My aupair is plain lazy.... help

[Horseymumjo]

Hi! Am in need of advice from other mums with au pairs.

Our au pair joined us a month ago, and the first week with us I took a weeks holiday to help settle her in, show her the ropes and the local area, etc.

We live in a rural location so have provided her with a car for school runs and to be at her disposal for her weekends off. I have also provided her with a sat nav.

Now 4 weeks on, we have a major problem. Her car broke last weekend (fan belt) so we have spent all week trying to get it fixed. We have had to resume doing all the school runs and juggling the children as a result. Midweek she came down with a cold, as did I, and she has barely left her bed since. I had to take the whole day off today to do the school runs, washing, cleaning, cooking etc. I am self employed, so it cost me hard cash.

She spends all evening and most weekends in her bedroom, posting on Facebook how miserable she is and how much she misses her family and friends. I have tried to talking to her, inviting her to sit with us in the evenings, but she doesn't want to.

in the last couple of weeks I have asked her to cook meals, tidy the children's bedroom, Hoover in the hallway. She has not done any of these things. It transpires she does not know how to cook. Yesterday she was asked to cook pork chops, nd had to call her boyfriend at home to find out how. This was checked in the initial interviews, and is an integral part of her duties. I have shown her where the cook books are in case she needs inspitiration, but as yet she hasn't used them. I have cooked more meals in the last 4 weeks than she has. In fact I think I have only eaten 1 meal that she has cooked. I have suggested she cooks meals from home, that she is used to, we are happy to try new things, but she doesn't seem to know how to do anything.

in addition she has the use of a private bathroom. She has been using it for the last 3 weeks and hasn't cleaned it once. I only discovered that this evening.

I am beginning to think she thinks she is just on holiday, staying with us for free, and being paid too. Feel like I am being taken for a mug.

so do I sack her? Help!?

J x

Oh dear, poor Jo! I do feel sorry for her with some of these rather nasty comments!

I don't think we need to be horrid, just weigh in with calm thoughts. The au pair issue changes from family to family - and if you agree something before they start, then fair enough. So, our au pair (we live in London) does 25 hours per week, 2 evenings babysitting for £100pw. The 25 hours includes 7 hours cleaning on Tuesdays, getting the children up at 7am on Saturday and hanging out with them till 10am so we can lie in, about 3 hours laundry, and the rest of the time she plays with children (2.5 years and 7 months) / takes them out and so on. She doesn't work after 10 on Saturday, or sunday or Monday. Rest of time she works 6-7 hours per day. She has sole charge a LOT of the time.

She and I are very matey - glass of wine in evening, buy her takeaway every sunday, discuss films, sometimes family outings. She certainly doesn't feel exploited because I made it clear from the beginning - so that's fine. There is no one way of doing it with an au pair, and I think some of you should cut Jo some slack. We are not in school!

Board and lodging is only half relevant. Central London a full time live in nanny is looking at £400 ish a week and a live out nanny £500-550. So yes there is a difference but a live in nanny recieves food/ lodging/ car use etc the same as an aupair but for 4/5 times the salary.

Bottom line is, op expected her au pair to cook a family meal for six people every night on top of all her other duties ... and that is just unrealistic. Could she have done it?

Wow, OP you expect a lot for very little money.

To give you some context, I pay a CM to look after DS (3.75) for 2.5 days a week (23 hours childcare, of which he is at nursery approx 8 hours) I provide his food, drop him off & pick him up. For this I pay £125 per week.

I am horrified how little au pair's are paid

A nanny can def be 18. Maybe not top end of the scale but still. I have known many 18 year olds, full one nanny, on average nanny pay scale, live in, cook for children, none scrub the house!

Actually I have been the 18 year old full time nanny. 3 month old twins, a 2 year old and 3 year old. Baked bread and cooked from scratch every day, stayed 6 years so can't have been too bad.

alice298- thought of namechanging to slavedriver?

alice - you really need to work on your maths skills. 6 hours Tues-Fri = 24 (6x4=24). Add 3 hours on a Saturday am and a couple of evenings babysitting and you're way over 25 hours and another person exploiting young women.

I don't feel sorry for you or Jo. I do feel sorry for your APs. The way you talk about them is scarily like people used to talk about their servants, treating them as if they should be grateful to live in a nice house with your lovely family. Yuck :(

Except that these 'servants' (I am just quoting you Dowager, because aupairs are not servants at all) can leave at any time without any notice whatsoever.

So whatever alice is doing to these women, it must somehow suit them, funny that.

Yup tues to fri =24 hours
Sat= 3 hours
Babysitting x2= prob 4 hours each night min 3 (6-8)

Total = between 33-35 hours

Not sure what this fixation with hours is about. I pay my aupair to work 35 hours a week. She is still here after more than a year. This was made abundantly clear in the hiring process and she accepted.

She does not want to attend English lessons (her English is good). She prefers to go clubbing and shopping with her friends. If she wanted to leave tonight, I could not stop her. But I am totally grateful to her for each day she stays because she allows me to go to work ft every day.

blueshoes - I would feel horribly exploitative paying someone far less than minimum wage to look after my kids who are the most precious thing in the world to me.

That's why I don't have an AP. I pay someone a reasonable living wage so that I can work FT.

Dowager, I never put you down as someone who ever had an aupair.

Once children are of a certain age, a nanny is not necessarily a suitable form of childcare. Aupairs fill the gap and it can work very well for both parties.

Dowager, as for less than minimum wage, you must have missed the posts who described the cost of food and lodging.

The job that most directly competes with aupairing is bar work. Those jobs are not live in and they pay a minimum wage with tips. But you still get women preferring to aupair for pocket money and food, a nice room within a domestic set up, rather than a bedsit or flatshare.

Horses for courses. It is not exploitative. My aupair can leave to become a waitress any day, but she does not.

Dowager,

The day I find a nanny who enjoys playing football for 3 hours at a time with my son and has no problem with ironing my husband's shirts, and who cheerfully babysits on a Saturday night (so long as there is a fine pizza in the offing) then I'll probably switch to that nanny.

In the meantime I will continue to treat AP as a very valued assistant in the family.

Dowager, "blueshoes - I would feel horribly exploitative paying someone far less than minimum wage to look after my kids who are the most precious thing in the world to me."

Well, my children are precious to me too. If you saw the rapport between my children and the aupairs, you would not ever make such a sly dig at another ft working parent. That is an insult to the lovely relationships between these young women and my dcs, whom we welcome into our family.

The reason a nanny won't iron your husbands shirts is because a nanny is a childcare professional. Unless your husband is under around 12 I wouldn't say he is included. Send then to an ironing service or iron yourselves.

As a nanny. This year alone I have spent almost £4000 on qualifications. I do not do this to iron shirts.

I also don't work sat eves on a regular basis as I also have a family and a life so adding another day and hours to my already (60-70hr weeks) is not a perk at all to me.

Au pairs work very well for the work they were original used for ( afternoon care ( 3-6) and an eve babysitting in exhange for pocket money and an introduction to language and culture. Most other options I'm afraid don't work.

Squiffy/blueshoes - I think you're probably lovely AP employers. I've read a lot of your posts before Squiffy on the subject and you're clearly hugely experienced and very kind and welcoming to your APs and make them feel part of the family.

No, I've never employed an AP but I do read threads like this and despair. Plain lazy for struggling to cook for a family of 6? I'm sure neither of you would ever expect that.

I don't have an issue with the idea of APs per se (whatever my posts on this thread might imply!) but I think it needs an acceptance from the family that they are integrating another person into their lives/households who has different tastes/needs and they should be acknowledged. And asking them to do tons of cleaning or work very, very long hours and then complain when they don't do stuff properly is a bit silly and/or exploitative.

If the AP is being properly made part of the family, if the family have paid for language lessons, if the AP have enough time to make friends and have a truly enriching experience, then I think it's brilliant for everyone. But there are loads of threads on here where someone is expecting far too much for far too little. Cheap labour leaves a nasty taste in my mouth, even if the AP is happy to do it. Employing someone from a country where the national wage is very low and paying them a wage that is considered reasonable in that country while expecting them to work very long hours/do jobs that normally command much higher income is still exploitation, however much they don't complain.

ps Squiffy - While I get what you mean about proper nannies, my 'nanny' plays football in the park with DS (nearly 6). She will stand for a very long time in the pouring rain watching him play on his trampoline and will play wii and car games with him for hours. She's absolutely ace, he loves her and so do I. :)

And I agree, I have spent every day this week out in the park with a ball, digging for worms in the woods and going on ' bear hunts' in the rain 90% of the time. Most nannies I know have done the same

As I understand it, au pairs are traditionally are expected to work about half normal working hours (say 20 pw) so that they can study the language, either in the morning or afternoon. For this they get board, lodging and pocket money. If your au pair is doing 35 hours or more per week for you then they are some other kind of domestic servant.

So Dowager, shall I give my aupair her marching orders then because it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Perhaps you can explain that to her.

Not all aupairs are here to learn English. In fact, most of my aupairs already came to me with reasonably good English (it is one of my criteria because I am not in the house a lot and need to give instructions over the phone). Only 2 out of the 7 aupairs I have had wanted to attend English lessons.

There is no classical notion of an aupair that we need to adhere to. Just persons with different reasons for wanting to aupair and for which aupairing suits them at this point in their lives.

What does your current au pair want out of coming here blueshoes?

No idea, blueshoes. No idea on what basis you employ your AP