does not include ironing of difficult pieces of laundry like blouses. If the au pair shall be responsible for the laundry, this should be restricted to hanging out the clothes to dry, folding and ironing.

So I wonder what sort of ironing is not too complicated and deemed 'okay'? Sheets? Does anyone iron their sheets?

As it happens, our AP only helps to goad the children to pick up after themselves and keeps her room tidy (we think, we don't go up there).

Our AP absolutely does the children's laundry and puts it away - no way could we do w/o that. No just hanging up etc.

Funnily enough I was having lunch with a friend the other day who has just recruited her au pair. She was an au pair a few summers - most through uni - and on her first placement she said: If I'm honest I thought I was coming as a house guest.

I feel like some people on here sort of assume that too...

I suppose it depends what you call cleaning the loo. Grabbing a disposable wipe and going over the top, flush, seat, under seat and outside isn't exactly major if you use the loo yourself. Bleaching it, no, I tend to do that as part of a deep clean that I wish I could pay a cleaner for because I don't see it as a daily chore. Maybe I'm a slattern.

I wouldn't use APW as an authoritative source of info. A lot of stuff on there is just plain wrong and, in any case, you can specify whatever you like in your contract or job description because (with the exception of A2 nationals) there are no regulations on what an AP can or cannot do.

We've had 5 au pairs, and can certainly say that they are how they start off, if they are lousy, then they don't improve. Ask her to leave... She just sounds apathetic. We.ve had 3 brill au pairs, stil in touch, 1 who was desparately homesick and left within a week, and the last one we asked to leave after 2 months of trying to gel, but after trying to see the good in her, just got so fed up of her moods, she just had to go. There are some fantastic pairs out there, afraid it's pot luck....

Aupairs are certainly not house guests. They are live-in employees that I provide more pastoral care to than normal employees because they are young and live under my roof.

I now only hire aupairs with previous aupair experience. One of the reasons is that they would already have been disabused of any notion that they are house guests!

I agree, maples. That is why I only go for experienced aupairs. Also, I don't use aupair agencies, just aupairworld.com. That way, I interview them myself and can explain to them what the role involves (including cleaning bathrooms).

The irony is that if a family is prepared to treat an aupair like a houseguest or big sister, then they really don't need an aupair. Why then would anyone voluntarily share their living space with a stranger, if they did not need them to pull their own weight and more? Some aupairs might be hired to pass on their language skills, as bonsoir says, perhaps there is more scope there to treat those aupairs as a member of the family. But most families would actually need an aupair to be reliable and do responsible childcare and tasks.

When I was an au pair a few years ago I had to work 60h a werk looking after four boys under four and I was responsible for the housekeeping of a six bedroom house as well. If there was one minute when the mother didn't need me in the house or with the children I had to do weeding in the garden. All for £100 a week. After this I don't see the problem cleaning toilets anymore. A pair of gloves, bleach and done.

i dont see a problem with saying that aupair is a bit like an older sister who helps to lok after children and hme. i suppose it very much depends on what 'role' one imagines a teenager/early twenty something has at home. in lots of families young ladies with younger siblings more or less run the home, while the parents works, or have some responsibilities, ofter similar to what aps do. it was never my own case, but i know auapirs who felt as an older sister to their host-children.

A much better way to position the role is as a 'young aunt' in the house so it's clear the AP is one of the adults. Big Sister is just a bizarre idea when you think about it.

I like the young aunt idea - thanks.

She is making a huge effort this week. If she can keep this up then we'll be okay......

I did use Au Pair World and I did spell out the downsides very explicitly - I've foud that works best. This is our 6th and the first real problem so guess we've been lucky really.

I think the duties and pay sound completely reasonable.
If she can't maintain a good level of work then give her a formal warning and then get rid if its still a problem.
We've had to tell an au pair to go as it was just a really bad match and it made the house feel so tense. Better to get it sorted rather than let it drag on.

Regardless of duties, pay, tidyness etc... It sounds like the relationship with your au-pair has brocken down. Is this the case? If it is it fixable?

If not, give her a decent amount of notice and ask her to go. It is not fair on her or your family to have someone living with you when relationships are unworkable. No matter how hard you try to hide it, feelings of frustration, annoyance and exasperation tend to leak. She is still young and may not have the experience to call upon to know how to help sort things out. If you can give her a 'get out', so she can leave holding her head high, not loosing confidence and so on then it may be best for all.

We've had lots of au-pairs, and I've done this once. I think she was relieved too as she knew it wasn't working and she wasn't particularly happy either.

I've had loads of APs, some excellent, some middling and some rather crap. One or two seriously crap.

I expect them to do the same household tasks as I would expect my adult daughter to do when living at home - loo cleaning certainly would be included in that, but not a revolting shit encrusted business, more a bit of a squirt with Harpic and a quick wipe over. I am certainly not prepared to be the only woman in the house to ever get the Marigolds out while the AP gets let off loo cleaning duty entirely, even though she uses the same loo(s). This is a ridiculous notion and most of my APs would have felt the same, I think, as would their parents (many of whom came to stay with us).

FWIW I don't think AP World has much of a clue about how the AP role works in the UK, and it seems especially ignorant of the fact that we have got rid of the official AP scheme that was developed in the 1960s, and now we only have the right to employ a) EU citizens and b) use the same employment legislation and conditions that apply for any other person in the UK. For live in employees, this means no upper working hours limit and no minimum wage, and basically you can ask them to do anything you and they consider reasonable.

Now obviously being a slave driver is just plain nasty, but £80 or so a week cash in hand pocket money, a nice bedroom, decent meals, a bit of friendly companionship in a foreign land, in return for 25 or so hours a week deputising for the mum and dad a bit, with some remote supervision by senior members of the family thrown in, grosses up at a bit above the minimum wage, and is a fairly laid back way of being financially independent for a few months while you have a working holiday or learn English or whatever. That's certainly how most European families see it. It ain't no big deal.

There seems to be a bit of the usual woman bashing going on within this thread, questioning why people hire others to clean for them or mind their children. I wish people would stop doing this. It's like saying "Why can't you fix your own car, go and buy a Hayes Manual" or "You're a big snob getting decorators in when you could go to B and Q and buy some gear and do it yourself". People who hire APs are usually either dual career households without extended family around, or parents with several young children who are knackered and who need an extra pair of hands, and that's their business. Instead of making this some sort of class war, which it isn't (most APs in fact coming from the same social class, or very similar), another way to see it is a kind of apprenticeship opportunity for young people so they get some edges knocked off them before hitting the workplace properly, as well as in the present climate, helping young people unemployed in their own countries be financially independent and get some experience of work and life. How that can be a class issue is utterly beyond me.

FWIW I think the OP needs to give her AP an ultimatum - wise up or move on, and expect her to leave fairly shortly afterwards as AP ultimata rarely work.

Here speaks Boff.

I would add that my 14 year old can sort laundry, put it through the machine, iron school shirts and so on, and my 11 year old learned to clean bathrooms in the cub scouts and indeed got a badge for it, as did his sister when she was in Brownies. It's not hard, FFS.

If a 22-year-old adult can't manage to do these things, then frankly something has gone wrong somewhere in their upbringing.

I think AP World needs a bit of a reality check. It seems to think these people are children. I reckon behind their idea of what an AP is we will find a slightly embittered person writing the entries, and that's not really an objective way of doing things IMO.

Amen, boff. Spot on.

@Boffinmom

Is it true that only EU citizens can be employed? I recently completed my 2 years working holiday in the UK as a live in au pair, I worked for two different families and I am from an Asian country... back home now, but need to get clarified if it is legal or not...

C

Unlikely to be legal, sorry, although there is a youth mobility scheme for some participating countries. Not yours, from the sound of it.

Here

@boffinmon / re au pair nationality

I think you may be mistaken, I don't think only EU citizens are legally entitled to become au pairs in the UK. Before leaving for London, I specifically checked with the british consolate in my country (where my visa was issued), and they said i can certainly work any job in the UK, as long as it did not exceed 12 months full time (out of the 24-month working holiday visa validity). So I worked as a live in au pair for 25 hours a week - i was lucky enough to find families that only wanted me to work from 3pm-7pm on weekdays, leaving me free to take classes in the morning - and i didn't work on school holidays because the families traveled abroad. Both my employers checked my passport and visa before hiring me, so I am sure they would not have hired me if it was not legal.

C

If you came on a youth mobility scheme I assume you're Japanese? Or under the old WHV scheme but IIRC they stopped issuing those some time in 2008 or 2009 when the tiered system was introduced.

WHV/YMS is still restricted employment but by time rather than nature.

The abolition of the au pair scheme means that you can't pretend an EU citizen is 'not employed' though which kicks up all kinds of issues for au pair hosts who don't want to be employers.

Chitu, it certainly doesn't correspond to my understanding of the Home Office regulations. What country are you from?

@Boffinmum / reg au pair nationality

I am from India and I was not on the Youth Mobility scheme. I got my WHV in 2009 (applied for it in late 2008 - yes I was one of the last batches). It had a 2 year validity, and I could start my working holiday any day before that that, but I had to leave at the end of the 2 years (from the date of start of visa). I lived in the UK for 14 months, and was employed as a live in au pair for 10 months.

My question is - is there now a rule that says only EU citizens can be employed as an au pair? Say, if a citizen of India (or Brazil or Canada) living legally in UK, meaning some one with a valid UK working visa, can they apply for the positions advertised in Gumtree - and can parents employ them as live in au pairs? Or did you mean legal EU 'residents', instead of EU 'citizens'?

It would be indeed sad if the former is the case. My year in London was a great learning experience due to my time spent as a live in au pair. I lived with 2 families and both of them taught me so much (one of them was a negative experience, but I learnt my lesson and cut my losses). Some of my friends living in Asian countries wanted to be au pairs too, on their break year... guess they have to strike out UK from their list :)

C

If you have the right to work in the UK there is nothing to prevent you from taking one of those jobs but employers cannot (legally) recruiting someone over from a country outside the EEA for the sole purpose of being an au pair. That's not to say families don't agree with Australian or Canadian citizens that they'll come over on the YMS but it's different to the actual au pair scheme where it's all agreed and legal before the au pair leaves their country and au pairing is the only reason they're there.

There's nothing specific about au pairs, save A2 nationals ironically... And therein lies the problem.