Does au-pair doing enough?

[newmuMM111]

Hello everyone.

Since January I have lovely au-pair in my family, she has been okay with her duties just lately it seems to me that she is getting lazy but also I am not sure if I am not asking too much of her. I am single mum with a single child.

I pay her 80 pounds a week and her duties are:

1hr in the morning with my only child - breakfast, doing HW, get dressed, brush teeth, play in the spare time, then take to school (walking distance)

2.5-3hrs in the afternoon - collect from school, give a snack, then play, make a simple dinner for him, prepare a bath/shower and that is it.

She is making breakfast and dinner for my son most of the days, cleaning kitchen and floors after meal, loading and unloading dishwasher, tidying up living room/my sons bedroom every day, making him a bed of course, preparing his waterbottle and books for school, helping him with homework, doing most of the washing and drying clothes, feeding cat sometimes, just small bits and pieces around the house that really dont take a lot of time.

Plus she is cleaning my house every week for 3hrs(kitchen, bathrooms, living room, her bedroom and my sons bedroom), does 3 hours of ironing a week, babysitting about once a week + every second Saturday.
Sometimes I am going out more (maybe 3 times a week but it is not really often) and also about once a week I am a bit late from work so she stays with my son 2/3 hrs more - until 7/8pm instead of 6.30pm and sometimes she babysits overnight - I am coming back arround 9am in the morning next day.

Totally it is 26 hours with cleaning, ironing + as I said babysittings and little bits and pieces arround house.

She has own bedroom, she can help herself in the fridge (My grocery bills are around 10 pounds higher (per week) since she came), TV in her room, Wi-fi, etc.

So, what do you think? Should I talk to her? Mostly she is not doing all the ironing and cleaning properly.

It seems like what you are offering your Au Pair, is the same as I was paying, 8 years ago. Also on the outskirts of London. But we had a cleaner, so she did not have to do any cleaning and ironing, and only baby sitting once a week, and no over night sole charge.

And you are reducing her pocket money, when you are already expecting more than standard? Can you really not afford the extra £10?

Oh, I forgot, my au pairs did not need English classes either, so they could chose any other course they wanted to. One chose Fitness instructor, so she got herself set up with a career to continue her life in London after she left us.

The aupair programme started out as a cultural exchange, but with the European Union and free flow of labour from other EU countries, it has moved on from being a pure cultural exchange.

I consider my aupairs employees with rights as employees. They are not slaves and can easily once they are in the UK find another family. There is no incentive to ill treat an aupair because she can easily leave. All my aupairs speak good English so there is no language barrier to their finding other work.

I am very clear cleaning is part of the job. My children are older and I have less need for childcare (which is dead easy). But I do require more cleaning. I could not make the job any easier otherwise it becomes uneconomic for them or I might as well do it myself with a cleaner.

I am very happy when my aupairs move on to do things other than aupairing. Aupairing is not a long term solution but an easy way to slot into another family's house in another country in exchange for childcare/cleaning and lots of spare time to pursue their own interests, whether that be learning English, doing courses or just partying.

Many of my aupairs talk about improving their English or doing dance classes or taking courses, end up just spending their time going out or playing on the computer. I think cultural exchange is a romantic idea that exists in the minds of certain people, mostly on aupair threads on mn.

If you want a cleaner hire a cleaner.

If you need holiday childcare put DS in a 9-3 summer camp.

This isn't the 19th century Deep South!

If you want a proper cleaner, get a cleaner blueshoes.

I think (from your many years on here) that you're a very fair AP employer. But when I was their age, it was really a 'big sister' role. Nowadays, it seems to be treated as cheap childcare. I'm not saying that's what you're doing but I do think paying £90/week for 26 hours childcare + 6 housework + 6-20 hours/week babysitting for £80 is taking the piss. Especially if you're going to bitch about the quality of their housework.

ETA: I'm a single parent. If I can afford to pay proper people (cleaning/childcare), two parent families can. This isn't about being poor, it's about being mean.

so she does pretty much all your parenting for you, like a nanny plus all your housework?

Okay okay people lets calm down, I might make some mistakes, but these are AP duties, 4/5 hrs a day plus 2 times a week babysitting and ironing as well. That is what AP does and not just mine.
I just added a couple hours of cleaning, that was not maybe very clever and I will try to fix it and talk to her.

I will talk to her about summer holidays. I think I will give her maybe 5 pounds for every extra hour she is going to work? What are your experiences?

The bottom line is if your au pair is good with your children then that is priceless

Don't start quibbling over her cclenakng

Take that out if the equation and let her be a childcare re

I thought this was a reverse when i first read the OP I'm amazed people can pay so little, even if it is the going rate.

I agree that you should pay a cleaner to do the cleaning. I think she is doing plenty without it.

You should pay her proper babysitting rates for any extra hours she works over her basic time so holiday work,late cover or overnight cover should be paid extra. It's not fair to pay her the discounted AP rate for this time. Her housing and food costs have not increased for you so you shouldn't take advantage of the AP rate.

I think it would be incredibly mean to pay someone £80 for a 45 hour week. I'd pay a minimum of £80 for her standard 26 hours and then a standard wage (minimum wage? ) for any hours over that. I would also not expect her to do any babysitting during that time.

newmum, don't get disheartened. Almost every aupair thread on mn will be derailed to a greater or less extent by the cultural exchange/slave labour/exploitation brigade if you mention so much as anything approaching hard work for a young person.

I have been an aupair employer for more years than I care to think of and have a hide as thick as an elephant's. I know there are far far worse out there in terms of employers and jobs. Think of it as water off a duck's back. The fact that you are even on here means you care about your aupair.

Feel free to reduce her wages and remove cleaning. Although £10 a week is quite minimal so if you otherwise like her, you might want to consider just letting her keep it as the risk is she will find another aupair job out of pique. See if you can add something else on which is not cleaning. My experience with non-cleaners is that they need a lot of reminding (and some people just don't even notice dirt!) and it is sometimes better to just get someone else in.

I pay an extra £20 a day for full day holiday care.

Xposted. £5 for hours worked over her normal time sounds fair.

No more cleaning and for crying out loud don't drop her wages. You sound horribly tight and she sounds lovely. Poor girl.

Keep pay below 5772 for the year, otherwise you will need to complete paperwork for HMRC.

Try to be reasonable about the amount of time in the holidays. Is your DS going to be happy being with aupair for that length of time? If there are activities he can do where aupair takes, collects, that may help break up the time a bit and give aupair some time off during the day.

I am planning lots of activities for them and I will give my AP money for tickets and food of course, but not every single day, maybe twice a week.
He can also go to the park with friends or to his friends house for afternoon I am not really worried about not having enough things to do.
Soetimes my DS just doesnt want to do anything he is tired/not in the mood and I am not forcing her to entertain him, she can go to her room/bring her laptop down, etc. As far as she keeps eye on him (he is 5) I am okay with that, I understand that they are together really often they love each other but enough is enough.

About her, now she is very good, from the beggining it wasnt that bright at all, what she was doing - after I left to work at 8am she would make him a breakfast and then she had a shower and got dressed which I didnt know until my DS told me. But we spoke and she has never done it since.
Couple of similar incidents-she wasnt tidying up toys on the floor, making his bed, leaving messy kitchen, cooking him pasta almost every evening and giving him lots of sweets.... probably like almost every au-pair from the beggining. But as I said, we talked, and she has never done it since, not even once.

I read here other threads about APs and I can see that there are much worse, so I am pretty happy with girl I have. Nothing is ever perfect, right?

Cindy34 that is what I am worried about, when you go above houndred something pounds a week, there are problems with taxes

Oh yawn blueshoes - I think I've been on just as many threads telling people their APs are taking the piss.

An AP role is about childcare, not cleaning and iroing. I agree with you that the OP shouldn't hold her AP to the same standards that I hold my cleaner. Which is precisely why she shouldn't expect her to clean to the same standards or amount of time.

OP - £5/hour for additional care in the summer holidays sounds about right. :)

I think that in general what you are asking is fine. 3 hours cleaning and a couple of hours ironing is totally normal part of an aupair job everywhere apart from MN. Like Blueshoes I have also been an aupair employer for many years although not for much longer as my latest aupair is leaving in the summer after nearly 3 years. However, I think that the overnight is asking a bit much, I wouldn't ask an aupair to do that without significant extra pay and I think that your overall pay, whilst within guidelines is a bit low. I would go to £100 a week for what you are asking and have gone up to £120 in the past for aupairs I am desperate to keep.

"Sometimes I am going out more (maybe 3 times a week but it is not really often) and also about once a week I am a bit late from work so she stays with my son 2/3 hrs more - until 7/8pm instead of 6.30pm and sometimes she babysits overnight - I am coming back arround 9am in the morning next day."

I am reading this the wrong way? Do you mean that on top of her other duties she is babysitting three evenings a week as well as you working late a fourth night and then you go out a fifth night and stay out overnight?

FFF x

newmum, sounds like your aupair generally needs to be told just once and she improves . If her cleaning is still not adequate after you having mentioned a few times, it could be she is just one of those people who don't see mess or dirt and are bad cleaners - aren't some of us married to people like this. Is her bedroom tidy, just out of interest?

It could be less aggro all round to get a cleaner.

Since your ds is fairly little and you are going to need her for a lot more childcare over the summer, then I think her shortcoming is easily fixable and it would be better to stick with her.

FunkyFlanFlinger - no, I always keep it on maximum of two nights a week. Yes, it happened that it was three times, but I asked her if she is okay with it, my DS was in the bed already when I was leaving, so she just had to stay home. She always agreed and had no problem with that.

I go out once a week out(sometimes even not once) and usually one day a week I am late from work, which I never know ahead, but I text her as soon as I know that I will be late, there is nothing I can do about it I sometimes have to stay at work until late unfortunately...

blueshoes - yes, she is messy, but the room is clean, she vacuums and dusts there every week(maybe every other). She just has her stuff all over the place lol, but I dont mind. Probably most of the APs are like that, I was the same in her age.

Use the monthly NI limit, that is something - bit over 400 a month. Though I think you could use the yearly limit. I can't imagine you would get as high as the yearly limit but do the calculations.

Sounds more than enough for an ap . In your situation I would send out the ironing (I used to pay about £20 alternate weeks for a large bag of ironing) and ask her to clean for 5 hours & give her a rota either a room/job a day each week or split over 2 days but very specific breakdown of duties.
She'll be happy if it means 1 hour less a week & you'll be happy to have your house cleaner & ironing done properly