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?

Most of what I'd say has been said by people on here before so whether or not its right to say, there's no point me saying it anyway.

But to add my opinion of what CassieD actually asked - IMO she is asking far too much of her au pair/nanny considering what she is paying etc etc. Looking after a young child is very demanding - especially for that long and it sounds like the au pair has too much to do already, without anything being added on - such as filling in forms. I appreciate CassieD's point about wanting to allow for raises, extra benefits etc but that's no excuse for paying poor wages to start with. I also appreciate that paying more may cause finances to be too tight but thats something we all have to deal with when getting childcare - we can't just pay less to get out of it.

Also, I think anyone who asks for advice about something on here leaves themselves one to getting advice that they didn't want. If their question includes something that an MN'er thinks is questionable, they should say what they think even if that's not directly answering the question. If a mother asks for advice on what to do in a situation that an MN'er thinks they shouldn't even be in in the first place then they should be allowed to say without being critcized for it.

In the end, as people have said to me before, if you don't like a post - IGNORE IT, simple!!!

Yeah, thanks for the kind words in the end. But as you point out, I think I've had enough for today. BLOODY HELL... next time I'll put my thick skin on before I open my mouth.

However, I am glad that I don't pay as much as you guys do for childcare.

I don't think that grossly underpaying someone for doing something as important as looking after your daughter is anything to laugh at.

Things have certainly been heated on this thread. I would like to say the following:

when I was a working mum I loved my daughter and it was bloody hard work

now I am a SAHM and I love my daughter and it is bloody hard work

have a good evening all!

Definitely agree with CD!!! If you pay peanuts you get monkeys and I wouldn't want a 'monkey' looking after my child!!!

Quite CD - well put!

LOl that is so true CD

I think her last comment was tongue in cheek, trying to make a heated thread a little more light hearted.

I don't think it's anything to make a joke about though.

You know, CassieD, I was going to say that I didn't think it was very fair that you were getting slammed for working so much. And I guess I will still say that.

Maybe I don't have a place to say this, since I am an American and never been to England, but I have a friend who worked all over the states as a nanny and ended up getting a job in London about 10-12 years ago. She was a live-in and she made more money than your nanny/au pair does now, and she didn't work as many hours as yours does. She only had one child to watch, and just cleaned up after the child, although knowing the kind of person she is, I bet she went above and beyond her duties.

I was feeling a bit sorry for the beating you were getting, but your last post made it sound like you were bragging for paying such low wages, and I don't really find that something to be so proud of IMO.

But Northener, by that comment she's either admitting she underpays her au pair, or saying that she cuts costs for one of the most important expenses she can have or saying that everyone else is stupidly paying too much for childcare - none of which are great comments to make!!

I think if someone works hard for you and does a good job they should get fairly rewarded. £2.66 an hour, even live in, is not fair.

surely someone should get min wage anyway now

btw, in my last post, I wasn't backing down on what i've said just that maybe I could've have said it better and left out the 'why have children' comment as, as I said, that's how I used to think many many years ago but it isn't how I feel now.

From Oct 2004, the main minimum rate for workers aged 22 and over is £4.85 per hour.

I did read the whole post delgirl. But has your view changed? I'm not sure, from the tone/content of your subsquent posts. And you're certainly entitled to your view especially as a former nanny, who has no doubt seen more than your fair share of absent mothers. But maybe this thread, which is filled with working mums, many of them feeling guilty enough as it is, is not the place to air the view. That's all I'm saying.

The fact is, there is no way to predict what our children will think of us for working. I know one resolute SAHM who doesn't ever see her own mother. Her reason: "She never had time for us--she only cared for her career." Another friend & her sisters were pretty much left to her own devices while their mother wrote novel after novel, sometimes scribbling in the supermarket, completely ignoring the children. But now my friend is a mum & novelist too, and she worships at the feet her mother's drive, ambition & industriousness. Some women who were raised by SAHMs think their mums were fantastic and self-sacrificing in the best possible ways; others feel their stay-at-home-mothers were out of touch with the changing world and bitter and twisted. Who knows what our children will think of us.

Please know this is not just directed at you, Delgirl. I often read/hear the opinion "Why have children if you're not going to raise them yourself" dropped carelessly on these boards or in RL. You're actually a lot kinder in your views than others

I agree wholehearedly CD.

There are lots of foreign au pairs/nannies working in this country for highly paid executives but being paid a pittance. It stinks. I just think Cassied has had a hard enough time as it is today.

Give the lady a break!

I think the aupair deserves a break more

sure, but thats for Cassie to decide on!

Not totally - we abolished slavery a long time ago, there are rules - even if you want someone to work long hours for little pay it doesn't mean you should be able to - you can't always have what you want!!!

She's not the first and she won't be the last to exploit people in a worse position than she is.

I think it is to the credit of the majority of us who have posted here that we value our children's carers enough to pay them well and to treat them as we would wish to be treated.

If Cassie thinks its smart to do otherwise then that is her concern not ours

cassie - my comment about monkeys was not aimed at your au pair AT ALL - it was talking about your attitude to childcare. Your au pair sounds wonderful to me - a real gem, so why are you paying her next to nothing for doing such a brilliant job?? My comment was meant to say that if you pay such a low amount, you should expect a low standard of care, which is surely not what you should want!!! You're just VERY lucky you've found someone who will provide such good care for such little reward - but you're abusing that luck!!!

Oh right CassieD, so just because she comes from an underprivileged background, this gives you the right to abuse her further by not paying her a living wage? You call her an au pair/nanny but in fact she is a qualified nanny, so just because she comes from a poor eastern european country you can get away with calling her an au pair and underpaying her, just because she is effectively desparate.

If she were an au pair she would only be allowed to work 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. And she would not have sole responsibility for an 18 month old child.