Au pair conundrum

[Cat111]

We are on our second au pair. We had a successful time with our first who was a lovely Spanish girl, but she had to go back to university as she was only in the UK over summer. Several weeks ago our second arrived and it is fair to say that the experience has not been particularly successful. She is 19 and has never been away from home or had a boyfriend and is very childish. She is also lazy and very demanding. I feel like I have another child in the house - and not a very charming one at that - which was not my previous experience of having an au pair.

Then last night she came to us and said that she was not happy and wanted to leave. I think she may have been expecting us to beg her to stay but we agreed that we are not the right family for her –but said there might be a better match out there and it was worth another try through her agency. She said that she wanted to make a decision on whether to try to find another family or whether to go back to Germany and asked for a few days to make this decision. We said that this was fine and said we would support her in whatever decision she made and that we should just carry on as usual with her 'working' and us paying her - which she said she would do by Monday. All good. However tonight she came to us and asked for a lift to see a friend in a week's time. We had hoped that she might have left by then but she informed us that she was going to stay for two weeks as this was part of her contract. We have two small boys and since she has made the decision to go I do not want to confuse them by having her hanging around –and don't really feel like feeding and watering her when she provides us with very little help.

She came through an agency but the owner is on holiday at the moment so I cannot ask her for her advice. Does anybody else have any experience of a scenario like this - or what do you think? If needs be we can sit it out for another few weeks but I don't feel like being a taxi service for her in the meantime and under the circumstances I am not sure that requests like this are reasonable.

Cat

Wow I think the OP is getting an unfairly hard time on here. She sounds a complete pain. When I was an au pair I was probably a bit clueless (and didn't have a boyfriend either) but I helped clean, cook and looked after the children a fair bit. And I didn't expect someone to cook an extra meal if I didn't fancy what was on offer.

Barbarian - the mother here just seems to state that the au pair in question is very spoiled and doesn't clean up after herself and the children.

It's only the OP's second au pair but she seems to have taken a dislike to the au pair (nothing wrong with that) based on assumptions of her character etc.

As I and a few other posters have stated I think it's due a breakdown in communication. I'm sure if she said to the au pair if you want a different meal (eg jacket potato, pasta, frankfurters etc) but you have to cook it yourself the AP would do this.

Au pair as some seem to forget here is "mother's help" not unpaid cleaner, childminder etc and there should be ime a list drawn up and proper talk on arrival so everyone knows the rules.

@SuperFlyHigh - my regular childminder has worked for me for four years now, my previous au pair said she would have loved to have stayed had it not been for university and is still in regular contact (but obviously she is a doormat and I have cast an evil spell on her that extends all the way to Spain). I employ a team of people of all ages with many having worked for me for years. Yup, I'm a terrible employer

Of course I told her she was scheduled to do childcare. She had a clear timetable of hours. She also had an extensive job description before she accepted the role.

For the record, the au pair agency said they couldn't place the ap with another family as when they met her - as opposed to going on the recommendation of her agency - they found her too demanding and immature. They are not charging me their usual placement fee, even though I offered to pay as I feel they still did the legwork finding her even though it didn't work out.

Next time I will buy the right kind of teabags and it will all be fine