Unwaged au pair

[Gusthetheatrecat]

I was doing some research about possible future childcare options and came across this:
www.gumtree.com/p/live-in-nanny-jobs/fantastic-part-time-live-in-nanny-mother-s-help-au-pair-job-in-sw-london-east-sheen-near-richmond-/1098932082
My jaw is on the floor at the sheer, brazen, cheek of it. Effectively they are asking for an au pair (or a nanny, arguably) but for precisely zero pay.
I am so outraged that I needed to share.
Also, seriously though, they are really looking to exploit someone and I feel like I should report them to someone but I don't know who?

Hello Anon

There was other thread like this recently. Seems this is rife on Gumtree.

So their children have had several nannies and they're under 4. I wonder why? :(

Poor kids with such foul parents

Gawd Jezebel I hope you shopped them for illegal employment practices!

Just because these people have claimed/decided that the hours are "non-traditional" it doesn't mean that they don't have to pay!!! I noticed that the dad is a pilot, I'm presuming that he would be fine if he was told that he would no longer receive a paycheck because the airline pays for his hotel room on overnights and because of his schedule he has plenty of time to work a second job.
The mum is correct in saying that it's not an au pair job because it's clear that they're looking for a part-time qualified nanny.
When one of my friend's was a full-time student she lived with a single mum and instead of paying rent she babysat three nights a week when the mum went to college. Worked out great. However there's a huge difference between babysitting and nannying. What this family have described are nursery duties such as arranging and facilitating playdates and cooking and cleaning for the kids. She claims that the lucky candidate will be able to work another job, but if they are required to do nursery pickups and drop offs they are obviously working set hours.
There are plenty of paid au pair jobs out there that allow the au pair to study or take on another job. I guess providing Amazon Prime and samples of yummy roast dinners is suitable payment for a qualified nanny????

OK. I'm going to be flames for this but here it goes. I am doing worse than the woman in that ad and had no idea until I read this thread.

We live in London and rented our large attic suite to a lodger for £750pcm. I used to pay an after school nanny £9 an hour to care for my kids for 20 hours a week. Put lodger asked if she could do it for £200 discount if her rent. I said sure.

So I don't pay for child are and I collect rent. All suggested by the person who you would all see as wronged. It honestly never occurred to me to say "no, let's call you an au pair and I will pay you £500 more". Maybe I should do that but it seems so odd given how we got here.

Dudley, as long as you are honest about tax, you are effectively paying your lodger £10 an hour for childcare. I have no problem with that as long as you are above board about the arrangement and pay tax correctly on your letting income.

The example in the OP is profiteering out of the housing situation, using the high cost of housing as an excuse not pay an au pair or nanny.

And 'after school' implies that you may need the services of a babysitter rather than a nanny unlike the example in the OP.

Thanks Merry, I really thought people were going to judge me harshly, because ultimately its a worse deal for our lodger than it is for the nanny in the ad, even though we came to this arrangement as her own request and with no intention to exploit.

Saintlyjimjams I was fresh off the boat from the other side of the world, quite young and very naive. And terrified of the mother. I'd be the first to turn down the same job these days!

It's a shame we can't give our teenage/young twenty something selves our later knowledge really isn't it? It takes so long to discover how to deal with people so exploitive.

Dudley, do you mean you are paying your lodger £200 a month when the nanny got £180 a week for the same hours?

Hmm - c. £2.50 an hour starting to look like less of a good deal...

(Although it depends what you expect of the lodger and the ages of the children - if you just want an adult in the house in case of emergency and she would be there anyway and doesn't really have to do anything, it doesn't look too bad).

Dudley that is completely explorative, your poor lodger is probably desperate to save a bit on rent, but that is no excuse for paying her so poorly. Even if she doesn't feel hard done by, Legally, you aren't allowed to pay her less than min wage and then take off the live - in offset amount.
Unless she is an au pair and then you need to pay her pocket money.

Min wage legislation was brought in to stop vulnerable people being exploited.

The woman who posted the original ad never did get back to me.....

"Mum" and "Dad" talking about themselves in the third person is truly nauseating- the whole undertone is that the unfortunate who takes the position will also be expected to view them as some sort of parent substitutes. And all this "delightful", "wonderful", "super" stuff is bordering on self-parody. A laughable lack of self-awareness.

If it is true that the previous nanny did do an internship then she was very luck indeed- few employers would take interns on anything other than a full-time basis.

Oh and "the usual nursery duties"!? Have we gone back to Edwardian times?

I suspect that "Mum" and "Dad" were brought up in homes that had actual nurseries where they ate "nursery food" with Nanny and were only brought down to see their parents for 30 minutes each evening...

Or they wish that they were

The scent of eau de pretension is quite pungent.

Wow.

I do hope these dreadful people are reading.

As an ex au-pair, sadly I know this sort of thing does happen, and invariably by pretentious wannabes. I had a fantastic family but my friend was in the same kind of set up as this one, she was never paid anything, despite having a so-called contract (we later discovered drawn up by the father's brother) We were daft 19 yr old students, so put it down to experience and moved on, but the appalling thing here, is that many of these girls coming from abroad aren't able to do that.

I wonder how many "super gels" they get through? Do they pay for the CRB and the first aid course, or do the super kiwis have to come ready equipped?

And I bet they'd be the first to be slagging off the exploitative nature of families abroad when Jocasta and Hermione go to do it in a few years' time.

at Eau de Pretension.

I've been completely sucked into Gumtree ads now. I'm particularly interested in this advert
www.gumtree.com/p/live-in-nanny-jobs/au-pair-wanted-to-live-in-for-a-fun-and-varied-role-in-london/1093015571

Au pair job but 6 dogs and no kids working for a self employed couple in their photo business................. No apparent skills other than looking good required and no duties listed whatsoever

Oh my - that ad gives me the creeps

Wow tread that is certainly an interesting as. I don't think they have any idea what an au pair is!

What are the duties other than dog walking?? And why the obsession with looks??

@tread I saw this ad in the beggining of 2013!!! They keep reposting it every few days. They need an "attractive au pair" to help them with their "photo" business. It makes me cringe sooo bad.

Sounds like they are looking for a threesome rather than an au pair.

Are you saying its porn anon??

The dog au pair adhas been going up for years. No one stays for long. Would love to send my profile and find out more about positiom but I fear I'm not attractive enough.

Dudley that's awful your lodger is doing 86 hours a month childcare for £200 so approx £2.30 an hour. And you don't think you are exploiting her.
How about knocking £550 of the rent that would be fair.