Au Pair for Part-Time Work?

[Anonymous]

After 4 months of working for us, our nanny/housekeeper took a 2 week paid vacation and then just quit. Whatever.

So we are considering trying an au pair. The issue is that our children are in school all day and we would really only use the au pair about 2 hours a day most days and full time when the children are on their fall, Christmas, and spring breaks (totaling only about 3 months a year, as they always go to summer camp).

We would pay regular pay for the au pair, but I'm wondering whether such an arrangement would pose problems. (I've heard so many horror stories that I'm wondering whether a family's responsibilities include keeping the au pair occupied so that she's not bored.)

I would appreciate any insights.

[Anonymous]

So did you have a nanny or a housekeeper that quit? Or they both quit?

[Anonymous]

OP here - she was both nanny/housekeeper (which was a mistake).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So did you have a nanny or a housekeeper that quit? Or they both quit?

Right. OP had one person doing the job of two and is wondering why the person quit. And is now screening to see if she can treat an au pair like a slave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So did you have a nanny or a housekeeper that quit? Or they both quit?

Right. OP had one person doing the job of two and is wondering why the person quit. And is now screening to see if she can treat an au pair like a slave.

Actually, no, OP here, we now have one person doing housework, au pair wouldn't do any housework.

[Anonymous]

Wow, you gave your nanny/housekeeper a lot of paid annual leave for having only worked for you for 4 months. If that was federal government, she'd have only earned about 32 hours of paid leave in 4 months (4 hrs per biweekly pay period), not 80 hours. Next time you might want to follow a similar way to let her earn that leave to mitigate this risk.

[Anonymous]

Au pairs are not a monolith, but in my experience I’ve never heard one complain about too few hours. Many Au pairs complain about working over say 30 hours, though.

An Au pair would certainly be able to do the tasks you want, but… are you sure you want to go this route? Au pairs are A LOT of work. Even if you get an independent, self-sufficient, mature Au pair, you will still have to deal with:

Having an adult roommate
Including Au pair in meals, birthdays, holidays, vacations
Providing a car / insurance / cell phone
Learning her food preferences, shopping for her, preparing meals for her

And that’s best case scenario. You will likely have to deal with: homesickness, romantic breakups, car accidents, drinking, etc etc. It’s a lot of work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Au pairs are not a monolith, but in my experience I’ve never heard one complain about too few hours. Many Au pairs complain about working over say 30 hours, though.

An Au pair would certainly be able to do the tasks you want, but… are you sure you want to go this route? Au pairs are A LOT of work. Even if you get an independent, self-sufficient, mature Au pair, you will still have to deal with:

Having an adult roommate
Including Au pair in meals, birthdays, holidays, vacations
Providing a car / insurance / cell phone
Learning her food preferences, shopping for her, preparing meals for her

And that’s best case scenario. You will likely have to deal with: homesickness, romantic breakups, car accidents, drinking, etc etc. It’s a lot of work.

I’ve never understood these complaints about having an au pair. Do parents not realize that they will deal with all these things for their own kids? Au pairs are human.

[Anonymous]

Most people I’ve known with successful au pair relationships have them for when the kids are older and in school.

Some are duds, and others are fantastic. This is kind of the same with nannies. Get one that’s older, and looking to come to the US to improve their English.

[Anonymous]

Maybe you can have her do a date night once a week or something. I agree with others an au pair won’t complain about too few hours. As long as you don’t resent paying her the full weekly amount there shouldn’t be an issue.

[Anonymous]

We had au pairs for many years, the majority of which was when our kids were old enough to be in school all day. It was great for us. They got the kids ready and off to school in the morning, helped get lunches packed and watched the kids in the afternoon and any breaks. Our au pairs loved the free time and we loved having someone who could help with getting the kids out the door in the morning. We had great au pairs and since we asked so little of them they often volunteered to help on weekends if they were around (driving kids to sports practice, etc) even though we could easily do it ourselves.

The one issue we did have is we started one au pair during the school year and it was a hard transition to summer when suddenly she was full time instead of a few hours a week, so you’ll want to be very clear that the school year will be nice but they should see summer coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, you gave your nanny/housekeeper a lot of paid annual leave for having only worked for you for 4 months. If that was federal government, she'd have only earned about 32 hours of paid leave in 4 months (4 hrs per biweekly pay period), not 80 hours. Next time you might want to follow a similar way to let her earn that leave to mitigate this risk.

Well. OP is not the Federal government, is she?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Au pairs are not a monolith, but in my experience I’ve never heard one complain about too few hours. Many Au pairs complain about working over say 30 hours, though.

An Au pair would certainly be able to do the tasks you want, but… are you sure you want to go this route? Au pairs are A LOT of work. Even if you get an independent, self-sufficient, mature Au pair, you will still have to deal with:

Having an adult roommate
Including Au pair in meals, birthdays, holidays, vacations
Providing a car / insurance / cell phone
Learning her food preferences, shopping for her, preparing meals for her

And that’s best case scenario. You will likely have to deal with: homesickness, romantic breakups, car accidents, drinking, etc etc. It’s a lot of work.

I’ve never understood these complaints about having an au pair. Do parents not realize that they will deal with all these things for their own kids? Au pairs are human.

Au pairs are cheap child care and, for a lot of lot of lazy Americans, cheap maids. They have a late teens/early 20's young women and think they will be thinking like someone in their 40's!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Au pairs are not a monolith, but in my experience I’ve never heard one complain about too few hours. Many Au pairs complain about working over say 30 hours, though.

An Au pair would certainly be able to do the tasks you want, but… are you sure you want to go this route? Au pairs are A LOT of work. Even if you get an independent, self-sufficient, mature Au pair, you will still have to deal with:

Having an adult roommate
Including Au pair in meals, birthdays, holidays, vacations
Providing a car / insurance / cell phone
Learning her food preferences, shopping for her, preparing meals for her

And that’s best case scenario. You will likely have to deal with: homesickness, romantic breakups, car accidents, drinking, etc etc. It’s a lot of work.

I’ve never understood these complaints about having an au pair. Do parents not realize that they will deal with all these things for their own kids? Au pairs are human.

Au pairs are cheap child care and, for a lot of lot of lazy Americans, cheap maids. They have a late teens/early 20's young women and think they will be thinking like someone in their 40's!

Except it’s not actually cheap when you factor it all in. The advantage of an au pair is they can work a split schedule and most of them don’t work 45 hours per week. Nannie’s don’t want a split schedule sand they understandably want max hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After 4 months of working for us, our nanny/housekeeper took a 2 week paid vacation and then just quit. Whatever.

So we are considering trying an au pair. The issue is that our children are in school all day and we would really only use the au pair about 2 hours a day most days and full time when the children are on their fall, Christmas, and spring breaks (totaling only about 3 months a year, as they always go to summer camp).

We would pay regular pay for the au pair, but I'm wondering whether such an arrangement would pose problems. (I've heard so many horror stories that I'm wondering whether a family's responsibilities include keeping the au pair occupied so that she's not bored.)

I would appreciate any insights.

Au pairs do not do housework. They are not maids. They are not laundresses. They are not cooks. They are here the for childcare.