AP taking liberties or not??

[NewTeacher]

Hi All

I have a lovely AP who is great with my DC's and always goes that extra mile with them.

I think that is the reason when she does things that I think ar wrong or irritating I let it go as her childcare and cleaning is spot on.

However, she has use of the car to tak my DS to and from school and that is it I have made this clear from day 1. She managed to get a parking ticket in her first week as she had used the car to get to college and it had been in the car park for over 3 hours (limit is 3 hrs). I didnt shout and she paid for the ticket in instalments BUT (there is always a but!)this meant that she had ignored my request of only using the car for school runs.

The college is about a 10 nminute walk from our house as is the local High St and rail station. Bus stops for other places are 5 mins away hence I do not feel she needs to use the car. Our last AP walked everywhere as she didnt have to do the school run. We even bought a bike for this one but its too frosty to use at the moment she says.

Now tot he main issues...

Well I asked her to take DS to a party today and to use the car after which she is supposed to go home. I've rung her to find out she is in Tesco's!! So I'm a bit miffed to say the least as she has taken the car.

I have also said she can use the phone to call her parents but should do it when I am home (it is free to call her home country its just that I need to check she isnt on it longer than an hour) BUT everyday when I get home she has called home and this is usually in the time she is supposed to be doing her household chores.

The other thing is she doesnt seem to understand that in the evenings she should let me and DH have some couple time. In the beginning she used to sit between us on the sofa! DH had to tell her to move in the end. He works away alot so when he is back I wwould like to have alone time just chilling in front of the tv but she is always there. She has a tv in her room and there is one in the DC's playroom which has all the sky channels but she sits with us.

I have also said that at weekends she needs to fend for herself, food is in the kitchen so she can help herself. I have found when we have guests she comes along and helps herself to food (as in dinner party stuff)and even sits in the room and I dont have it in me to say we are entertaining....

I just dont expect her to be with us 24/7 and I know you wil say she is part of the family but when I was in my late teens and living at home I was expected to leave my parents and their guests to it...TBH I dont want someone in my face all the time, there is plenty for her to do and places to go and local friends she just prefers to sit with us!!!

HELP me please....

I have to say I don't agree with the other posters having a bit of a go at you for being a control freak, newteacher, because I think you are being very straightforward about what you'd like to happen in your own house. I am also half German, so I have an idea what is going on there in the background on Planet AP. However I do think you could be more assertive. Issues as I see them:

1. I know for a fact most APs are horrified when they realise how much an insurance excess for a young person is, how much petrol and parking is, and so on, and a big factor in car abuse is based on not having a proper sense of perspective on the relevance of these very large costs to everyday family life. All these costs are much cheaper in Germany. Therefore it would be worth explaining exactly why you hate her doing this, and how nervous it is making you feel. You can then set the boundaries again. You should stress that different families have different rules for things like this, and these are yours, because you are British.

1. If she is sitting on the sofa between you, she is thinking you have replaced her parents. You have to tell her that after 9pm this is 'your' time and you don't expect her to join you unless specially invited. This is because you need some time at home alone as a couple. I have found this works well in encouraging them to melt away a bit. We have not had to snog in order to achieve this (although once we did manage to get some noisy and slightly inconsiderate teenagers to leave a German hotel spa by gleefully stripping naked in front of them and leaping into the jacuzzi where they were heading, but that's quite another story).

1. If she is nicking your dinner party food, she is not sure where the boundaries are, and she is probably once again behaving in a way that would be normal at her home. Correct protocol here is to inform her in advance you are entertaining and would like a bit or privacy, and make her up a tray with her own portion of nice dinner party food as a bit of a treat. APs are usually fine about this if it has been explained, and will bugger off and even occasionally help with the washing up later on out of niceness.

1. Phone bills are a notorious AP blackspot and again they are much cheaper over there - you can ring the UK for 2 cents an hour with the right deal. You need to tell her where to buy a special rate phone card and get her to keep a timesheet of what she is doing when during the day to make sure there is a relationship between the hours she is paid for and the hours she is actually working. I have done this once or twice with APs who have skived off their hours and it was very instructive for both sides. Once I was in the wrong so paid overtime and AP was very pleased.

Also I think a nice day out for all of you would probably help reset the irritation clock here. It's hard having people live in your house and it's good to build on the positive now and then to mitigate the stressful stuff.

Thankyou very much VBM you really have nailed it to a tee and yes I do need to be assertive.

I came on here for advice not for people to have a dig, and TBH that is what I find is happening on mumsnet a lot these days. How can you give advice on an AP if you dont actually have one? Why do people feel the need to call other people names etc?

You have said some really relevant things and have been able to do so as you have knowledge of your culture vs British culture.

I will sit down with her before she goes home and have an open discussion. I'll be off next week so we'll be able to talk over lunch or something.

Ta muchly!

But your thread title is 'Au pair taking liberties or not?' - to which some of us have answered 'Not'.
If you want advice try 'How do I discuss expectations of AP behaviour?' or something.

(I still don't understand why she needs to use a house phone when she can skype phone).

Hope your talk goes well.

"I came on here for advice not for people to have a dig"

you asked for opinions and we gave them

yes it is up to you what rules you enforce, so if you are not happy, and you wont compromise over things, then you need to find a new ap who will do as you say

i still dont understand the reasoning for you not allowing her to use the car for personal use

NewTeacher, you're going to get digs - I am currently having some on one of my threads from one individual, and just had a little rant back actually, 'cos it's a free country. I don't think it's harmful really, you just have to sift through the posts and take out of them what will work for you.

To others - I think OP has only just realised she has to discuss expectations, it has taken a bit of time for her to work out why it all bothers her. Car thing is pure fear of the expense involved in case of an unnecessary accident, I reckon.

come on ladies and gentlemen, we also come on here to have a bit of a laugh, well i do anyway, and hopefully generate some intresting discussion.
I have however read some really really sad and needy postings, which i wouldnt dream of treating lightly.(troubles with aps are not in that catagory)
we all have our different beliefs and ways, and parenting can be very hard at times so we may disagree strongly but i hope not to insult, or be personal, then it is offensive and unnecessary.

Do tread carefully, NT. Our AP position does have use of car, which we bought for APs to use. Our latest AP started driving in excess of 100 miles a week, which, if continued, would have put it at a higher insurance rate after adding the miles she needed to do with DSs in car(when insuring it, I said mileage would be under 10,000 miles/year). We tactfully pointed this out to her, plus wear & tear on tyres and how much she owed us for petrol etc and suggested she choose to use the car either to go to the gym every day, or to visit friends 20 miles away (there are buses & trains here, but not as frquent service as yours). Next thing we knew she was breaking the terms of her contract, giving us 10 days notice, going home for Christmas & not coming back. Fortunately, her replacement, scheduled to start in Feb, could come earlier...

You don't sound like much of a cheapskate to me, buying a car for the APs to use! 100+ miles a week?! F*ng hell. Can you imagine - don't worry I'llb e out of your hair this weeekend, I'm off to Fort William.

Am sooooo pleased am not am AP!!! I'll stick with being a CM, being my own boss and living by my own rules. I think the comments that have been given are fair - you shouldn't ask for advice unless you are prepared to take it all, positive or negative

HarrietTheSpy - we do state in the contract that AP must ask if she wants to take the car on a journey longer than 20 miles - the last one managed to do several journeys of just under 20 miles, plus daily trips to the gym (12 mile round trip)a week. None of the other APs have ever used the car this way, so we didn't envisage this problem. Now it's occurred, we'll be inserting another clause in the contract about maximum weekly mileage. I'm glad I don't sound like a cheapskate! It's my ebay moniker & I wasn't creative enough to come up with another.

Oh and we are rural - a trip to Tesco's is also a 12 mile round trip as it's in the same town as the gym and that's the nearest one.

That makes a big difference, the rural aspect. I can well understand why you throw a car in and how the miles get clocked up. Hard to keep someone otherwise, I suspect?? A different scenario to the OP though who sounds more like the situation we're in regarding location. I do wonder whether I'll find someone (nanny or au pair) happy about walking 20 min each way to school... which I do every day and the other mums think is some huge athletic feat. I on the other hand tease them about being more attached to their cars than even the Yanks (I happen to be one).

i think you are being unreasonable and way OTT about her using the car to go to tesco.

I also think that given her cleaning and childcare are spot on it doesnt matter if she is on the phone when you arnt there.... what ekse should be doing with this time? rehoovering the same bit of floor?

and that why are you worried about her getting a virus on your computer? SURELY you have adequate antivirus software etc? if not than thats your fault not hers.

I agree that when you have dinner parties etc she should make herself out of the way, and that you and your husband deserve time without her and you need to day this to her...

i really think you are being very anal abut the car issue and the phone issue though.... if its free,its free,and surely she is capable enough of monitoring when an hour is up WITHOUT you needing to tell here, afterall it really isnt rocket scieence

I was feeling quite confident about becoming an au pair until I read this post, now you've really put me off. You say she's good at the job, is that not enough? I'm quite shocked you think you need to be more assertive, I think it sounds like you need to relax a bit. She probably thought you wouldn't care about her using the phone if it's free. If you trust her to care for your dcs, surely you trust her to tell the time? As for the shops, if she'd taken the car without your permission I could totally understand you being angry, but it doesn't even sound like she's broken the terms of the contract if she just popped into the shops on the way home. If I was her I think I'd be looking for a new family who would treat me less like a slave and more like a member of the family. If this is how you plan to treat your children when they reach 18 then be prepared for plenty of arguments!

Kitturn, my thoughts exactly, well done for voicing your opinion on behalf of other APs!

I'm a CM btw, but would certainly tell my parents where to get off if they tried to be as controlling as this!

Is tesco anywhere near where the DC had the party?

I love reading these threads now we've decided never, ever to have another ap. Merry Christmas

Agree with Boffinmum's approach.

Kitturn, I think you learn as a family that AP's come in all shapes and sizes and dispositions, and the same is true of families.

Having had some ropey experiences I decided to have one very last try. And I have the nicest, most considerate AP I could dream of. He's chilled, cheerful, hard-working, reliable (he even phones me to double-check in case he thinks I might forget something). and I promise you we appreciate him very much and we are very aware that if we don't treat him well, someone else will.

Please don't let our moaning (I have done enough of it on other threads about other AP's) put you off - I think being an AP is a great way to spend a year or so.

Okay, I'm ready to get flamed here, but I'm really puzzled by the attitude towards NT on this thread.

With the caveat that I agree with the ohter postrs totally about the phone. The car however:

AP gets hired and it's explained to her that she is allowed to use the car for childcare responsibilites. The car is not for personal use. Takes the job on.

Uses the car to drive to college w/o asking, gets a ticket. Sorry, can you please go back to using the car for work only.

AP goes ahead and uses car again anyway.

I suspect the Tesco thing rankles not cause it was just a little trip and NT needs to control everything she does but because it comes across more like, well, I know you've asked me something but I'm just not bothered really.

NT - if she'd just mentioned to you would you mind terribly if I stopped off at Tesco on the way home, would you have said, go on then??? This is the way I would go about building a good relationship with a family I worked for, if I'd done something like get the car ticket driving a car I'd been asked not to use for that purpose. But then again, I suppose I would have been overly conformist at her age and done as I'd been asked about something like a car which someone else was paying the petrol for and the insurance on.

Signed,
Harriet the Prude

HTS Why do you think I havent bothered answering the posts on this thread. People dont read it and just want to make me out to be a control freak so be it I say!

My parents had a car on their driveway everyday but we werent allowed to use it to go to college etc as it was easily accesible by bus! My parents said no use so I didnt. whats not to understand?

If she'd have asked i would have said yes I'm not a nasty ogre if I was she would have left long ago!

But the point is the car is for work use only. Tesco was not on the way to the party you have to pass home then go onto Tesco. Like I've said over and over the car is for work use only this was the case from day 1. I have not provided the car as a perk of the job everything is easily accesible by walk (no use of bus even!!!!!) Again for those of you that didnt get it the first time its not because of her having an accident as YES that can happen with DS in the car its to do with other scratches and AP's not taking appropriate care (its not their car after all) I dont want to pay a £400 exccess. Its a newish car not some crappy old thing so I want it looked after.

At the end of the day the AP wouldnt be driving a car at all its only because she has to take DS to school which is 20 mins away!

And on that note MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

HarrietTheSpy, you are right to suspect it's difficult to keep an AP without use of car. Famously, a year ago a Turkish AP came (supposedly a driver)who couldn't drive, she got very bored, but then she was from Istanbul. She didn't mind walking 30 minutes to DS4s school, though!

NewTeacher, is that 20 minutes walk, or 20 min.s drive?

20 mins drive. Trust me if it was walkable they would walk!!

As with Cm'ing, there are often grey areas, and each CM/household has their own rules and way of doing things. This should all be as clear as day in the (signed) contract and initial discussions.

Re using a car, I think it totally acceptable, in this time of money being tight, for a car to be used for DCs only and not personal use, if there is public transport available.

(a) The AP agreed to it when she took the job, and (b) the cost involved.

We all run our households differently, under varying circumstances. What would seem preposterous to one person, is normal to another. Worth bearing in mind when reading posts here