AU pair food
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Anonymous
Totally. I guess OP didn't get the menu that she's a short order cook/chef for someone who is basically an employee. Good thing you all are setting her straight. |
Anonymous
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This is a loaded question. What are you making for the kids that there isn't enough for one more person? Why are you making lunch for just you and then leaving it?
Culturally, it's pretty common in other countries for meals to be shared times even midday. She doesn't understand the expectation is that she cooks for herself. It is required for you to provide food whether it's cooked or not. It's not a grocery stipend. She may not know how to cook at all. Our last two aupairs couldn't even figure out how to make the simplest meals and would wait for someone to cook for them. They did help clean up after meals. If you aren't used to sharing family meals, you need to tell her that. "Hey, AP, we don't do family meals here. You need to prepare you own meals or meal prep at the beginning of the week. If you want to eat what the kids are eating, that's fine but let me know so I can make enough for everyone." I learned the hard way that if I didn't want one of my own children, spouse or AP eating something that I have made for myself, I don't leave it unattended. I now have 3 teenage boys in the house. Unattended food is gone in seconds. |
Anonymous
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OP: I completely get it. I feel like are generous with our AP re: food; she can use our credit card to get whatever she wants for herself when she shops for the family, we ask her before we shop or order groceries, we ask her what she wants when we get takeout 1-2x/week (and often ask where she’s in the mood for) and give her an extra $100/week for food (she mostly uses it for snacks & to eat out with friends).
All of that said, we don’t usually eat together. She makes dinner for the kids most weeknights and also makes enough for herself if she wants some. On weekends, she is always welcome to join us for family dinners and she does like 1/3rd of the time. But otherwise? She’s really on her own to make her own dinner. We don’t eat ourselves until we have our kids in bed, so like 9ish. She’s off hours before that, so understandably has no interest in waiting for us to eat. We would have real compatibility issues if we had an OP who expected us to cook for them every night… |
Anonymous
| Should be an extra $100/month for food. Not per week! |
Anonymous
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NP here. We don't have an AP yet but are thinking of getting one. Honestly cooking for AP (or any additional adult in the household) is one thing that I'm dreaded for. Cooking is not my strong suit, and I only started taking it seriously since my older child started eating the same food with us. Before our kids were born, we ate a lot of carryouts.
We made an effort to eat a veggie/protein heavy diet. So cooking for an extra person does mean a lot of additional time to prep (washing and cutting) the veggies and meat. If you eat a carb heavy diet, then you probably think it's just as easy as putting more pasta/flour/rice in. In addition, I came from a culture that we cook mostly smaller dishes (relative to Western oven-cooked dishes such as casserole or roast meat) with pots and pans. For example we cook stir fries a lot. So cooking for another adult probably means cooking an extra dish, instead of just adding ingredients to the same dish. That said I understand the AP expect some sort of "family experience". I think if we end up getting an AP, we'll probably meet somewhere in the middle, like find an AP who's comfortable cooking, and we take turns to cook (maybe we cook 3-4 dinners a week, the AP cooks at least 1, and we eat carryouts/leftovers for the remaining days). |
Anonymous
I screen for food compatibility. That means vegetarians are out, however great they are otherwise. Also during interviews, I ask questions about the food they like and dislike, what they usually make for themselves, etc. This is part of overall assessment of the potential au pair as a housemate. We also eat a veggie/protein heavy diet, and have not found it to be an issue cooking for one extra person. We do spend more on grocery shopping and get more varieties, but it's good for our kids too. |
Anonymous
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In my experience, it depends on the aupair. Our first aupair ate every meal with us so we didn't mind cooking extra for her and sharing because she truly felt like family (we still keep in touch and she has even visited several times!).
Our second aupair started having dinner with us for first 2 months but then decided to tell us she wanted to eat dinner later like her friends even though I had told her dinner time was a time for us to all talk together and get to know each other. I was a little hurt at this, but continued to make enough for her to have leftovers for 2 months but then realized some of the leftovers would be thrown out because she decided to eat at restaurants or with her friends or boyfriend. I decided it was clear she didn't like the food I made, so I just buy her any groceries she wants and she cooks for herself while I only make enough dinner for our family. This aupair never interacts with our family when she's off the clock so it is just a job for her. I would probably have to include it as part of her hours if she had dinner with us. I miss our first aupair all the time because she felt like a true part of our family...it was very different but the second one takes good care of kids so I'm not willing to go into rematch over it even though she never interacts with us off the clock. |
Anonymous
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What is the problem?
The au pair has dinner with you when the family eats. Su Pair is a member of the family. |
Anonymous
| You guys are some heartless people. No wonder you all got au pairs. You don’t care about your kids or your au pair that is helping you for dirt money. You all should be ashamed of yourself for treating the au pairs like slaves. It takes next to nothing to make enough food for an au pair |
Anonymous
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Aha, let me get this straight. the fallacy in the logic. DCUM goes apoplectic if a nanny is asked to cook for the FAMILY and not just children (when arguably it's a larger quantity of the same meal), but the HM must cook for the au pair?
For the record, I think both should be cooking. if you are cooking a meal, just make more of the meal. |
Anonymous
| For every AP that we have had, we provide food for breakfast, lunch is leftovers of dinner from the night before, and AP has option of eating with kids or joining for dinner. Frequently, the AP and I will cook together - handmade pasta, pizza from scratch, risotto, etc. It's one meal. If we get takeout, we get her order before ordering. If she eats out with friends, that's on her budget, otherwise, she eats at home - which helps her save money for trips/activities/studies. |
Anonymous
| This thread is 5 years old. By this time, the aupair has had kids of her own. |
Anonymous
3rd time host mom here. She probably doesn’t know where things go and doesn’t want to ask. Kindly show her where the dishes left in the dishwasher go and recognize that most APs English, while phenomenal, mAy miss some of the details that are important to you. |
Anonymous
Your kids should be eating with an adult. If you won't do it for whatever reason, you should be grateful your au pair will. |
Anonymous
| The adults in the house function largely as roommates. If I cooked a nice meal or ordered takeout, would I invite him/her to the table? Absolutely! But many nights we are arriving home from work at staggered hours and heating leftovers. There should always be food available to share or prepare a quick meal of one’s own, but you shouldn’t feel obligated to cook on AP’s behalf; they might also need some downtime after caring for your child/children anyhow, and may opt out from a more formal “dinner time”. And that’s ok with us. We also explicitly state this during interviews and in our handbook. |