au pairs and bank holidays

[shinypeople]

do you think that au pairs should or shouldn't work the bank holidays or have them of as a lot of employees do?

Just curious really as to what others think and do

I give them the day off, but if they are hanging around the house, I expect them to do their share of duties.

I think the Easter and xmas/new year ones they definately should not have to work. As for the others, if they have friends who have planned something special because it is a day off for all of them, then fine; otherwise I treat it as normal, though we would normally do something nicer than usual anyway (zoo trip or something) so it wouldn't be the usual ironing or tidying up stuff that we would ask them to do, more come along and help out on the trip.

For my last aupair, I did not really agree anything formal. Because both dh and I would be around and there is no school run, she would not have to do a big chunk of her duties. I think she voluntarily did the routine light clean of the house (bathroom, kitchen) in the morning and then her day was hers. We did not ask her to make up time on other days.

We might v.occasionally ask her to take the children out to the soft play or park, but that would be agreed in advance (if she had not planned anything else), in the same way, we agreed with her from the outset that she might be required to take the children out on weekends on pre-arrangement, instead of babysitting on weekday nights.

Hmmm - I never discussed this with my au pair/mother's help althoughb she did not get up at usual time or start work so I asumed she thought she should gbet day off - a bit of a pain as kitchen very meessy but did it myself anyway and it is actually nice to be with kikds by myself anyway ( even if we are all watching videos - hee hee)

One of the reasons for us having an au pair is to care for ds when we work bank holidays.

We did give her a day off for Australia day.

Last Christmas we had a fantastic au pair whose main job was to work right through Christmas day to make sure ds had a fun time without us. We were both working a 12hr shift.

This year we will be on nights over Christmas, so again will want an au pair who is happy to take charge.

Ours has today off - but then her job is primarily before/after school cover so it's no problem for us not to have her around.
We did ask if she wanted to accompany us on a trip out somewhere (although we weren't sure where we were going til a day or so ago) but she arranged to meet up with friends and go into London.