Au pair / nanny duties -- am I being reasonable?

[CassieD]

WOndered if some other working mums with au pairss/nannies could lend their opinions on what is a resonable expectation. Our Au Pair / nanny is expected look after our 18 month old daughter from 7:00am until 7:00pm whilst I am at work. My husband generally leaves for work in Birmingham on Monday morning and returns on Thursday night, and works from home on Friday. So we expect a lot in terms of hours. She lives with us.

These are her duties:
Look after the toddler (including taking her to music class, tumble tots, church toddler group, swimming, etc.)
Keeping the kitchen clean, which includes doing my dishes
Laundry for the whole family, including ironing and putting away.

She does not vaccuum, dust scrub, clean the bathrooms, was the kitchen floor, etc. That, in my opinion, is the job of a cleaner (which am now about to seek -- I've never had one but I'm fed up woth my dirty house so I'm going to get one).

Last night I asked to her to fill out a sheet each day that had things like what dd eats for each meal, morning activities, afternoon activities, when she slept, ahen and what she watched on tv, and a space for other comments (like her mood and if she was in poor health, etc). Well, the nany said "no". She said she had enough to do and that didn't want to fill this form out.

I got the idea of this form from friends, who get a similar form every day when they pick their child up at nursery. I think it is perfectly reasonable for me to want to be informed each day. I am gone all day, so this is my way of knowing what dd does with her day. I need to know these things. Like, if she hates tumble tots, I need to know so I'm not forcing her to be miserable. This isn't the case with tumble tots, but if it was, I would need to know.

I also think that it is possible that the problem is partly a language barrier, and the new nanny (who has only recently started with us -- she is from Estonia) is actually objecting to having to write in enlgish, rather than just speak it.

I know that often au pairs are asked to do more of the house cleaning, but then I do realise that a toddler is a lot more work than older children.

Did anyone use an au pair / nanny when their children were toddlers? Am I being resonable? Or am I expecting too much?

Totally sympathise with your last comment CassieD - I watched my XDP's income soar as mine went down and down while I reduced my hours to spend more time with DS.

That aside, it does sound a bit like your DD is getting caught up in (for want of a better phrase) a power struggle between you & your DH. No-one's going to win that one and the main loser will be your Hannah who may come to feel that neither of her parents want to spend time with her.

Also think you ask too much of your nanny by the way - does she really only get 12 days a year off? Think that's illegal if so.

Oh... no no. she get the every fourth friday on top of what's required by law. At my work, I get every second Friday off (if I work the hours ahead of time), and so I give every second of my Fridays off to the nanny. So, I get helf and she gets half. But really, I take ds to a long lunch which generally lasts from about 12:00 - 4:00 on the Fridays that she works. So she gets most of that one as well. Although, if she has tidying to do, then I ask her to do that whilst we are gone.

On considering whether your DP could take more family responsibility, I couldn't agree more! Can he? Will he? Would you like him to?
I work f/t, and have a nanny, and couldn't manage if my DP didn't take half the responsibility for our domestic life, including sharing childcare when nanny is ill etc. It does sometimes come down to 'my job is more important that yours' discussion at times of pressure, but we try to co-operate and between us our aim is to create as much time as possible with DS.

Interesting thread. I am on my second Estonian au pair. She works 7 hours a day for 5 days - 8am-10am, 2pm - 7pm. (£70 p/w) She is my second pair of hands. She tends to breakfast & dress my twin dd's then clear away breakfast and unload the diswasher - while I get dd1 dressed & ready for playgroup, take ds to school, take dd1 to playgroup. From 2pm she shares play/care of my 3 dds, collecting ds from school and after supper either baths children & get them ready for bed or clears up the kitchen from supper.
We share responsibility for keeping the communal areas & kids bedrooms tidy. I also pay her £20 a week to clean the bathrooms and do the ironing.

Hope this info might be of some help to you for comparison purpose.

But Cassie - your nanny is covering childcare and working all the extra hours you do 'ahead of time', but only gets half of them back!
Sorry - I do think she has a tough deal. And I honestly don't think nannies 'get way with' not doing cleaning, (beyond children's rooms / play mess) it just isn't usually part of nannying duties.

My husband is the manager of operations for a software company in Birminham. I work for KBR (the controversial construction leg of Halliburton -- you know the one that the Democrats in the states oh so love to associate with current vice pres Cheney). My work tends to come in bursts. Sometimes it's a 9-5 low key job. But, whe I'm on a project (we design and build offshore platforms), then the demand is high and hours are long. I work in engineering / IT.

However, when I walk through the door at home, and I have a choice to clean or hang out with dd. Dd is the choice always. This is why I need to pay someone else to do the cleaning. I do not and will not put cleaning before child.

But, Blu, those hours are paid for her, as are the ones that she gets off. I am only paid for the hours I work. I do not get paid twice for those hours.

Nobody is saying you have to do the cleaning. But NO British nannies I have ever heard of do any cleaning except for the children's things.

I see what you mean about the paid hours.

Did you see my post of 1.13? Could you get your DP to be at home more? It's a hell of a lot of responsibility on you. I think he should pay for a daily cleaner if he isn't there to do his share!

She is not an experienced nanny. Her job title is not now "nanny". And, she isn't British. Not really a fair comparison.

However, perhaps if the British nannies did do these things, they would get more jobs.

My au pair / nanny has a job description that was agreed before she arrived -- it's not like I hired her under a false pretense and then slipped in a bunch of extra work.

Perhpas the problem here is the use of "au pair" and "nanny". She's not really either one. Let's just call her my domestic saviour -- as she is very good. I do really like her. She is mature and responsible. She is great with DD, and DD likes her (although DD likes everyone!). And I see now that I have been asking a bit much. I'm going to tone it down just as soon as a talk to DH to get his approval on my plan of hiring cleaner who does ironing(which won't be too difficult because I'll just remind him that he can have equal say in running the house when he spends equal time in it).

Cassie, you have a lot on your plate and I admire your determination to keep your career going.

Thank you, twogorgeousboys

Maybe this has now been done to death (but only manage to sneak on here at lunchtime from work)but I agree that the hours and responsibiilties are too much for the amount of money you are paying. As a comparison, I pay my (Hungarian) nanny £230 a week and she arrives at 8.15 and leaves at 6.15. We have also supplied a car for her to use as she needs to take ds's to school, swimming etc. We don't live in London but in the equally expensive South-East. For this amount, she also does one evening a week babysitting, most weeks I use this but about half the time it is only until about 8.30 ish so not a late night.

For that amount, I expect her mainly to look after ds's, do their laundry, cook their dinner etc. She doesn't go anywhere near our ironing and I wouldn't expect her to but obviously she empties the washing machine of everyone's laundry and if she puts a wash on she will sort it by colour or whatever and not just put ours to one side! Also, if she cooks something like Shepherd's Pie she will do enough for everyone so a couple of times a week I don't have to do dinner for myself and dh.

I don't expect a lot of housework but she is very happy to do some hoovering,wash the kitchen floor, run errands, take stuff to the bottle bank etc and I think otherwise she would be very bored as ds1 is at school and ds2 is now at pre-school in the mornings.

Presume on top of the £160 a week you are also paying her tax and NI or she is getting an even worse deal, no access to healthcare etc!

Also don't agree that nannies who don't do cleaning can get away with this because they have years of experience. This is not my experience - even a 19 year old newly qualified nanny with no experience will in many cases be loath to do the cleaning and I'm sure we've all heard the horror stories of the nannies who only clear the children's dishes from the breakfast table and leave the adult ones, etc. The fact that you work too long hours to do the cleaning and that it needs to be done more than weekly is your problem, not hers!

Sorry if this is coming across as really harsh, I do sympathise as many of us have very much the same issues with trying to hang on to the career ladder, deal with frequently-absent dh (mine often abroad), children who don't understand why you can't pop in to help with reading in their class or attend the 11.40 a.m. class assembly! And unfortunately, it doesn't seem to get any easier!

CassieD - I think you might be missing the point here.

I don't think it matters what her job title is, but rather that you are asking an awful lot of one person, be it nanny or au pair!

I can see that you were very clear about her duties before you hired her and so what you have already asked her to do is part of that agreement.

The question you asked is whether it was reasonable to add another task to the list and the overwhelming consensus is that it is not. You have taken that on board and are now looking to get the cleaner to cover the ironing.

I think what most people are saying is that you are already getting a good deal, whether nanny or au pair, neither of which would cover all that you are asking of them. So to introduce an other dimension would be asking too much.

BTW - British nannies do not struggle to find work - working parents on the other hand struggle tremendously to find relaible and high quality child care. So if you are blessed with a 'good un' hang on to them for dear life

I'm afraid my DH doesn't really pull his weight in terms of childcare. He simply believes it is his right to go wherever his work takes him. But, our real battle is on the weekend. I feel that I've had the brunt of the work all week long, and on the weekend it is his turn to do what he has missed all week. He feels that having to go live in a hotel for the week is a worse hardship, and therefpre Sat morning is for him to cath up on his reading (he is quite the bibliofile) and his first world war website . Or he has to listen to his music, or record the CDs he's bout so he can have them on his computer... and so on. So, basically, I have to do the childcare on the weekend too because the only other option is that we both neglect DD. And I'm not going to do that!

So, if he doesn't want to help, then we'll have to hire someone else to do it.

Now to be fair, he does help. It is just that he does about 10% of the childcare (still avaoids a dirty nappy like the plague), and %40 of the house work. It infuriates me!

But I put up with it because... well I guess because I don't have a choice.

CassieD - you say that he is away mon(or SUn) to Thursday. What does he do Fridays?

I'm not sure CassieD's reference to titles is necessarily missing the point - I think she's responding to the fact that many of the responses (including mine) referred to what it is typical to expect of an au pair on the one hand and a nanny on the other.

Cassie, if it's at all helpful, you have what is conventionally called a "nanny/housekeeper". I have one.

Binkie - I too have a nanny/housekeeper but the key difference is that my kids are at school.

Your typical nanny/housekeeper does not housekeep at the same time as child minding!

If you ahve one that does both at the same time, then as I said, you've found someone that you should hang onto as long as possible

Cassie D, pardon me for butting in, but we do have choices in life. Some people choose to work all hours because they prefer a career to being a SAHM but it's all about balance and I don't think ant of you are benefitting from your current arrangement, leasst of all your DD probabaly. Sorry, I know thats sounds critical but nobody has to work all those hours, adjustments could surely be made if you want them

Cassie, sorry if you felt we were being harsh on you, but since you had mentioned your DH was away, why would we consider he was an option to look after DD?

You're not going to like this and it is just my opinion:
12 hour days are too long to be away from your DD, especially when her other parent is not around. At that age they sleep 12 hours a night, plus naps - she needs you more than that hour a day particularly when that hour is the one she?s most likely to be cranky and tired. Fine you say, you do miss her too but you're doing it for her good. I don't buy it, she needs you more than she needs what your money can buy her. You and your DH should talk and agree that one of you needs to scale back for the moment.
Remember that old phrase - you do not lie on your deathbed wishing you spent more time at the office. Your daughter will not be unconditionally yours for much longer.

I?m not trying to annoy you; I too am a manager in a large work-dedicated place and have a ?career? as opposed to a job. I also have two boys who will only be little for a small while. There are lots of others here with responsible jobs ? it is possible to have both but I think in your case you need more of a balance. If it?s the commute that is taking up your time, could you move closer?

ok, fair enough, you didn't come here to be hounded and I'm sorry if I offended you, but you can't watch your daughter grow up through aupair reports.

are you sure you trust her? the diary thing makes me wonder. if you don't trust her absolutely perhaps she's not right for you?

if you do get a cleaner, i beg you to present this fact to the non-nanny (if you decide she is right for you) as a gesture to show you recognise that you were asking too much of her. it sounds a bit as if there's a bit of a battle going on domestically and maybe you could both do with an ally...

this is eating me up so i'm going to spit it out. i may have read some comments the wrong way. if so, apologies. our nanny is not staff, she's a member of the family. if she's happy, dd is happy. no laundry, no cleaning -- there's no way i could do all that on top of the childcare (we do a nanny share, so she looks after 2, we pay her considerably more than double what yours gets, and i fight to knock off early/give her extra days off. i figure every scrap of reward i can give her makes the whole thing work better).

your set up sounds complicated. i hope it gets easier soon.